GUILD members Susan and Fran Nowak were both presented with awards at the Campaign for Real Ale’s annual conference in Torquay earlier this month. The husband and wife team – Susan the writer, Fran photographer – gained the Chairman’s Award 2025 “in recognition of their long and dedicated service to beer and food writing for What’s Brewing, BEER magazine and CAMRA Books.”
The pair both joined CAMRA, launched in St Albans where they then lived, in 1972 – the year the campaigning organisation was formed. Apart from striving to save real ale, CAMRA became famed for the Good Beer Guide listing UK pubs serving well kept real ale. Then in 1989 Sue was commissioned to write a sister guide to the pubs serving great food as well as fine beer; it ran to six editions.
She also began writing for CAMRA’s newspaper What’s Brewing, and then became food writer for their award-winning BEER magazine. Fran was the photographer for all her features – work that took them as far as the USA and Canada, Hawaii, over most of Europe including Fran’s home country Poland. But it was in Belgium, and in particular Bruges, where they discovered the richness of beer cuisine – the art of cooking with beer and pairing different styles of beer with all kinds of dishes, savoury and sweet.
Quite early in her career Sue and Fran were invited to join The British Guild of Beer Writers. Sue was thrilled to be given the task of creating the menus for their annual dinners, then held in some of the City of London’s fabulous Guild halls.
She was Guild silver tankard winner in 1995 and Chairman of the Guild from 1998-2000 – the first woman to hold that position. For the Millennium Banquet in 2000 she designed a ‘through the ages’ feast; among the beers was the forerunner of literally golden ale, brewed with saffron, to accompany the Elizabethan course.
Apart from her CAMRA publications, Sue wrote a recipe book, The Beer Cook Book, published by Faber and Faber. As well as recipes she originated herself it contained several donated by some of the celeb chefs she’s met along the way such as Keith Floyd and Delia Smith. For around a decade she was a senior judge in the Great Taste awards held annually by the Guild of Fine Food.
Susan and Fran now live in Plymouth overlooking the Sound where they are members of Plymouth CAMRA branch and especially enjoy the ales of the region’s biggest brewer, St Austell. In the words of their flagship beer, it’s been a Proper Job.
ENDS
Contact: Susan Nowak, suenowak@aol.com
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