Cornwall's bluntest brewery and Padstow's most famous prawn just got into bed together
Bluntrock Brewery in Rock, Cornwall, has collaborated with Michelin Guide-listed Prawn on the Lawn in Padstow to launch 'Shellfish Lover', a 4.2% Helles lager designed as the ideal pairing for shellfish. This partnership formalises a long-standing relationship between two of the Camel Estuary's independent businesses, highlighting a local alliance strategy amidst a challenging period for the brewing industry.
Two of the Camel Estuary's best-loved names have made a beer together, and the pun arrived fully formed: Shellfish Lover, a 4.2% Helles lager from Bluntrock Brewery in Rock, brewed in collaboration with Prawn on the Lawn across the water in Padstow — its label a seaside-postcard scene of a prawn and Bluntrock's bucket-hatted mascot sharing a bed.
The style choice is the serious part. Helles — soft, clean, gently bitter — is the classic shellfish companion, crisp enough to cut brine and delicate enough not to bully a Porthilly oyster; this one is brewed ten minutes' walk from where those oysters grow.
That's the estuary loop that makes the collaboration sing: Porthilly's oyster farm sits in Rock, Bluntrock's home village; Prawn on the Lawn serves them in Padstow; and the restaurant already pours Bluntrock as a house beer, per the Trencherman's Guide. The lager just formalises a relationship the tide has been running for years.
Prawn on the Lawn brings serious receipts to a silly label. Rick and Katie Toogood opened it as an eight-seat fishmonger-restaurant in Islington in 2013, expanded to Padstow in 2015, earned a Michelin Guide listing and a Sunday Times Top 100 spot, published a cookbook with Pavilion, and built supply lines through fifth-generation Padstow fishermen — the Evening Standard called the food "little short of miraculous."
Bluntrock's own story is the joke that became a business. Founders George Parker Collins and Hugo Roads sketched it at a 2020 barbecue on the Pentire cliffs, built a brewery, taproom and beer garden from bright yellow shipping containers, and took the name from their first site's postcode-perfect placement — "Our first site was opposite Sharp's Brewery," Roads has explained. "That gave us the 'Blunt' to their 'Sharp', and of course we're in Rock."
The credentials underneath are proper. Collins was born in Burton upon Trent — his parents met at Allied Breweries — started at Sharp's at 18, spent five years at Padstow Brewing, and now brews a range running from hazy pales and Japanese rice lager to a Burton-homage best bitter, on a full brewery commissioned in May 2024 with equipment bought at auction from London's closed Boxcar Brewery. The company states it is the first Cornish brewery to install carbon capture technology, and last year opened a second venue, The Pagan Arms in Newquay.
Shellfish Lover is available from the Bluntrock taproom in Rock, The Pagan Arms in Newquay, and the brewery's online shop.
Trend context
British independent beer has just lived through its worst stretch on record, and the numbers are stark: a net 137 breweries closed in 2025 — nearly three a week, a 37% spike SIBA called a "survival crisis" — with the trade body's 2026 Independent Beer Report finding almost half of independent brewers focused solely on survival. Two weeks ago came the turn: SIBA's latest tracker shows closures slowing to under one a week, with just four of nine UK regions growing brewery numbers — and the South West among them, up by exactly one.
The survivors share a shape, and Bluntrock is its portrait: taproom-led, hyperlocal, and pointed at the styles still growing — SIBA's data shows no-and-low beer up 34.4% in the on-trade and lager holding gains while craft cask fell 16.7%. A brewery with two of its own venues, a no-and-low range, a lager-forward list and a village that drinks its output is the model the crisis couldn't kill — brewing, poignantly, on kit auctioned out of a brewery the crisis did.
And the collaboration itself rides a wider current: hospitality's best independents banding together rather than competing — restaurant and brewery, Padstow and Rock, each lending the other its crowd. In a year when the industry's story was closure, a prawn and a pint in bed together is the counter-image: small, local, joyful, and selling.
About Bluntrock Brewery
Why we exist
Bluntrock exists because the beers George and Hugo loved couldn't be found in the corner of Cornwall they loved — so they built the place themselves: a brewery for the community, named with a wink at the giant across the road, because independence works better with a sense of humour.
How we do it
We combine traditional brewing artistry with modern techniques, pioneering styles uncommon for coastal breweries, such as Japanese Rice Lager. Our taproom-first model ensures peak freshness. We are the first Cornish brewery to install carbon capture technology, and our operations are deeply rooted in the local community, run by a team that lives where it brews.
