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Fancy a brew?
Founded almost 20 years ago,
Skinner’s Brewery
in Truro is very much a family
company. Founder Steve Skinner tells us all about living many people’s dream:
running your own real ale brewery in Cornwall
SEPTEMBER
73
G
rowing up around the pub his
parents ran in the Channel
Islands, it came very naturally
to Steve Skinner to start his career
in the drinks industry. Having trained
with Ind Coope in London, Steve and
his family moved to Cornwall in 1996
to make the most of its great surfing
locations. A year later, Skinner’s
Brewery produced its first beer: a
golden ale called Cornish Knocker,
which was followed by a Cornish bitter
called Betty Stogs, which CAMRA
named Britain’s Champion Best Bitter.
Countless barrels and hundreds
of awards later, Skinner’s Brewery
has grown but still remains a family
business rooted in the area where they
live and work, whether that’s sourcing
Cornish-grown barley, doing their
bit for the planet or enjoying some
surfing and shanty-singing.
Steve remains a director and a
shareholder of the brewery and his
children have also become involved in
the business, including his son Ben,
now a world-class surfer, ranked
number three in the world, and the
current British Champion.
Steve’s three daughters, Emma,
Louise and Sophie, have all worked
in the brewery over the years, with
Louise and Sophie still working
alongside their father, and Steve’s
stepson Harvey also recently joining
the brewery in between studies.
“We see ourselves as Truro’s
community brewery – keen to make
a positive contribution to the Cornish
economy,” Steve says. “The brewery
employs over 50 people from its home
in Truro and last year brewed well over
three million pints, projected to be over
four million by the end of this year.
“We love to be involved in local
and community events, including
the Newquay Fish Festival (16th-
18th September), Falmouth Oyster
Festival (13th-16th October) and the
Padstow Christmas Festival (1st-4th
December).”
The local area is also important
when it comes to the very serious
matter of brewing, as Steve explains:
“For us, it all starts with the
ingredients. We use barley grown just
a couple of miles from the brewery,
and malted at Warminster Maltings
in Wiltshire, a malthouse that still
produces malt in the traditional way.
“We only use whole-flower hops in
all of our ales, which we source from
all over the UK and worldwide to
ensure we find the best hops to make
our unique ales. Combining traditional
malts with the unique, specially-
sourced hops and Cornish water gives
our beers their distinct taste.
“We also take care, and this
means we’re committed to minimising
our impact on the environment by
minimising water usage, materials and
process waste, and by using ingredients
that can be recycled by local farms as
feed. Our aim is not to use anything
we don’t need, to reduce consumption
of what we do need and to recycle
wherever we can along the way.
“Skinner’s is proud to continue to
brew in the traditional way – our style
and techniques are the same today as
they would have been 200 years ago.
“Our fantastic brew team is lead
by a female head brewer. Historically,
brewers or ‘brewsters’ were all women,
with the craft of brewing eventually
becoming a male-dominated industry.
We’re thrilled to have our head brewer,
Paola, at the helm – bringing the
WORDS
EMILY GRAVENOR
Above:
Steve
Skinner
Below
left:
The Old Ale
House
Below right:
Skinner’s Brewery
range of eight beers,
featuring the newly-
redesigned branding
MY BUSINESS TIME
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