Sharp's Camel Valley Pilsner

Sharp’s Brewery’s senior brand manager, James Nicholls, tries the beer with Camel Valley’s Sam Lindo

Sharp’s Brewery has launched Camel Valley Pilsner, a collaboration between the award-winning Camel Valley’s head wine maker, Sam Lindo, and Sharp’s head brewer Andrew Madden.

This unique partnership has seen the two drinks specialists experimenting at Camel Valley Vineyard, a short distance from the brewery in Rock, North Cornwall, to produce a clean, crisp and lightly hoppy Pilsner fermented with Camel Valley sparkling Brut yeast.Camel Valley Pilsner is a limited-release beer with production limited to 1,000 bottles in 2016 due to its extensive production process.

The Pilsner was brewed at Sharp’s Brewery, then fermented for two weeks using traditional Pilsner yeast, before being aged on a bed of Saaz leaf hops for 40 days. Once the beer was in prime condition, it was then transported to Camel Valley Vineyards in the picturesque Camel Valley, near Bodmin. Sam and his team then bottled the Pilsner into traditional Champagne style bottles and reseeded this with their sparkling Brut yeast.

The beer was aged for six weeks in the bottle resulting in a final product that has all the refined qualities of a great Pilsner with a crisp, clean bitterness and the lemony fruit aroma from the Saaz hop. The yeast addition and secondary fermentation has added a second layer of fresh fruit on top of the Pilsner aroma and also added the effervescent fizz synonymous with the celebrated wine style.

Planting its first vines in 1989, Camel Valley Vineyard is an independent family company and has achieved phenomenal global success with its award-winning wines and sparkling wines.  Sharp’s Brewery, which started as a microbrewery just over 20 short years ago, has seen a swift rise to success and is now brewer of the best-selling cask beer in the UK, Doom Bar, and holder of more than 70 international brewing awards.

This Sharp’s Brewery collaboration with another celebrated award-winning Cornish producer follows hot on the heels of this summer’s creation of The Hopster — a limited edition gin created with Tarquin’s of the Southwestern Distillery, near Padstow. That special contemporary take on a classic London gin is distilled with aromatic Pilot, Cascade and Crystal hops in tiny batches using three unique copper pot stills called Tamara, Senara and Ferrara at Southwestern Distillery’s headquarters, just outside Padstow.

Sharp’s head brewer, Andrew Madden, said: “Camel Valley Pilsner is an idea that we have had for a while and it’s great to be working with another award-winning Cornish business, based just a few miles away from our home in Rock. We’re all so excited about the final product, which is incredibly clean and crisp, and we are delighted to be collaborating on a project to join the worlds of exceptional Cornish beer and wine.”

Sam Lindo, of Camel Valley Vineyard, added: “Collaborating with Sharp’s Brewery to produce this very special Camel Valley Pilsner has been a wonderful and fascinating experience and I’ve learnt a lot about the different philosophical approach between the winemaker and brewer.

“In winemaking we are very fatalistic on how the wine will turn out,  and with brewing it’s a more pre-empted process, so it’s great to get Sharp’s brewer, Andrew, into this fatalistic approach … this has been a discovery process.

“With our wine yeast, we know we get a floral character and it really enhances the Sharp’s Pilsner, and we are really pleased that it has blended so well. We are all really looking forward to giving people something extra special in time for Christmas.”

The Camel Valley Pilsner will be available to savour at The Mariners Public House in Rock (a partnership between Sharp’s and Nathan Outlaw) and available to buy from Sharp’s Brewery shop in Rock, and online at www.sharpsbrewery.co.uk while limited stocks last.