What we do
A year-round range of pale ales, lagers — including a Japanese rice lager — cask beers, the Burton-homage best bitter Ambassador, the no-and-low pair Zen and Yop Rock, and monthly specials; poured at the Container Taproom in Rock and The Pagan Arms in Newquay, sold online, and stocked at venues across Cornwall and the UK.
Why it matters
The enemy is the homogenised pint — beer as a line on a conglomerate's spreadsheet, brewed anywhere, tasting of nowhere — and the fatalism of a closure era that says small can't survive. A brewery that grew from four yellow containers into two venues, in this market, is the argument against both.
Who it's for
Our core audience is discerning craft beer drinkers, aged 25-55, who value local provenance, environmental responsibility, and unique flavour profiles over mass-produced options. They are often active, community-minded individuals, both locals and tourists, seeking authentic Cornish experiences.
Proof points
Founded 2021; from a 150-litre kit to a full brewery commissioned May 2024. Two owned venues. First Cornish brewery with carbon capture (company claim). Poured at Michelin Guide-listed Prawn on the Lawn. Standing in the South West — one of only four UK regions where brewery numbers grew this year.
Traction & credibility
Growth through the industry's worst recorded era: The Pagan Arms opened in Newquay, a Burton tap presence through Bernie's, wholesale expansion since the 2024 brewery build, and a collaboration line now spanning Cornwall's best-known seafood restaurant — with the founders' story told across the beer trade press and podcasts.
Spokespeople
George Parker Collins
Co Founder and Head Brewer
Born in Burton upon Trent, the spiritual home of British brewing, to parents who met at Allied Breweries — then a career that runs Sharp's at 18, five years at Padstow Brewing, and finally the brewery he co-founded opposite his first employer. The arc is the interview: Burton to Cornwall, giant to indie, and a range that homages both. Angles: beer trade, the craft-survival story, broadcast tastings.
Hugo Roads
Co Founder
Keeper of the origin story — the Pentire barbecue, the yellow containers, the name that wrote itself — and the business voice on growing an indie through the closure era
Talking points
The insight
Bluntrock Brewery and Prawn on the Lawn Make it official with a Collaboration Beer, Highlighting Playbook for Independent Survival Amid Closures
The story
Amidst a challenging period for the British brewing industry, marked by 137 net brewery closures in 2025, Bluntrock Brewery is demonstrating a playbook for independent survival. Their latest collaboration, 'Shellfish Lover' — a 4.2% Helles lager brewed with Michelin Guide-listed Prawn on the Lawn — exemplifies key strategies: hyperlocal alliances, a focus on lager-led ranges, and distinctive brand humour. This partnership formalises a long-standing Camel Estuary relationship, serving as a counter-image to the industry's gloom by showing how independents can thrive by choosing shared audiences over isolation.
Why it matters
After 137 net brewery closures in 2025 and half the industry in survival mode, the question is what the survivors do differently — and the answer is visible in one can: own venues, hyperlocal alliances, lager-led ranges, and humour as brand armour. If the model works in a village of a few hundred people, the playbook travels.
Who does it impact
Drinkers get the correct pint for an oyster, brewed in the oyster's home village. Two independents share audiences instead of splitting them. Cornwall's food-destination story gains a beer chapter. And every struggling indie watching gets the survivor's checklist, illustrated by a prawn in bed.
Proof points
A Michelin Guide-listed collaborator with a Sunday Times Top 100 history. A brewery grown from 150 litres to two venues through the industry's worst years, in the one southern region that added a brewery this year. The pre-existing pour at Prawn on the Lawn, per Trencherman's. And the can itself — the rare press image that needs no caption.
CTA
Cans and interviews via Bluntrock; the taproom in Rock pours it freshest; both founders and the Toogoods available together — the photo is the four of them, the can, and the estuary behind.
Key facts
- Collaboration Name
- Shellfish Lover
- Collaborators
- Bluntrock Brewery, Prawn on the Lawn
- Beer Style
- Helles Lager
- ABV
- 4.2%
- Availability
- Bluntrock Container Taproom (Rock), The Pagan Arms (Newquay), online at bluntrockbrewery.co.uk, select venues across Cornwall and UK
- Bluntrock Growth
- From 150-litre kit (2021) to full brewery (May 2024), two owned venues
- Prawn on the Lawn Credibility
- Prawn on the Lawn — founded as an eight-seat Islington fishmonger in 2013, Michelin Guide-listed, and as of July 2026 entirely Cornish, with three Padstow sites.
Get in touch
George Parker Collins
Co Founder and Head Brewer
Drop me a note and I'll reply by email.