Brewer Paul Bartlett (left) receives his Beer of the Festival award certificate from Andrew Hesketh of Salisbury CAMRA At the front is Sunny, the dog who was the partial inspiration for the beer’s name. Picture :Salisbury CAMRA

From garage to glory – Dead Duck brewery wins again at Summerfest

Tait ap EllisJuly 21, 20250 Comment0

A BREWERY being run out of a converted garage beat off competition from all over Britain to be named Beer of the Festival at Salisbury’s summer beer and cider festival.

Dead Duck Brewery in Hale near Downton grabbed the top spot for the second year running of the Salisbury & South Wiltshire branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) festival, Summerfest.

The brewery’s Sunny Haze beer, a 4.5% ABV IPA, gets its name partly because its colour resembles the dappled sunshine of New Forest sunsets and also from Sunny, the friendly cockapoo dog owned by brewer Paul Bartlett and his wife Louise.

Understandably, Sunny was centre stage in a photograph taken when a group of CAMRA members went to Hale to present Paul with his Beer of the Festival certificate.

Last year, the one-man band run by Paul won the Beer of the Festival award at Summerfest 2024 with Knightwood Oak, a 5% ABV chocolate porter, named after the largest, and probably the oldest, tree in the New Forest.

Paul said: “I am honoured and surprised, in fact chuffed, to have won this award two years in a row.”

Paul, who teaches creative arts at the New Forest Academy in Hythe, began brewing 11 years ago when he lived in a London flat and was given a home brew kit as a Christmas present.

He was determined to make each successive brew better until it became, as his wife Louise put it, “a hobby that got out of control”.

When they moved to Hale to be nearer their respective families, the garage seemed the perfect building to convert into a small brewery.

“I thought that the brewery would never succeed, so I gave it the name ‘Dead Duck’ as a joke,” said Paul.

“I am being proved wrong.”

He now brews a total of four beers with a fifth – a pale ale – at the testing stage. and these are available at a number of pubs in the area, including The Horse and Groom in Woodgreen, the Radnor Arms at Nunton and the Royal Oak at Fritham.

“What has changed in the past year is that we are reaching out to different pubs. We have also bought a gazebo and had our first outings.

“Selling to pubs and shops is great, but you don’t meet the punters. We have been to the Downton Cuckoo Fair, Frogham Fair and the New Forest Beer Festival.

“I am still teaching full-time. I could eventually go down from teaching five days a week to four but not yet. We have got to pay the mortgage. But brewing is now a hobby that pays for itself, which is a nice place to be.”

Andrew Hesketh, Salisbury & South Wiltshire CAMRA’s festivals coordinator, who presented Paul with his certificate, said: “South Wiltshire and surrounding areas are lucky to have a number of excellent small breweries, and Paul is a fast-emerging talent among them.

“Local beer lovers have a fantastic choice of real ales.”

Second place in the Beer of the Festival voting went to Barlow Sesh, a session IPA from Collyfobble Brewery, Barlow, Derbyshire, while another local brewery, Stonehenge Ales from Netheravon, came third with 40 Summers, a traditionally brewed golden-coloured ale.