Nigel and Carol Fox are members of CAMRA Huddersfield Branch and visited Cornwall for a holiday. Some Kernow members met up and sampled the real ale delights of St Ives so here is a review of the holiday from a beer perspective.

Cruising Around Cornwall

10th-14th March 2025

Nigel and myself had booked our jaunt to St Ives in July 2024. We started our journey in Huddersfield getting picked up at 0730. We arrived at our hotel at 1910 and after our evening meal we decided to see if there were any local hostelries open. The first port of call we arrived at was the Queens Hotel, which had 3 hand pumps on – St Austell Tribune + Proper Job. Unfortunately all pumps were off so we had a bottle of St Austell bottle conditioned Hicks which was very palatable. Moving on we called into the Castle. Here there were 2 beers from Doom Bar and 1 from Skinners. We tried the Skinners Betty Stoggs. Pub was busy, looked as if there had been a quiz on. The last pub we called in was The Union Inn, which had 3 beers on but only 2 were on. We tried the St Ives Moer which was very nice.

Tuesday saw us on one of the trips the coach tour had organised – a trip to Falmouth. We had set off from the hotel at 9.30 and arrived in Falmouth at 1030. A bit early for a pint – but we had decided pre hand to go to Helston to try out what beers were on at the Blue Anchor. We caught the U4 Penzance bus to Helston at 11.35 and arrived at the Blue Anchor an hour later. A definite visit to this multi roomed pub and there we had beers from their own brewery Spingo Ales which were all in excellent condition.

After leaving Helston we decided to move onto Penzance (even though we were going there on Thursday) and after leafleting Tourist Information, we were in agreement that we should look for any real ale establishments before heading back to St Ives. First pub we came across was the Crown, home of Cornish Crown Brewery. Both the beers that were from the brewery were a bitter and a porter both in fine fettle. It doesn’t look like a pub that sells real ale so we were both pleasantly surprised The porter was in line for Champion Beer of Britain recently. After leaving the Crown we carried further into town and came across a Wetherspoons house, The Tremenheere. It was the Spoons beer festival and surprisingly they had 4 dark beers on. I tried Elgood’s Mocha Porter and Nigel had Fabrica Birra Perugia chocolate porter which both went down very nicely. One pub we passed on the way up to town was the Star Inn which didn’t look the sort to sell real ale but surprise surprise it supports local breweries and we tried Tintagel Pendragon (an IPA) and Tingtagel Caliburn (a porter) – both went down very nicely. We finished the day going to some football – a gentleman we got in touch with very kindly gave us a lift to and from the game at Hayle. Wednesday was our free day, and before leaving Huddersfield, we’d been in contact with Kernow CAMRA and we spent the afternoon in St Ives trying out one or two of the public houses in the town. We went to one or two that we’d already been to on the Monday but the pub of the day was the Pilchard Press. It’s located on the harbour down a ginnel and if you didn’t know it was there you wouldn’t have known although there is a small sign to let you where it is. When we told them we were going to Penzance the next day they very kindly recommended a couple of hostelries to us that we hadn’t known about when we went round on the Tuesday. A very good afternoon was had by all. Many thanks to Kernow CAMRA for putting up with us for the afternoon. Maybe meet up with them again.

Thursday was already taken up by a trip to Paradise Park, a bird sanctuary at Hayle, and after spending an hour and a half there we then moved on to the other part of the trip to Penzance. After being dropped off Nigel and myself went on to find the 2 pubs recommended by Kernow CAMRA the previous day – The Dock on Quay Street and the Admiral Benbow which was just up the road from the Dock. The Dock had at least 3 beers on so we tried the Brisons bitter we enjoyed. Making our way up to the Admiral Benbow, we were keen to try the 2 beers that they had on there. Both from Treen brewery, Essential and Classic, which were very palatable. We called back into the Crown again before setting off back to St Ives. Our tea wasn’t until 7.00 so we nipped into St Ives again, and called in for a quick pint in the Pilchard Press (just to make sure it was alright & it was!!) and the Lifeboat which was next door. We had noticed it on the Wednesday after we had parted ways with Kernow CAMRA so we thought we’d give it a try. The beer we tried was St Austell Hicks. This was on draught and was very pleasant. After our meal we finished the day at the Belgium Bier Huis Grand Café. The beers we had were good but as predicted very expensive. Carol had a bottle of Kwak – she even had to remove a shoe!!

A good trip overall.

Carol & Nigel Fox

Correct as of 10-14th March 2025