Elizabeth (Buffy) Rickeard

Elizabeth and her husband Jeremy, have spent 17 years cultivating organic produce and in 2016 the couple launched ‘The Bere Brewery’.

Elizabeth, known to her friends as Buffy, and her husband Jeremy, believe in a principled, idealistic life, in tune with the natural rhythms of the seasons. Wishing to be low impact, self-sustaining and as environmentally minded as possible they have shied away from the nine-to-five treadmills and sought an outdoor life of hard graft living off the land.

Born in south Hertfordshire into a close, large family, Buffy studied physiotherapy at the Royal London Hospital; her first employment was at Guy’s Hospital. She travelled around Australia and New Zealand for 18 months and fell in love with the landscape, the culture and the lifestyle which exuded a zest for life. In Sydney she worked in a restaurant as a commis chef and under the tutelage of the head chef became fascinated by flavour combinations and the processes behind marrying tastes to create a balanced dish. This captivation with flavours has led to a lifelong love of food and drink.

On returning to the UK Buffy met Jeremy and with a shared love of the outdoors, they searched for a place to relocate to, close in ethos and geography to New Zealand. They moved to Milton Combe and she began working in paediatric physiotherapy at the Plymouth Child Development Centre. Jeremy, an engineering geologist, still works part time in Tavistock. Looking for an alternative way of paying the mortgage, they moved to a four-and-a-half-acre small holding in Bere Alston and started growing fruit, vegetables and salad not only for their own table but also to sell. For the last 17 years they have cultivated a wide range of organic produce which they sell at the Tavistock Farmers Market under the brand ‘Olive Grove Organics’.   

Buffy bought Jeremy a hop plant in 2010 and they were both surprised by the way the plant thrived on the Bere Peninsula. Having always brewed their own beer they were impressed by the taste their own hops added to the brew and before too long were growing a few varieties of hop plants, each one with a slightly different aroma to add to the mix. Jeremy and Buffy both attended brewing courses to learn more about the science and skill behind creating a good beer. They were also encouraged by other local breweries who were quick to offer advice on the vagaries of producing a decent beer. They installed a microbrewery and in 2016 the couple launched ‘The Bere Brewery’ and began selling their celebrated home-brewed beer.

“Growing organically is all about working with the environment rather than controlling it. So it was important to find varieties of hop that could flourish with our poor soil and exposed, damp site. This involved considerable research, and lots of trial and error, adaptation and innovation, but it has been great fun, and we now have over 90 plants and produce 380 bottles per week from each brew,” says Buffy.

They now grow ten varieties of hop, each one with a different flavour and aroma, which in combination with different yeasts and types of malt add complex taste tones to the beers from light citrus, to caramel, warm spice, chocolate, deep blackcurrant and everything in between. All of the beers are bottle conditioned and will continue to mature over time, developing increasingly complex flavours and aromas. A natural build-up of dissolved carbon dioxide makes for an easy drinking light fizz. There are no chemical additives and the beers are suitable for vegans.  They have crafted five regular beers plus celebration and limited edition seasonal beers.

They currently need to buy in a portion of their hops, while their malt comes from Newton Abbot, but the couple hope to grow all of their own hops by 2019 and in doing so will possibly become the only brewery in the UK to do so. Buffy says: “By using our own home-grown hops we provide a direct link to our stunning local landscape, producing beers that speak of the glorious Tamar Valley”.

You can find Bere Brewery beers at The Olde Plough Inn, Bere Ferrers, the Victoria Social Club, the Calstock Arts Centre, Roots and Vines in Tavistock and Crapstone Post Office and Stores which have all been very supportive. Buffy and Jeremy also sell their beers alongside their organic produce at the Tavistock Farmers Market.  The beers are hugely popular, perhaps in part due to their hand-crafted provenance, but mainly due to their refreshing tastes. They are well worth a try!

Nichola Williams

You can visit their microbrewery at the Bere Alston smallholding on Wednesday afternoons from 4:30-7:00pm. For more information please contact 01822 840382 or visit www.berebrewery.co.uk