I’m Marco from St. Ives Brewery and I’ve been in St. Ives for twenty five years now.
In this sun-drenched beachside episode of The Secret List, we’re joined by Marco Amura from St. Ives Brewery, whose infectious passion for quality beer-making has transformed him from pub owner to Cornwall’s craft beer champion over the past 15 years.
After falling in love with St. Ives’ perfect balance of art, surfing, beaches and relaxed lifestyle 25 years ago, Marco noticed something missing during his four years running the Queen’s Hotel – every customer asked for local beer, but the closest option was St Austell. His solution? Start brewing his own, focusing on uncompromised quality over mass production.
Now producing an impressive 25,000 pints a week, Marco shares the secrets behind his distinctively fresh, unfiltered beers and his innovative Hayle brewery taproom where you literally drink underneath the fermentation vessels. With genuine enthusiasm for both his craft and his adopted hometown, Marco reveals his favourite heritage pubs, authentic food spots, and why The Sloop’s locals bar remains perfectly untouched by time.
From craft beer philosophy to surfing recommendations at Porthmeor Beach, Marco’s deep local knowledge and entrepreneurial spirit make this a perfect taste of authentic St. Ives living.
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I started the brewery fifteen years ago, which sounds a crazy amount of time that’s passed. I started small. I fell in love with the town and felt that this was the place for me. All those years ago, it had that perfect balance, which it still does now of art and surfing and just beaches and weather and relaxed lifestyle. I couldn’t see myself living anywhere else.
I ended up starting a brewery because of my time spent owning a pub at the Queen’s Hotel for four years. In that time, every person that walked in said, what’s local? What beers are local? I’d direct them to a Tribute or something similar that was brewed in St Austell. I felt like that’s just not close enough.
It is the other side of Cornwall. It’s St Austell, the forgotten south corner of Cornwall. I felt at the time that we could do something better. We could do something that was more in tune with the kind of craft beers that were coming on the scenes, more hop forward beers. So, I got started on a very tiny scale, and then bit by bit, it evolved.
Where we’re at now, we’re 25,000 pints a week walking out the door and beers all over the place. Beers in supermarkets and exporting some. It’s just been an incredible journey. To be here on the beach, having just had the pleasure of sitting with 20 people to talk about beers. You’ve got to pinch yourself.
Sunny day in my hometown, drinking beers in the sunshine. What a ride.
The beers themselves. I’m a fan of Porth and Meor. Really, really lovely. They’re a little bit unique. The cans look unique. They’ve got a bit of a unique taste to them. What have you done to make them so tasty?
There are a few things in the beer world. Some of the mainstream beers or some of the big micro beers that you see in the supermarkets, they’ve got to produce that beer really, really cheaply. They’ve got to cut corners where they can. They got to add things in that they maybe shouldn’t. It’s quite an unknown industry. But where we come from is how to brew beer, uncompromised, best possible ingredients.
We don’t filter the beer. A lot of big guys will sterile filter that beer and that will remove flavours. It’ll make a really stable product and it’ll make it last forever. But we want beer to be as fresh, as clean, and as honest as it can be. Therefore, we use great hops, seasonal, fresh, the best quality grain that we can get our hands on.
We use yeast that we cultivate and use over and over again. We have got our own strain. Then the water, you take good pride in knowing what’s in the water and adding anything or removing things that shouldn’t be there. So, it’s a long process to do it the right way, but it pays dividend when you’ve got good beer at the end of it. You can’t market that beer in the same term that Carlsberg or Heineken would, but you can certainly produce a beer that people will buy again because they like the quality.
Quality over mass produced and cheap any day. That’s where we’re coming from.
I’ve seen some fairly lengthy queues outside the St. Ives beers bar here.
As you were saying, you can get it in the supermarkets. You can get it in quite a few pubs but also you’ve got a brewery not too far away.
Can people come visit the brewery and see how it’s made?
Yeah. We moved the major side of production over to Hayle. We were looking for a lot of space and St. Ives is a bit short on that. So, the brewery moved about three years ago to the industrial estate, Marsh Lane, just by Marks and Spencer’s there on the outskirts of Hayle.
