Sharp Brewery's Doom Bar from Rock, Cornwall? Apparently not!

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Best-selling bottled ale Doom Bar not brewed in Cornwall

One of the UK^▸ (United Kingdom)'s best selling bottled ales, thought by many people to be from Cornwall, is not brewed in the county at all, it has been revealed.

Despite its Cornish branding, bottles of Sharp's Doom Bar have been made in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, for the last two years.

Only the cask version is made at the main brewery site in Rock, Cornwall.

Sharp's, which is owned by US company Molson Coors, said it did not have the room to bottle the ale at Rock.

The labels on bottles of Doom Bar contain seven references to Rock Cornwall, but none to Burton-upon-Trent, but the small print reads "brewed in the UK".

Burton-upon-Trent is 267 miles away from Sharp Brewery's home in Rock.

Former publican Chris Parsons said: "I assumed it was made from the local waters. I wouldn't buy it anymore and think it is a complete and utter con."

Molson Coors bought Sharp's in 2011. Measured by value of sales, Doom Bar is now the most popular bottled ale in the UK.

Liz Fletcher, landlady of the Devon and Cornwall Inn, said: "I can kind of understand it because Doom Bar is now so so huge and so so popular we're limited with space and logistics in Cornwall."


Sharp's said cask Doom Bar was still made in Cornwall

Sharp's spokesman James Nicholls said: "We have been established in Rock since 1994 and the majority of Doom Bar, more than 80% or about 1m pints a week, is brewed at Rock. But we do complement that with brewing operations further afield and that is the spirit of collaboration that we've seen in the brewing market places where beer is brewed under licence in other locations.

"We are using the expertise of specialist operations further afield to make sure that product is a good as it can be. Doom Bar is brewed in Rock and was conceived in Rock and we are very proud of that."

Doom Bar is named after a sand bank at the mouth of the estuary of the River Camel next to Rock, famed for being treacherous to ships.

[JayMac]

Have St Austell Tribute instead. That's still proper Cornish.

[Red Squirrel]

To be fair, the story is only 20% true:

...the majority of Doom Bar, more than 80% or about 1m pints a week, is brewed at Rock...

If you drink the proper stuff from the handpump, it'll be brewed in Rock:

...the cask version is made at the main brewery site in Rock, Cornwall.

[Richard Fairhurst]

The Burton brewery used to be the view from my office at Waterways World - we were housed in the old brewmaster's house. It's a pleasant change to have something palatable brewed in the town's biggest brewery rather than the Carling which is its usual fare...

[patch38]

Have you ever read Gone for a Burton by Bob Ricketts? An amusing and insightful personal history of the brewing industry. One of the facts that interested me was that research in the late 60s (date may not be accurate - I'm going from memory) showed that what the public wanted was not lager, it was just colder beer. The purists turned down the concept of serving chilled bitter so lager (which is supposed to be served chilled) gained its foothold.

Anyway, worth digging out from ABE or elsewhere if you've not read it.

[Chris from Nailsea]

That's still proper Cornish.

'Cornish' in Cornish is Kernewek. 

Touche, mon petit brave!  (posted just one day after the two hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo).