It's been nearly three years since my last post on this blog. Whaddaya mean you hadn't noticed!... With the award-winning Rockingham Forest Cider micro-business mothballed for the foreseeable future, it seemed to me there was little that hasn't been said before, or is being said bigger and better elsewhere, to warrant blogging just for the sake of it. So generally speaking I don't, and I won't. So it takes something truly special, something new and inspiring for me fire up the Blogger page, try and remember the password, and put index fingers to keyboard in the name of cider and perry.
Turns out Nottingham Robin Hood Beer & Cider Festival is that special thing. A highlight of the October drinking calendar for several years now, but in a shiny new 'inside/outside' venue for 2018. Thankfully the cider bar remains unspoilt by this necessary progress, featuring as it does the same awe-inspiring range of truly 'real' ciders and perrys that we've come to expect from probably the finest festival cider bar in the country, maybe even the world! No concentrate concoctions, no fruity cordial pseudo-ciders, and absolutely no Rockingham Forest Cider neither! Whilst we do have substantial stocks of cider and perry 'resting' in the ciderhouse, it's all reserved for personal consumption these days. We couldn't sell any of it even if we wanted to, which frankly we don't, so that's alright then. But I have to say that when it comes to the annual Nottingham jamboree, it's a great shame, because this is one of only a handful of cider bars that we've always felt proud to be a tiny part of...
So the festival has moved. Not very far geographically, but by the best part of a thousand years in time! From the historical grounds of Nottingham Castle, a site first occupied around the time of the Battle of Hastings, to a brand-spankingly newish arena where the battles are generally confined to the rough and tumble of ice hockey and comedy wrestling. The impressively appointed and bewilderingly named Motorpoint Arena.
Now here's an admission, and quite a big one at that in the context of this post! Despite ample evidence to the contrary on this blog and elsewhere, I'm not, as it happens, the greatest fan of the beer festival experience [pauses for gasps]. In fact I rarely visit them unless there's a 'very' good reason. Don't get me wrong, I know that at their best, beer festivals can be a rollicking good day of social drinking, great music, and excruciating queues for the toilets, and I'm certainly not here to talk down the experience. I've lived and loved CAMRA festivals as much as, if not more than most, but in recent years my tastes have changed.
When it comes to drinking beer, I've very little interest in the kind of wide and wild variety that's de rigueur at all but the smallest festivals these days. I just want one that I like, and more often than not I want it in the convivial comfort of a well-run pub rather than a hall full of barrels and comedy t-shirts. I've not so much kicked the festival habit, as gone full circle and ended up back where I started, the pub. From a peak of maybe a dozen or more festivals a year, eagerly anticipated and thoroughly, sometimes overenthusiastically enjoyed, I'm down to just two, and one of those is more for the social side than anything else. Nottingham is a bit different though...
The cider bar at the Nottingham festival has for some years now been truly a site to behold. Huge! Huge I tell you! Carefully and lovingly curated by a tight-knit team of knowledgeable enthusiasts (left - artists impression), the choice on offer is really quite staggering, and with the added value that to the best of their knowledge, it's all very much the 'real' thing. Which is to say there has always been an insistence that the ciders and perries exhibited at Nottingham are as traditionally made and un-mucked about with as possible. This is a massive attraction for me, and in truth, the Nottingham Festival now represents one of the very few occasions where I'll happily spend the day drinking ciders and perries exclusively, such is the difficulty finding a range of drier pure-juice styles in pubs locally, and even at many beer festivals.
Another major draw for cider enthusiasts like myself is the burgeoning range of East Midlands produced ciders and perries, a range which has grown from what seemed an impressive number at the first Castle festival (right), to almost 70 varieties from 25 producers this year. That's a festival in its own right, and I look forward to trying this years award winners, albeit with a trembly bottom lip given that we've enjoyed a little bit of success in competition ourselves back in the day...
I'm hoping to meet up with some fully active cidermakers in the new 'Cider Barn' area of the festival, and your long wait for a post on this blog will be rewarded in time-honoured public transport fashion, by two coming along at once. I'll be taking my camera and trusty dictaphone along, and recording the whole shiny new event, with a particular emphasis on the cider, for posterity and your reading pleasure.
Footnote: For those of you who think there may be a typo in the title of this post, ask your parents...
Turns out Nottingham Robin Hood Beer & Cider Festival is that special thing. A highlight of the October drinking calendar for several years now, but in a shiny new 'inside/outside' venue for 2018. Thankfully the cider bar remains unspoilt by this necessary progress, featuring as it does the same awe-inspiring range of truly 'real' ciders and perrys that we've come to expect from probably the finest festival cider bar in the country, maybe even the world! No concentrate concoctions, no fruity cordial pseudo-ciders, and absolutely no Rockingham Forest Cider neither! Whilst we do have substantial stocks of cider and perry 'resting' in the ciderhouse, it's all reserved for personal consumption these days. We couldn't sell any of it even if we wanted to, which frankly we don't, so that's alright then. But I have to say that when it comes to the annual Nottingham jamboree, it's a great shame, because this is one of only a handful of cider bars that we've always felt proud to be a tiny part of...
So the festival has moved. Not very far geographically, but by the best part of a thousand years in time! From the historical grounds of Nottingham Castle, a site first occupied around the time of the Battle of Hastings, to a brand-spankingly newish arena where the battles are generally confined to the rough and tumble of ice hockey and comedy wrestling. The impressively appointed and bewilderingly named Motorpoint Arena.
When it comes to drinking beer, I've very little interest in the kind of wide and wild variety that's de rigueur at all but the smallest festivals these days. I just want one that I like, and more often than not I want it in the convivial comfort of a well-run pub rather than a hall full of barrels and comedy t-shirts. I've not so much kicked the festival habit, as gone full circle and ended up back where I started, the pub. From a peak of maybe a dozen or more festivals a year, eagerly anticipated and thoroughly, sometimes overenthusiastically enjoyed, I'm down to just two, and one of those is more for the social side than anything else. Nottingham is a bit different though...
I'm hoping to meet up with some fully active cidermakers in the new 'Cider Barn' area of the festival, and your long wait for a post on this blog will be rewarded in time-honoured public transport fashion, by two coming along at once. I'll be taking my camera and trusty dictaphone along, and recording the whole shiny new event, with a particular emphasis on the cider, for posterity and your reading pleasure.
Footnote: For those of you who think there may be a typo in the title of this post, ask your parents...
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