Skinner's Heligan Honey

When it comes to ales, we all know what we like, and it’s often tempting to stick to a couple of favourites, week in and week out, forever until we die. STOP! For a start, you can’t really call them your favourites until you’ve tried every other beer out there. Second, if you're willing to sip around, just occasionally you’ll discover something new you like a lot – and how exciting is that?! I know Skinner's - the Cornish brewery - pretty well, but I don’t recall having tried its Heligan Honey before. This golden-coloured ale, commissioned by local tourist honeypot the Lost Gardens of Heligan, is brewed with Cornish honey and tastes bee-wilderingly good. And while the beer has a smoothness and a sweetness about it, it’s far from the sugarfest its name might suggest. I could drink several, and wish I had. But we turned instead to a Skinner's classic, the Cornish Knocker: smooth like the Heligan, but fuller-bodied and slightly hoppier too. Sometimes the pull of the old favourites is too strong to ignore. 

ALERT! A Great Pub of Our Time is the Chain Locker, in Falmouth, which serves the ales mentioned above and then some. I’ve written elsewhere about pretend Cornish pubs. This is the real deal.