When we moved there, we made the Taproom part and parcel of the brewery. So, when you come in for drinks there, you’re pretty much underneath the fermentation vessels. And it is almost like a brewery tour when you are drinking.
We do tours and we do tasting sessions similar to what I just did, where we go through a few styles and take people on a journey. From sours to Belgian inspired beers, fruited beers, crisp lagers and then really hoppy IPAs.
If you do come in and you work your way through the board of all the different beers on tap you’ll certainly go on that journey and realise what beer can be and learn that it’s not just a simple lager or an IPA. There’s a wealth of different styles between those two ends of the spectrum.
It’s definitely worth visiting. I’m on the committee of the Cornwall Kite Surf Club, and we recently had a meeting in the brewery and it was difficult to leave. It was delicious and a shame that some of us had driven.
Then, talking of going for a lovely drink, if you have some time off and aren’t running around, where do you head to?
Those rare days. When I do get a chance going into St. Ives. You can’t visit St. Ives without a visit to The Sloop.
You’ve just got so much heritage in that place. It’s a time warp. It’s like a trip back into the past. The locals bar on the right hand side when you walk in there has been untouched for centuries. They’ve got good beers in there.
Some of ours, they’ve got slipway on and cask beers. We brewed one for them called 1312, which is the year that the Sloop was originally founded.
After there, when you’ve had a chance to sit in the beer garden, then maybe stroll onto The Balcony. Fantastic views over the harbour in there. Again, great beer selection, great atmosphere.
Then The Hub as well. There’s quite a lot of choice. On those rare days when I do get a chance, we certainly try and make the most of it.
Bit of outdoor space on a sunny day at The Sloop is probably my favourite.
I think what a lot of people should bear in mind as well is St. Ives is an absolutely stunning place. It’s beautiful. It’s full of artists. The sea is aquamarine. The sand is really, really light.
In the summer, it gets very, very busy. Come here slightly out of season, and you have a really lovely experience. You have a bit more of it to yourself, and you get to chat to a few locals as well. And it really makes it something special.
What about food? Where would you head to for a bite to eat?
Talay Thai, it just keeps bringing you back. It’s just some of the best Thai food I’ve ever eaten. I have never been to Thailand personally, but that’s kind of opened my eyes onto the cuisine in that that region.
The pizzas at Onzo are fantastic. They’re some of the best, just proper authentic. Pablo, one of the owners, just went down that rabbit hole and figured out everything about hydration of dough and where the tomatoes come from and the mozzarella content and so on. So, that’s a must.
Then in Hayle or just in Lelant, The Old Forge. They’re just incredible. Becky and Mikey, the owners, they just do it right. Some incredible Italian food. Their carbonara is unbelievable.
Those three are like the pinnacle for me of places I choose to go and eat when I get a chance.
And for anyone that doesn’t know St. Ives. We’re sitting on the beach here and it looks out over a huge bay where at the far end, you’ve got a lighthouse, Godrevy Lighthouse, and then you’ve got Gwithian Beach and Godrevy Beach. Three miles of sand, then an estuary, which is where Hayle is, and then you get Carbis Bay and then St Ives Bay.
The whole area is worth exploring. It doesn’t take too long to drive between the different spots, and it goes from being really populated to absolutely nothing around.
Which brings me on to one final question. A top Cornish tip. Someone coming to visit Cornwall or a mate coming down or someone that lives down here thinking, I want to do something different or fancy seeing something really lovely. Anything come to mind?
I’m a big surfer. That’s kind of what I do when I get my time, when I get my chance. So, I think a dip in the ocean. Maybe going to St. Ives Surf School on Porthmeor Beach, those boys know what to do. They look after you.
There’s a good vibe down there, and they’ll get you into the waves whatever there is out there. And they’ll guide you into the best place. So, that’s something for me. It gives me my chance to get away from the stresses of work. You’ll find me in the sea if there are any waves.
Perfect. Thank you very much indeed.