As you’d expect this review only includes thoughts and information about cider and perry at this years event.

Introduction

Demand for real cider and perry continues to increase with new cider makers starting up throughout the UK every year – this was evident at GBBF last week with a fantastic selection of traditional west country and eastern counties ciders available at Earls Court, London.

Showcasing Britain’s most exciting cider makers

CAMRA‘s annual early-August event celebrates British drinking. With over 110 ciders and perries at the Great British Beer Festival this week, CAMRA showcased the largest selection of real cider and perry ever seen at the event.

The range included award winning ciders and perries from national gold medallists at the National Cider and Perry Championships, judged at the Reading Beer Festival earlier in May, including Virtual Orchard cider.

Gwynt y Draig, Two Trees perry and Black Dragon cider were among the three fastest selling drinks in the first three days of the Festival. Great news for Welsh cider makers. Catch them at this weekends International Cider Festival.

John Lewis, Cider Bar Manager (great job) has been delighted with the increased interest in ciders and perries:

‘All our ciders are selling very well, appealing across all tastes from dry to sweet with a broad range of people of all ages enjoying the large selection.’

What you said about the cider on Twitter

We also had a good response of ‘cider heads’ live tweeting their responses back to us on Twitter.

Cider bar training

As an added bonus this year, I had the pleasure of doing cider bar training with CAMRA’s Mick Lewis (chief cider head).

Mick guided us through what he defines as real cider and perry, following CAMRA’s guidelines. The group was made up of 10 people who were either starting to make their own cider, sell it at a cider event, or learn more about what makes a good cider.

The interesting aspect for me was the cider tasting, of course! where Mick explained you didn’t have to like them all, just appreciate the difference in the tastes by there location in the UK, and style of fermentation. We tasted around 12 ciders from all corners of cider land.

One aspect where the cider and perry selection should be applauded is supporting first time ciders at events. A great way of enjoying British apples all under one roof!

Photos from the event

Finally, here are some personal images of the event.

Hope you enjoy. If you did make it this year let us know what you thought by leaving your comments below. If you didn’t – hope to see you at the cider bar next year!