Keltek Brewery has teamed up with a company which specialises in seasonally foraged food, to produce a unique new nettle cider – Cornish Stingers.

Based near Helston, Foodswild, which supplies such produce as edible seaweeds, wild vegetables, flowers, berries, nuts and mushrooms, used freshly-gathered wild Cornish nettles to brew the cider.

For Miles Lavers – the owner of Foodswild – sustainably is a passion, and wild, locally gathered food comes with an incredibly low carbon footprint.

By bottling locally at Keltek Brewery in Redruth, he is able to keep the carbon miles of the cider to a minimum.

Cornish Stingers has proven popular at trade shows across the county but this is the first time that a significant amount of it has been bottled.

Trystan Grace – marketing assistant at Keltek Brewery – said: “We’re really happy to be involved in the production of such a purely Cornish product. The nettles are gathered locally, brewing takes place on a farm near Helston and it’s bottled in Redruth.”

Keltek grasps the nettle

Published 02/11/09

Following the continued success and repeat orders of Keltek Brewery’s National Champion ale Keltek King in Hong Kong, the distributors recently came to Cornwall to learn more about the Brewery itself and the brewing process.

Mawgan Grace and Chris Lyle of Grace & Lyle Speciality Imports arrived bright and early at the Brewery in Redruth to help out with a brew.

Keltek’s Hong Kong Distributors Learn The Traditional Way!

Published 27/10/09

After hand-pitching several sacks of malt and helping to mash in the grains and hops in the traditional fashion that Keltek still employs, a rather hop-covered Mawgan said, “Its really great to be here helping out and learning all the processes that go into making the beer that we’re successfully selling in Hong Kong.” He continued “Sales have been very good so far, and word is getting around about an ‘amazing British beer’ popping up around the place. The people out there love the taste – its as simple as that!”

After a traditional Cornish Pasty lunch, Richard Heath – the Marketing Coordinator of the Brewery – said, “We’re extremely happy with how well the beer has been received. Its great to know that half way around the world people are enjoying the same Cornish pint that you can get over here.”

The same beer that is being sold in Hong Kong has recently become available to buy in regional ASDA stores, and can be spotted by the brightly coloured blue labels with golden trim.

Penzance-based Simply Cornish has announced the launch of a new bottled beer which is hand brewed in the county and perfect with pasties.

Cornish Best Bitter is a smooth medium-bodied, slightly nutty best bitter with a citrus aroma and hints of honey.

Hand brewed by National Brewing Competition winners Keltek Brewery in Redruth, using traditional ingredients in the traditional way, the beer is quadruple cold-filtered to maintain the fresh, original flavour.

Hand brewed by National Brewing Competition winners Keltek Brewery in Redruth, using traditional ingredients in the traditional way, the beer is quadruple cold-filtered to maintain the fresh, original flavour.

The 4.0% beer is made with whole hop flowers and malted barley and is being hailed as the ideal accompaniment for the traditional Cornish pasty.

Simply Cornish’s Development Manager Jason Jobling said: “Cornish Best Bitter is the latest addition to the rapidly expanding Simply Cornish brand of products. We worked together with the Keltek Brewery to find the perfect flavour for the new beer.

“Our philosophy is to use the very best local ingredients, flavours and expertise to produce a range of food and drinks that represent the very best of traditional Cornish values with a modern twist.

“The bottled beer is a completely new venture for us and everyone here at Simply Cornish is very excited as we’re confident there’s a huge market out there for high quality local products at a competitive price,” he added.

Initially Simply Cornish are producing 10,000 bottles of Cornish Best Bitter which will be available from a variety of retail outlets in the county.

Simply Cornish aim to combine the best of the past with the finest ingredients to breathe new life into beautiful, traditional food and drink.

“We have always applauded Simply Cornish’s work at promoting real, traditional Cornish produce and it’s fantastic to have been able to work with them to create this lovely ale,” said Keltek Brewery Marketing Coordinator Richard Heath.

Simply Cornish Launch Hand Brewed Beer That’s Perfect With Pasties

Published 05/10/09

The Keltek Brewery in Redruth has teamed up with London based “edible architectural wizards” Bompas & Parr to produce 1000 limited edition bottles of exclusive Courvoisier punch.

In 2009, Bompas & Parr worked with the well known Cognac brand Courvoisier to produce 'The Architectural Punch Bowl' – A punch bowl so large that it could serve 25,000 people, and you could boat across it!

