Campaign for Real Ale award goes to Exmoor micro-brewery's first beer

ONE of the first brews ever made by Exmoor micro-brewery Dunkery Ales has won it an award from the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).
The award is being presented by CAMRA officials on Saturday, June 23, at the Bear Inn, Wiveliscombe, which at the same time will receive its Somerset CAMRA Pub of the Year 2007 certificate.
The winning brew was Dunkery Ale 4%, which brewery director Jim Winzer entered in the Minehead Beer Festival last September.
It was voted by the public as ‘Somerset Beer of the Festival’.
Mr Winzer, who is responsible for the brewing, sales, and distribution of the mircrobrewery’s ales, said: “We are very proud about this award, in particular as it was one of our first brews.”
Dunkery Ales only started brewing in September, 2006, and uses water from a spring in Downscombe Bog on the slopes of Dunkery Beacon.
It is the first micro-brewery to operate on Exmoor and was set up with support from Exmoor National Park Authority’s sustainable development fund, provided by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), and additional funding from West Somerset Council, Business Link, Connecting Somerset, and Foodlink.
DEFRA contributed with a Rural Enterprise Scheme grant toward the building costs of setting up the brewery in an old cow shed Edgcott Farm, Exford, owned by Mr Winzer’s friend Lindley Williams.
A one-hour television programme was recently broadcast on Channel 4 in the Life Begins Again series, with Gaby Roslin looking at how Dunkery Ales Ltd was set up in an attempt to breathe new life into the area.
Among the local public houses which stock Dunkery Ale are the Culbone Stables Inn, near Porlock, the Exmoor White Horse Inn, Exford, the Crown Hotel, Exford, Ralegh’s Cross Inn, on the Brendon Hills,tThe George, in Brompton Regis, and the Rest and Be Thankful Inn, Wheddon Cross.
More information is available from Jim Winzer by telephoning 01643 831115 or visiting the website http://www.dunkeryales.co.uk/.

• Our photograph shows Mr Winzer brewing one of the first batches of Dunkery Ale. Photo submitted.