There’s a little something added to every bottle of Salcombe Seahorse beer for the Seahorse Trust – and as a result the Devon brewery has just presented its biggest cheque yet to the UK marine-life charity.
For the past four years a 5p donation has been included in the price of every bottle of Seahorse, and this year’s cash handover totalled more than £2,000 – that’s 40,000 bottles’ worth.
Salcombe Brewery, which has a seahorse as its logo and is based at Kingsbridge, continued the practice throughout the pandemic, so perhaps the increased sum is down to emergence from the Covid period combined with increasing popularity of the amber ale. To date the brewery has donated nearly £5,000 to the cause of protecting seahorses.
“The surrounding coastal environment has always been hugely important to Salcombe Brewery Co,” says its MD Jordan Mace. “The Salcombe estuary is one of the few places in the UK where you can find the rarer of the two species of seahorse and we partnered with the Seahorse Trust four years ago to raise funds to support these endangered creatures.
“We give a regular donation to the Seahorse Trust and are pleased to be handing over another £2,032 this month. This money has been raised by making a donation of 5p from every bottle of Seahorse sold.”
The Seahorse Trust was founded in 1999 by scuba diver Neil Garrick-Maidment to preserve and conserve the natural world, especially the marine environment, with the seahorse as its flagship species. He describes the brewery as “incredibly supportive”, adding that its regular donations were “an invaluable resource for our much-needed conservation work”.
Salcombe brewery says that Seahorse is “a sweet and smooth ale with a gentle spicy hop character, hints of burnt caramel and a smoked malty finish… best served lightly chilled.” A case of eight 500ml bottles costs £19.25 online. The brewery’s Heritage range of cask and keg beers is sold nationwide.
Also on Divernet: Breaking the chains for Studland seahorses, £66k raised to protect Studland seagrass, Eco-moorings can protect Studland’s seahorses, Spiny pay-off from seagrass project