A competition was held to decide the recipe of punch that would fill this unique project, and 'The Emperor's Shrub' – a cocktail containing Courvoisier Exclusif, berries, organic cider vinegar, and winter spices – came out on top.

To add to the novelty of this revolutionary exhibition, a competition was to be held with winners able to claim themselves one of only 1000 limited edition bottles of the punch.

Bompas & Parr contacted the Keltek Brewery in Redruth for help in producing the bottles, and less than 10 days later the prizes were on their way up to London to await the lucky winners.

Andrew Hawken - General Manager at the Brewery - said, “We loved this project. Being able to help in the completion of a unique and successful event like this is very satisfying. There can be a bit of a misconception that because we are a Brewery, we can only bottle beer but our equipment is more than capable of bottling other products too.”

Money raised from the event was donated to Article 25, a charity that gives architectural and building advice to aid agencies and NGOs in disaster situations.

More than just beer at Keltek Brewery

Published 05/01/10

In 1694, Admiral Edward Russell created an enormous punch bowl so big that the punch that filled it contained 2,500 lemons and was served up to guests by a young boy in a boat.

Keltek Brewery Launch Beheaded Competition

To celebrate the launch of Keltek Brewery’s legendary strong ale Beheaded 7.6%, they are giving the public the chance to submit a slogan into a competition. The winning slogan will be used on all Beheaded promotional material and literature, and the author will win a case of Beheaded 7.6% bottles and a poster featuring their slogan!

You can enter now at www.beheadedale.co.uk - The competition runs until the end of Feb.

Be sure to read the T&Cs before entering.

Beheaded Wins Bronze at SIBA SW Festival

Andrew Hawken, Keltek's General Manager said, “We're delighted that Beheaded has won this award. It is often the first beer to run out at beer festivals and it is great for it to get official recognition.”

“We work really hard to maintain the tradition of hand crafting our real ale, and we've stuck with it despite the vast increase in our production over the last couple of years. We still pitch and mix in the malt by hand, and only use whole hop flowers in our beers – not high-yielding processed hop pellets or industrial hop oils. I think that's why we've won so many awards over the years.”

Beheaded – which is now available in bottles - joins Regional Champions 'Golden Lance', 'Magik' and '4K Mild', and the National Grand Champion 'King' in Keltek's repertoire of award winning beers.

The Keltek Brewery in Redruth is delighted to announce that another of their Cornish real ales can now be referred to as 'Award Winning' after scooping a prize at the 18th SIBA South West Beer Competition at Tucker's Maltings in Newton Abbott.

Over 300 different ales from all over the South West were entered into the competition, and 'Beheaded 7.6%' - Keltek's strongest ale – took bronze prize in the Strong Cask Ale category.

Keltek’s Mike Carter with the prize certificate

Natural Magik is released in bottles

no additives, Natural Magik has been used in Tesco “Finest” and Morrisons pies. It is brewed from hand-pitched grains and whole hop flowers, rather than industrial hop oils or processed hop pellets, and does not contain any finings. It will not be filtered when bottled either.

With the public becoming increasingly mindful of the substances contained in their food and drink, Keltek feel that Natural Magik will prove very popular with both Vegans and non-Vegans alike.

Keltek's Andy Hawken said, “Natural Magik is amber in colour, and naturally cloudy. It has been used in cooking and baking for a number of years now, but it tastes great on its own so it makes total sense for us to offer it in bottles. The way it's brewed means that all of the rich, full flavours remain in the beer, rather than being filtered out for purely cosmetic reasons. The only ingredients are malt, hops, yeast and water.”

The first batch scheduled for bottling was brewed and bottled last week, and is now naturally conditioning in the bottle for a month before it is ready to drink. Polypins of Natural Magik are available now. Visit www.kelteknaturalmagik.co.uk for more information.

The Keltek Brewery in Redruth has announced that it is to launch its additive-free, vegan-friendly Real Ale – Natural Magik – in bottles.

In most ales, isinglass finings - made from dried fish bladders - and copper finings (carrageenan) as well as various other substances are added at various stages in the brewing process to help remove particles and clarify the beer. For bottled beer, it is then filtered as well, resulting in the crystal clear beer that we are all used to.

Originally developed as a food ingredient with