PEOPLE-POWERED PINTS

Launched through a crowdfunding campaign, a seaside town’s microbrewery is proudly serving top quality beer to the locals, as CATHERINE COURTENAY discovers

- CATHERINE COURTENAY

Ollie Bainbridge is pointing out the names listed on a board that hangs on the wall of his brewery.

“They’re school friends...that’s our old contract cleaner...” He goes up and down the columns of names which are inscribed as a permanent reminder of the support given for the brewery.

These people gave money for a crowdfunding project which launched the Crossed Anchors brewery in 2016. A handful of them pledged to give £1,000, but the majority were much lower amounts of £25 upwards.

“This brewery was created by the local community,” says Ollie. It’s a theme he comes back to time and time again.

He’s making his first brew of the year and the aroma of malt is wafting across the wintry courtyard outside the microbrewery that’s housed in the old stables attached to his pub, The Grapevine in Exmouth.

Ollie is constantly testing the ‘wort’ or unfermented beer, which is coming off a large tank of malt grain, checking its clarity. It’s being piped through to a fermenting tank in the courtyard.

“Have you ever seen happy cows?” he asks, before explaining that a local farmer collects the spent grain to feed to his livestock. “They absolutely love it.”