Saturday November 16th was at least mildly momentous in the recent history of Cornwall CAMRA.

We had our first CAMRA beer festival since 2019! That was of course the last official Falmouth festival, but this one was on a much more manageable scale.

Falmouth had become a 200+ cask behemoth whereas this was 16 casks and 4 ciders.

The excellent venue was the large garden marquee at The Star at Vogue pub.

During the course of the afternoon Cornwall CAMRA Chairman Paul Waller presented the Star at Vogue licensees, Mark and Rachel Graham, with their award for winning Cornwall Pub of the Season (Autumn).

The beer offering was a great balance of golden, dark and traditional styles with Cornish ales coming from Tintagel, Bude Coastal, Keltek, Driftwood Spars and Treen’s. As a special "guest of honour" there was a cask of Penzance Mild to celebrate its recent gold award in its category at the CAMRA Champion Beer of Britain competition. Devon was represented by Exeter Brewery, and it was in fact their excellent organic ale Avocet which was voted "Beer of the Festival". There was real cider on offer from Trevor's Cider Farm at Baldhu.

There was evening musical entertainment from Trevor Kemp and Matt Partridge & Casi, and the raffle raised a triple figure sum for the Betty Stogs charity.

This event was pretty much put together lock, stock and all the barrels by Paul Waller so massive thanks go to him along with his helpers Paul K, Mike, Peter plus Jules and Luke, and of course Mark and Rachel at the Star.

Words by Russ Durbridge. Photos by Steve Barber

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