Let’s call it the fantasy picnic with delicacies assembled from some of the best West Country producers. The star will be a smoked fish box
from Chesil Smokery –
www.chesilsmokery.com cold smoked salmon and trout, hot smoked mackerel, gravadlax and kippers. All of a sudden you have the makings of a knockout picnic. Mere Fish Farm does a pretty mean smoked trout pate so there will be tub of that in the hamper too. Bread needs to come from one of
the West Country’s artisan bakers and I think Long Crichel’s
www.longcrichelbakery.co.uk
seeded sourdough pretty much nails it.
How about a mezze platter with sundried tomato olives from Olives et Al and charcuterie from Deli Farm Charcuterie
www.delifarmcharcuterie.co.uk? This Cornish company uses artisan airdrying techniques to great effect – one bite of their French style saucisson and you’ll swear off the stuff sold in supermarkets for life. I’m currently obsessed with the
creamy yet fiery horseradish made by the Tracklement Company
www.tracklements.co.uk in Wiltshire – a spoonful of this has the power to transform a humble beef
and tomato sandwich into something pretty mindblowing. Cheese is essential of course and
there are so many brilliant producers to choose from. Let’s make it Shebbear Cheese
www.shebbearcheese.co.uk from Devon – a small family run business who produce wonderfully named cheeses such as Old Sheb, Forda and Bramley Barton. And to drink? Apple juice or cider
from Orchard Pig
www.orchardpig.co.uk in Somerset – both equally delicious
Now all we have to do is hold out for no rain.
DARREN NORBURY is a journalist working in west Cornwall. A member of the British Guild of Beer Writers, he’s always on the lookout for tasty local food to help soak up the ale!
Watney’s Red Barrel. Ind Coope Double Diamond. For drinkers of a certain age the names evoke images of the 1970s as evocative and dated as a scene from Abigail’s Party. These were keg beers. Beers that started life in the same way as the cask real ale we know and love today, but which were pasteurised and filtered, effectively knocking all the ‘life’ out of them, so they would keep longer and were easier for bar owners to manage. But by golly those beers were bland. They led to four journalists sitting down and coming up with the anti-keg Campaign for the Revitalisation of Ale – later to become the Campaign for Real Ale – and the rest is history.
“Oh, but
Except – keg is back. It’s called craft keg now, but pasteurised and filtered it remains. Still ideal for bars where there’s slow beer turnover, such as small hotels for instance. Oh, but there is one difference. This time it’s tasty! The brewing industry has moved on, the
brewers are more proficient and experimental, the ingredients, such as New World hops, have changed and the technology behind the kegs has developed. It all means a keg revival.
I spent the weekend in London. Watched
the marathon pass by, thought that looked too much like hard work and retired to one of Britain’s burgeoning craft beer bars. I’ll leave the argument about what is or is not ‘craft’ beer for another day. Point is, I had a choice of cask or keg in the pub and each was good. Down here in Cornwall, Harbour Brewing Co have been experimenting with keg beers and getting great results. Matt at The Front in Falmouth, current Cornwall pub of the year, reports keen interest from cask drinkers in the keg alternatives.
there is one difference. This time it’s tasty!”
The style especially seems to suit lighter, very hoppy beers. Butcombe brewery, near Bristol, has developed Butcombe Blonde Premium, a 4.5% golden beer with lager malt and East European hops and the result is a beer that not only makes a tasty alternative for cask beer aficionados, but also tempts away drinkers of some of those fizzy, bland, weak, gassy pseudo foreign lagers that clog up bars across the country. The debate continues to rage on the beer blogs whether craft keg should share the same mantel as real ale. My own opinion? There are only two types of beer – the ones you like and the ones you don’t like. Live and let live. F
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