A beer brewing memoir set in CORNWALL

7th May 2026

Something Brewing in Cornwall by Tommy Barnes, a beer brewing memoir set in Cornwall.

Tommy and his wife Rose had set up home in Braslou, in central France and he had made a fair living learning how to brew beer and then selling his product (Braslou Bière) to local establishments (in the heart of a major wine growing area!). He is clearly someone who likes a challenge but when his business starts to dry up because of Covid, the family (by then 2 children and various animals in the household) had to rethink their life. He wrote about his experiences in Trouble Brewing in the Loire.

At that point, Rose seems anxious to return to England and thus he applies for a job at a brewery in St Austell, but at first he hears nothing and positively comes to terms with remaining in France. Then, however, he is offered a job and the crushing realisation that he doesn’t want to leave France undermines the family’s move to Cornwall: they will be living with his mother-in-law in a tiny and cramped cottage in Padstow.

His sense of competency in the brewery takes a real hammering and his whole persona is affected by the onerous shift hours and the oftentimes flummoxing computerisation of the whole process. His life is clearly sliding and the realisation comes that he is the only person who can do something to tackle his encroaching depression: “I was different since we’d arrived in Cornwall. I was angrier than I used to be. I was carrying something around.”  He returns to what he knows and decides to set up his own brewery but of course that is a project laced with inevitable pitfalls.

He is quite self-deprecating about his competencies, but distracts from his negative traits by writing with wit and acute observation, and it is certainly entertaining (his disarmingly frank manner can, at times, feel quite poignant). Despite his self-described flakiness, he has clearly, nevertheless, managed to close a publishing deal for Something Brewing in Cornwall and his previous books, so all is not lost.

Along the way, the reader learns about brewing and tortoises, the merits of pasties and croissants and the Da Bara Cinnamon Bun, speed bumps, and the frustrations of the St Issey Pass. His old dog, Burt, rejoins the family, with all his weird habits that serve to entertain and ease the pain of daily life. His wife, certainly, needs a good mention for her unending patience and long-suffering  tolerance.

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