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For anyone who has forgotten, Gypsy Wives is on tonight at 21:00, and it is NOT on Channel Four On Demand.

A great beer Hitchin, every cloud....

but second to Skinner's as Cornwall's finest brewery :pint:

I am drinking cornish knocker ale.

Very good, I see it's on sale in Waitrose these days. I rather like The Betty Stoggs myself  :beers:

I'd put Sharp's second after Skinner's.

And I've always wondered why St Austell insist on having sparklers in their pubs. Cornwall is about as far from the north as you can get.

Good shout, forgot about Sharps, Rock isn't it?

It was around about this time last year I made a Valentine's card using two Skinner's beer pump labels for a Kernow lass  :no:

Yeah, just over the water from Padstow.

What a lovely spot, got the little ferry over from Padstow out of season, then walked around the Camel Estuary to Polzeath. Good golf course there too, St Enodoc I think, with a church in the middle where some famous chap is buried. Great county, great beers  :pint:

3 useless facts:-

John Betjemen is the one buried - who strangely used to live in Wantage.
Sharps have recently been taken over I heard - Doombar is real Doombar no longer
Ales of Scilly are great - I have just bought a small boat and called it SCUPPERED after their best bitter - perhaps not the best idea  :sherlock:

Suppose you could have called it the Titanic.

Ah, that's the one: Betjeman. I had a right palava trying to find his grave traipsing over that overgrown golf course. Aborted the mission in the end.

 Doombar is a lethal sandbank on that Camel Estuary I think, claimed hundreds of lives over the years. Is the beer not being sold any more then Scilly?

 Nice one with the boat. Sounds ideal  ;D

 I saw a Titanic Ale on sale today by co-incidence, in The Shah of Persia, Poole  :eek:

Wrong thread; the Titantic brewery is in the midlands.

Molson Coors have taken Sharps brewery over, no plans to stop brewing apparently.  How many places in Swindon can you buy Doom Bar now - it is a lovely pint!

Sharps Doom Bar is vastly superior to St Austell and Skinners ales as both of those brewery products give me the shits!

And talking real ales, my favourite pub in London has been named CAMRA Pub of the Year, no mean accolade, and the first in our capital city  :clap:

http://uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com/food-drink/pub-year-award-goes-london-local-time-article-huib.html

Good pub.

Sausages cooked behind the bar I believe.

Absolute gem of a place. I hope this award doesn't prove to be its undoing!

Off to London on my birthday next Monday and in the area so may well try and take in a beer or two there early afternoon methinks.

If you want some free pints whilst in London (though the pubs participating are not much cop) follow the link at the top of this page:

http://www.marstonsoffers.co.uk/offers-pub-search/london/

Already registered for that down at my local one The Stonemasons in Ilminster.

Shame it was in a plastic glass. Also had Dartmoor, Bays, Otter, Exmoor and O'Hanlons in the 5 pubs visited in Exeter which is why I was at the ground late. A further cloud was ending up in a lock-in in my sister's local in Cullompton. Would recommend the Old Fire House at the quiet exit of Exeter Central if visiting on 29th. More of a cider house with a stillage of beers.

Doom Bar is the first pint of bitter Ive really enjoyed enough to chose it over bottled lager. Had it in the Brunel in Chippenham on the way back from Rovers, and then in the Steam Railway after that. Even when I went to the Swindon Beer festival in November, I still enjoyed the pale ales much more.

I think pubs look after their bitter taps a lot better than their lager ones. They think lager drinkers dont notice stale, smelly beer full of Tap cleaning chemicals. I do.

How are you defining bitter?

is it not bitter then?

Sorry it was this bit that confused me. You prefer pale ales more than Lager or Doombar? And are you making a clear definition between pale ale and bitter?

Unrelated but class finish from Van Persie.

There aren't any lagers at the Swindon Beer Festival. I enjoyed the pale ales more than the bitters there.

As I said, I dont know a lot about bitters. Never liked them in the past.

Here in lies the problem. Bitter and pale ale are basically synonyms. You like the lighter coloured beers. I suggest Crop Circle or Summer Lightning in Wiltshire or Hophead in Brighton.

 This Cornish beer talk, persuaded me to look out my CAMRA guide to ale in Cornwall 1984, from what I recalled Cornwall was a bit of an ale desert, when used to go down there a fair bit back then.

 Basically you had St Austell brewery, which was OK, and fuck all else, except the mighty must visitness of The Blue Anchor in Helston.

 The Blue Anchor, and I've no idea if it's still there, had its own brewery on site, and did the legendary Spingo Extra Special....which was falling in ditch stuff.

 Back then only one or two pubs boasted a guest beer....notably The Cobweb in Boscastle, which was an interesting place which carried 6X, a long way from home.

When I lived down in Cornwall, working in Plymouth about 6 years ago, Spingo beers were still going. The Fortesque on Mutley Plain used to have a Spingo night.

Mutley Plain is begging for a pub called the Dastardly.

I tried some of the Lizard ales this year. They were OK. Interesting site the brewery now occupies.

http://www.lizardales.co.uk/page11.html