Newquay Steam remembered

Reads 21762 • Replies 10 • Started Wednesday, November 21, 2007 7:57:31 AM CT

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Message mike004 07:57 Wed 11/21/2007 One for the older ratebeerians... Anyone know what happened to the Newquay Steam brewery? I remeber some excellent pints of Steam lager & bitter on holidays to Cornwall in the 80s/early 90s. It was also sold in cans & bottles in UK supermarkets at one time. I presume the brewery went bust. Mike
Message Gazza beers 727 º places 167 º 08:52 Wed 11/21/2007 Originally posted by mike004 Anyone know what happened to the Newquay Steam brewery? I remeber some excellent pints of Steam lager & bitter on holidays to Cornwall in the 80s/early 90s. It was also sold in cans & bottles in UK supermarkets at one time. I presume the brewery went bust. Not sure if there ever was a brewery in Newquay which made it; the brand was owned by Redruth (Devenish) and made there and/or at Weymouth. I don’t remember seeing the beers much after the mid-90’s and never saw them on cask.
Message Fin P beers 17271 º places 1653 º 12:26 Wed 11/21/2007 I’m old enough (39 last Friday) to remember drinking (the occasional!) Newquay Steam Beer and seem to recall it having a double beer mat like a sort of double o with a steam train wheel design on either side when face up, one side for beer, one side for bottle. Didn’t the beers also have Grolsch style ceramic flip tops?
Message haddonsman beers 1234 º places 56 º 14:42 Wed 11/21/2007 Originally posted by Fin I’m old enough (39 last Friday) to remember drinking (the occasional!) Newquay Steam Beer I’m 39 on Sunday and certainly old enough to remember more than the occasional bottle on the beach Didn’t the beers also have Grolsch style ceramic flip tops? Indeedy it did. Dead classy

Message Gazza beers 727 º places 167 º 15:00 Wed 11/21/2007 I reckon the reason it vanished in the mid-90s was that, with the emergence of loads of decent breweries, people realised that Newquay was just regional crap with a nice label (and Grolsch stopper) and that was the end of it... I thought they were shit, even in the very early 90’s, and I’d not had that many beers then!!! So hardcore...
Message Fin P beers 17271 º places 1653 º 15:39 Wed 11/21/2007 Originally posted by haddonsman Originally posted by Fin I’m old enough (39 last Friday) to remember drinking (the occasional!) Newquay Steam Beer I’m 39 on Sunday and certainly old enough to remember more than the occasional bottle on the beach Didn’t the beers also have Grolsch style ceramic flip tops? Indeedy it did. Dead classy Have a great birthday. I expect that you’ll have kept a few Newquay Steam Beers stored somewhere to crack open and celebrate your birthday. I used to see Newquay Steam Beer in my pub haunts in Banbury in the late eighties to be honest I didn’t think it survived to see the Nineties. I’d moved to Worcester by then and had discovered the Jolly Roger Brewer and Tap, which I’m sure Gazza can also recall, mmmhhh drinking Severn Bore Special and listening to the raucous Jolly Roger Blues Band what memories.
Message jjohn beers 4 º places 1 º 00:38 Thu 11/22/2007 well, a blast from the past! I am 43 and I recall the name of this beer that was briefly exported to the USA back in the 1980’s...just cant remember what it tasted like!
Message Fin P beers 17271 º places 1653 º 01:24 Thu 11/22/2007 Originally posted by jjohn well, a blast from the past! I am 43 and I recall the name of this beer that was briefly exported to the USA back in the 1980’s...just cant remember what it tasted like! Read Gazza’s post above to see what they tasted like, ok so I probably didn’t think they were so bad at the time but I bet now I’d hate the stuff.

Message mike004 03:06 Thu 11/22/2007 Originally posted by Fin Originally posted by jjohn well, a blast from the past! I am 43 and I recall the name of this beer that was briefly exported to the USA back in the 1980’s...just cant remember what it tasted like! Read Gazza’s post above to see what they tasted like, ok so I probably didn’t think they were so bad at the time but I bet now I’d hate the stuff. The cans were silver, if thats any help. Personally, I don’t recall the beer as tasting bad. It used to be availabale on draught at the Newquay Arms in the centre of Newquay at the time. What was the origin of the name? Railways, or the brewing process? Mike
Message chriso P beers 7540 º places 736 º 04:30 Thu 11/22/2007 There’s a bottle on ebay for 60 quid! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/A-bottle-of-Newquay-Steam-Lager-Sealed-circa-1988_W0QQitemZ230192558366QQihZ013QQcategoryZ563QQcmdZViewItem For some reason I remembered the bottles as being clear glass. Funny how your memory plays tricks sometimes. No idea why it was called Steam Beer, other than a marketing wheeze.
Message JorisPPattyn P admin beers 14310 º places 93 º 04:30 Thu 11/22/2007 Originally posted by Gazza I reckon the reason it vanished in the mid-90s was that, with the emergence of loads of decent breweries, people realised that Newquay was just regional crap with a nice label (and Grolsch stopper) and that was the end of it... I thought they were shit, even in the very early 90’s, and I’d not had that many beers then!!! So hardcore... Absolutely!!! They were heavily advertised in What’s Brewing in those days (page-large advertisements); so when I went to Cornwall, I immediately went searching for them. My unbelief was immeasurable when tasting the syrupy-sweet, dead-boring concoctions. I could hardly believe that CAMRA accepted that kind of advertisement. Had some interesting discussions about that... Even in those days, St. Austell was producing way better ales (even when I seem to recall there was indeed a brewery - but it might have been the Redruth one), including their Prince of Ales. FYI, I met the brewer from St. Austell in Germany last month, and he announced me that they will restart bottling Prince of Ales, as well as other beers, but with bottle refermentation...