Pete Martin, head brewer at Driftwood Spars
It’s day two of the Driftwood Spars’ The Light, The Dark and the Saison beer festival today, and if you can get there — not easy after Western Greyhound’s collapse into administration — I recommend that you go.
There are a dozen or so beers fitting the festival theme, of which, yesterday afternoon, in bright spring sunshine, the most talked about seemed to be a Celt Experience and BrewDog collaboration, Home of the Fruitcakes (6% ABV). A bright orange/amber in colour, it’s a zingy, refreshing, sour fruit bowl of a saison, reminiscent of a penny Fruit Salad chew of my childhood, strawberry in the ascendancy, with a side serving of Sherbet Fountain sherbet. It divided opinion, but I thought it was innovative and very drinkable.
Driftwood Spars has organised Ale Board food platters to accompany the beer, and myself and Mrs N indulged in the meat and cheese versions respectively. The idea is to match the boards with beers from the festival bar, available in pints or halves or, as I ventured, in three-third flights (the wooden holders crafted by head brewer and well-known wood sculptor Pete Martin).
Standout matches were the Purple Moose Elderflower Ale — fresh and vibrant with just the right amount of elderflower to tingle the tongue without overpowering — with Keltic Gold cheese from Whalesborough Cheese, of Bude, and Anubis Porter, from Raw Brewing Co, with the salami on the meat platter. What the Anubis lacked in condition it more than made up for in good old fashioned porter flavour — robust and malty with bitter coffee notes and some smoke.
Other standouts for me were another Raw beer, Amarillo Pale, a solid golden session beer with a moreish bitter finish, and Wild Beer Co’s Millionaire, a salted caramel milk stout, smooth and creamy with an unusual savoury kick. The salt in question is Cornish Sea Salt. It’s an unusual beer ingredient, but in responsible hands, it works, adding an extra dimension.
Then just at the point where Mrs N rattled the car keys, up popped beer of the day, Wild Goose Chase gooseberry saison from the Wild Beer Co, bottom right on the stillage, pilgrims, and worth drinking dry. It ticks two boxes — gooseberry and saison — in the most delightful, fruity, vivacious manner possible.
• The Light, The Dark and the Saison runs today (Saturday) and tomorrow (take your mother). The only buses are Hopley’s from Redruth. Otherwise it’s walk, be driven or see if you can borrow a horse from Charles Poldark.
