In case you weren’t aware, pulled vension is a great match with a full-flavoured bitter, as I found out hiding my Hampshire roots on Saturday and going native with a celebration of Cornwall’s patron saint, Piran, at Dynamite Valley Brewery.
Set up by friends Dom Lilly and Russ Kessell, the brewery can be found just outside Ponsanooth, near Falmouth, on a small trading estate which is also home to slightly newer Verdant Brewing Company. Every Saturday afternoon, Dom, Ross and their team open the brewery as a Beer Café with their own beers on draught and some interesting bottled beers from other brewers in a big chiller cabinet.
The space is great. What started life as a dull industrial unit houses a fairly big café area and bar, with the brewery on a mezzanine level. As I spoke to Dom and Ross, the former was particularly excited by the arrival of a pair of new, well presumably upcycled, fermentation vessels, which will give them more options to develop what has become a pretty popular range of beers.
Don’t take my word for it, though. London-based Craft Beer Co has just taken delivery a few casks, and there’s a post-St Piran’s Day bash at the Drapers Arms micropub in Bristol on Friday (March 11) when Dynamite Valley’s Gold Rush will be on the bar.
On Saturday, my pick of the brews on offer was Cousin Jack, or Kenderow Jack, as it had been re-named in Cornish for the occasion. It was a Dynamite Valley take on a traditional British bitter, but the flavours really sung out, with a pleasing light chocolate sweetness balancing a good hop bite. Goldrush (4%), a session golden beer, was a close second — easy to see why this light, fruity, gently bitter little brew is proving such a hit in local freehouses. By total coincidence, this was also the day in which my weekly Western Morning News column had the Dynamite boys’ Mockabilly Mocha porter as my beer of the week. (You can read past issues here.)
Worth getting to the Saturday afternoon Beer Café if you can — it has a great vibe and the drinkers there were really interesting to chat to. Former St Austell Brewery team brewer Simon Treen was there, resplendent in Cornish kilt, and telling me about a forthcoming project he is developing, of which more later. That pulled venison, incidentally, was delicious and part of a menu put together by Matt Vernon, of Cornish Wild Food, and Stuart Woodman, of Woodman’s Wild Food. I’ve never had meat in a bap with a salad of flowers before. First time for everything. Stuart, incidentally, collaborated with Dynamite Valley on a Damson ESB earlier this year, which you can read about here.
When you’re at the Beer Cafe, worth asking for the brewery tour. Not for Dom and Ross the dull covention of naming fermentation vessels FV1, FV2 etc. These containers are named after film stars and singers, such as Burt Reynolds and Waylon Jennings. Ross said: “It won’t be good, but I’m just waiting for the day when I can say ‘Willie Nelson has a yeast infection’!”
