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Great British Cider (and Beer) Festival 2011 Review

2 Comments 8th August 2011

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!

London’s best cider pub?

Off 17th February 2011

Have you discovered the central London pub that has been awarded National Pub of the year by CAMRA this week?

If not, then we may have given you a very good excuse to go and hunt down this very traditional English boozer, offering a very good selection of traditional ciders from around the country.

The Harp pub, Covent Garden, London - in full bloom

CAMRA’s National Pub of the Year accolade recognises all the criteria that make a great pub, including atmosphere, decor, customer service, value for money, clientele mix, and most importantly, the quality of the cider.

Bridget Walsh, The Harp owner, tweeted me this week to share the selection of ciders and perries they have on:

Bridget also said:

‘This news came as a complete shock but of course we are delighted to be named CAMRA’s National Pub of the Year. We pride ourselves on the range and quality of our real ale and to be London’s first ever National Pub of the Year is a real honour. I would like to thank my locals, CAMRA members and particularly my brilliant staff, who made this a real team effort.’

Visit the pub to check out their fine selection of ciders:

The Harp, 47 Chandos Place, Covent Garden, London, WC2N 4HS. Tel. 020 7836 0291, www.harpcoventgarden.com

Agree, disagree with CAMRA’s choice – let us know by leaving your thoughts in teh comments below.

View the full press release at CAMRA.

Britain’s biggest cider festival

1 2nd August 2010

Britain’s biggest beer festival takes place this week from 3rd to 7th August 2010 at Earls Court, London. The Great British Beer Festival (often shortened to GBBF) is a yearly beer festival organised by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA

GBBF is styled as the “biggest pub in the world” and offers around 450 beers from British breweries, as well as around 200 foreign beers from countries including Belgium, Germany and the USA. Traditional British cider and perry is also available. The festival is completely staffed by unpaid volunteers, around 1000 of whom work at the festival.

Organisers are hoping for a bumper event as ticket sales this year are up by 32% on last year. Which means that the attendance will be well over the 64,000 thirsty people that turned up in 2009.

Louise Ashworth, head of marketing at the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), said: “Across the UK, CAMRA beer (and cider) festivals have continued to report record attendance figures and increases in sales. And with our own research showing that 50% of pub-goers have now tried real ale and cider, this August at Earls Court will be an exciting time for brewers to come together and champion our national drink.”

At Waitrose, sales of bottled ciders and ales have risen 30% year on year as customers are trying out new producers. We have a fantastically rich heritage of cider makers and people seem to want to reach out and try local and national ciders.

View all the listed ciders and perries available at this years GBBF.

Further links:

London Food and Drink

Off 23rd April 2010

Want some fine food to go with your real cider?

Then get along the Real Food Festival at Earls court in London, from 7-10th May 2010.

If you are lucky you could even meet Daisy the cow to the festival so you can see live milking demos and have a go at turning her. Nice.

Book online and use our promo code to get £2 off tickets use Code TH30T50T

Real food and drink every weekend at Borough Market, London

Even if you are not in the area for this foodie event of the year, then head to Borough Market, near London bridge where on a friday and saturday you can enjoy a fine combination of market and street food gourmet style.

Take a look at our slideshow to see where we headed, yes the cider bar run by New Forest Cider. Definitely recommended :)

Slideshow of New Forest Cider stall at Borough Market

For more photos there is a Borough market flickr group.

London cider pub of the year

3 Comments 23rd October 2009

The Wenlock Arms has been awarded CAMRA’s London Cider Pub of the Year .

This pub is a real drinkers pub, nothing too posh, just proper well kept beer and more importantly cider.

Ian White, CAMRA’s London Cider and Perry Coordinator, said the pub has a continual commitment to cider.

He added: “Cider has been making a real comeback of late but the real stuff is still difficult to find. Most pubs only sell keg cider. The Wenlock has stocked real cider for over a decade and this award is given in reflection of this.”

The Wenlock Arms, London

The pub, in Wenlock Street, Angel, also runs an annual beer and cider festival in conjunction with the local North London Branch of CAMRA during a cider and perry month in October. This gives locals a chance to taste something different and see why CAMRA is making such a fuss about the real stuff.

The Wenlock Arms is a traditional corner pub, which takes its name from the defunct Wenlock Brewery that was once nearby. It’s also famous for its doorstop sandwiches that help soak up its cider and its extensive range of real ales.

When I visited they were recovering from a 3 day beer festival where they had 3 real ciders on. The cellar man said that had ‘gone down well’, and also ‘that there were 15 people waiting outside at opening time!’. Both good signs that real cider is getting the attention is rightly deserves, putting cider firmly on the map in the capital. Bringing attention to the producers and enjoyment of a traditionally crafted drink.

On a normal day you will find Thatchers Gold Cider and maybe a barrel left over from a festival (which I did). There is no food apart from sandwiches and pasties, a good sign that it’s all about the drinking.

Congratulations to all the staff on the Wenlock!

View our list of Cider pubs in London, or Google map of London pubs.