St Austell Brewery Unlocks a 175-Year-Old Recipe for Anniversary Ale

What does a brewery taste like when it has been around for 175 years? St Austell Brewery reckons it has the answer, and it comes in a bottle marked 1851.

The Cornish brewery is celebrating its anniversary year with a commemorative cask ale named after the year it was founded, brewed using a recipe pulled from its own archive of handwritten brewing journals.

A recipe with roots

1851 takes its inspiration from a beer first produced for the brewery’s 150th anniversary, which itself drew on records kept by former brewer Merv Westaway. Those journals are still consulted by the brewing team today.

Georgina Young, Brewing Director at St Austell Brewery, said: “We wanted to create something that genuinely reflected our history, not just a beer to mark a milestone, but one that connects us directly to the brewers and practices that shaped the business.”

The historic notes have been followed closely. The beer uses pale Cornish malt alongside amber malt, wheat malt and a small addition of Caramalt. According to the journals, the barley was originally malted at Tucker’s Maltings in Newton Abbot, a regional malting house that has since closed but played an important part in the brewery’s earlier years.

📷Georgina Young with historic brewing books at Walter Hicks' desk

Hops named by farm

The original records went into a level of detail that is rarely seen in modern brewing notes. The Fuggles hops, which give the beer its earthy, piney bitterness, were even attributed to a specific grower, Cooper’s Farm in Kent.

Later additions of Styrian Goldings, now known as Celeia, are sourced from Slovenia and bring soft floral notes to balance the malt.

While the recipe is faithful to the originals, the brewing process itself has been brought up to date. The team translated the historic instructions into a contemporary method to keep things consistent without losing the character of the beer.

The result pours a deep mahogany colour at 5.1% ABV, with gentle biscuit notes from the wheat, a subtle dryness from the amber malt and a rounded bitterness.

“It’s a very honest beer,” Georgina added. “It reflects the way we’ve always brewed, with care, attention to detail and respect for the process.”

Part of a wider collection

1851 sits within a broader 175th anniversary cask beer collection that has revived and reimagined brews from the brewery’s archive. The collection draws on recipes dating back to the 1800s, alongside reworked versions of the brewery’s current core range.

St Austell Brewery has been independent and family owned since 1851. It supports more than 160 pubs across the South West, including 45 managed pubs, and is the region’s leading drinks wholesaler.

1851 has been brewed exclusively for the anniversary year and is available on cask only, for a limited time, in selected pubs across the South West.