St Austell Brewery Visitor Centre & Hicks Bar — Attraction in St. Austell

St Austell Brewery is the maker of the best beer around (in my opinion) and also happens to have a bar with excellent food, not to mention a brilliant brewery tour too with loads of tasters too!

We often visit on our regular trips to Cornwall and it is safe to say that Hicks Bar serve the best breakfast to be found. The standard size is £10 which is fantastic value (we pay more at home for less and lower quality). The larger (check the photo) is £14 and doubles in size. To be honest, this was probably a stretch too far in terms of being able to eat it all but at least I won't need lunch after having a breakfast here!

The service is of a good speed and whilst you wait you can enjoy the lovely views or visit the 'free to view' element of the brewery. This includes a large room with the history of the brewery through to the present day and a room with an original desk from the founder of the brewery (Walter Hicks - hence the bar name and also one of the beers). You can watch beer (usually Tribute or Proper Job) being bottled from an observation window and also play a number of games. I have seen table tennis and table football freely available.

All in all, you can sum St Austell Brewery and Hicks Bar up succinctly and accurately with: best beers, great food, a piece of Cornish history and an excellent...

My wife and I went to the Brewery on 14/07/15. We did the tour at 11.00am. Our tour guide was Mike. he was very good and very entertaining as well as telling us the story of the Brewery from foundation to present. we both loved it and the 1 hour 45 minutes (which was ment to be 1.30) flew buy! we enjoyed a tasting at the end of the tour. my wife doesn't even like beer but she thoroughly enjoyed the tour, as I did. Mike made it so much fun and entertained us all as well as educating us to. If you go to Cornwall you must go as they may stop the tours as they are expanding rapidly due to their success as their beer is one of the best I've ever experienced, and I'm no novice at the age of 59. so visit soon if you intend to as you may miss out!! ps you must book in advance as all the tours are booked up in advance. we tried on the day we had to wait 2 days to...

We visited the brewery a couple of years ago, while on a short break in Cornwall. We stayed in town and walked to the brewery to maximise our tasting experience. The brewery was pretty easy to find and well worth the uphill walk. The tour was great (note there are stairs on part of the tour), the guide was really knowledgeable about the history of the brewery and the beers they make (previously and currently) as well the process involved. The brewery is a working one so you get a good idea what it's like to be part of the team. The tour, brewery and visitor centre is very well laid out. After the tour you are welcome to view the history in the visitor centre, buy merchandise and beers or have a drink at the bar. All the staff were really friendly and seemed to love what they do. We will visit again, but will tie it into the weekend when they host their...