2011 Leicester CAMRA Beer Festival

'Holy Mackerel', it's only Nineteen Sleeps until the 2011 Leicester Beer Festival opens its doors. Put another way, that's only twelve working days, or a measly three weekends, only one of which features Six Nations Rugby. It's come around so quickly again! I've not even thought about how I'll be getting there, or more importantly, how on earth I'll get home again! I've got absolutely nothing to wear!

Thankfully for those of you thinking of going to this great festival, the organising committee are well on top of all the little things that need organising, as well as the larger things, such as Beer, Curry, and of course the Cider and Perry.

Thanks to our 'Mole' on the cider bar, a few juicy bits of information are starting to trickle out with regards to the ciders and perrys which will be available. Here at Rockingham Forest Cider, we are nothing if not indiscreet, so here's the current Scrattings from inside the cider bar:

• New local Leicestershire cidermakers, Charnwood Cider, will be sending a box of their Medium Cider, possibly the first showing for this producer at a CAMRA beer festival.

• Our friends in the north, Ray & Gail of Torkard Cider have boxed-up a fresh young Floppy Tabs for the festival, which will be Medium, and somewhere around 6% abv. The term Floppy Tabs is apparently 'Northern-Speak' for when a Border Collie has had too much strong cider and its ears go all wonky! or something...

• There will be more local Leicestershire cider from Farmer Fear of Mountsorrel. Their Thirsty Farmer Cider is usually only available as Medium, but hard bargaining from cider bar manageress Susan has resulted in the procurement of a tub of naturally Dry cider too. Nice work Sue.

• Exotic foreign cider enthusiasts can look forward to a consignment of Cambridgeshire's finest from Pickled Pig Cider, including Sweet Little Pig, a cider containing a high proportion of Cox apples. Don't worry, I'm assured that no pigs are used in the production of these ciders!... except for the final bit where the dry pomace is fed to pigs... obviously!

• We'll be sending the last of our 2009 vintage, a Vilberie Medium Cider (6%), and a Malvern Hills Perry (8%), but we won't be drinking any of it! That would be silly, we've got loads of it at home...

• You've got even less time to plan for the Loughborough CAMRA Beer Festival, which starts on the 3rd of March. The cider and perry list is now up, looks a little too sweet for my taste, but has local interest with East Midlands Cider from Three Cats of Derbyshire.

Local Ciders for Local People

Is this the largest range of East Midlands Ciders and Perries ever assembled in one place? Probably, but even seven producers is less than half  the total now producing locally. These are the bottles I'll be taking to a talk and tasting session for Rutland CAMRA at the Plough, Greetham this week. More details of these and other East Mids producers can be found in a new leaflet, available to download here from the Nottingham CAMRA website. It is hoped that an even wider range of local ciders and perries will be available at the Nottingham CAMRA Beer Festival in October.

L-R: Skidbrooke Cyder, Spalding Scrumpy, Roundhead Cider, Rockingham Forest Cider & Perry, Torkard Floppy Tabs Cider, Beeches Cider, Marron Pear Cider

Ciderhouse News - February

'Ahoy There!' It's very nearly the time when the good ship Rockingham Forest Cider weighs anchor, and sets sail on the choppy waters of the 2011 Beer Festival season. It's been a long, cold winter in dry dock, but we've not been idle. The barnacles have been scraped off the barrels, we're fully provisioned, and ready to cruise the highways and bye ways of the East Midlands and beyond. There'll be a cider in every port, and hopefully a girl in every cider. Yo-Ho-Ho! Shiver me Timbers! and that's quite enough nautical nonsense I think.

First up is bijou northern event, the Hucknall Beer Festival, opening its doors this weekend, and featuring all that's local and best in ale, ciders, and well-filled Cobs (that's Crusty Rolls to our more southern readers). There'll be local Torkard Cider, and we've sent along the very last box of our 2009 Rockingham Forest Cider (7%), and another of Malvern Hills Perry (8%). There's a Farmers Market on the Friday, live music on Saturday evening, and I've been assured there's absolutely no restrictions on the wearing of Flat Caps at this event, so go along and fill yer (Hobnail) boots.

Further on down the line is the annual Leicester CAMRA Beer, Cider & Curry Jamboree. Same venue, similar huge range of quality real ales, ciders and perrys. We're aiming to send barrels of Malvern Hills Perry and a sweetish Vilberie Cider, and we've been assured by bar manageress 'Zoider Zusan' that there'll be other local ciders available, including a smooth Torkard number, a Thirsty Farmer, and something rare and fruity from new boys on the block, Charnwood Cider. The full cider and perry list will be 'broken' here, just as soon as we've persuaded Sue to give it to us before anyone else....

I figured it might be a good idea to get some practice in ahead of

all this festival activity, with a short trip to the Slug & Lettuce Beer Festival in downtown Leicester. Not a huge selection of ciders to be honest, but it was nice to see the range included something a little different to the usual from Orchard Pig of Somerset, and full-bodied organic Devon cider from Heron Valley. The ciders provided a bit of welcome interest in the flat ocean of Irish/Italian rugby mediocrity. We appear to be back at sea!

My Perfect Tart!

Our carefully stored mountain of Bramley Apples shows little sign of diminishing. They've stored very well in the cool of the porch, free from frost damage and cheeky nibbling mice. Almost every day we're forced to convene a short brainstorming session, wracking our brains to think of what else we can use them for before they finally succumb to rot and the compost bin.

I've written before about the 'Holy Trinity' of apples, pastry and custard. A simple, perfect combination, and one we're loath to mess with too much. On this occasion, I broke my own golden rule, and risked contamination with a little pinch of spice. I'm usually a strict fundamentalist on this point. Cinnamon, No! Cloves, Absolutely Not! Nutmeg..... well, maybe just this once.

So, Bramley Apple Custard Tart it is then, with just a hint of Nutmeg because I'm equally hardcore about custard tarts. This recipe has come along at just the right time for us, what with the glut of rapidly deteriorating Bramleys, and a similar mountain of eggs from the ever reliable Rockingham Forest Cider Hens.

Line a deepish Flan Dish with Shortcrust Pastry (it doesn't have to be sweet), and blind bake at 180C until just cooked. Meanwhile, peel, core and chop a couple of medium sized Bramley Apples, and cook to a puree with a drop of water and sugar to taste. When the flan and apple puree have cooled a little, spread the puree onto the base of the flan.

Heat 400ml of Double Cream along with 50g of Golden Caster Sugar and a Vanilla flavouring of your choice. Vanilla Essence would be fine, but I used 25g of Vanilla Sugar, made up to the 50g with Golden Caster Sugar. Bring just to the boil and remove from the heat for a few minutes. Lightly beat 3 Large Egg Yolks with 1 Whole Egg, before whisking into the Cream. Pour the custard mix into the flan, dust with a little Nutmeg, and bake for an hour at 170C until the custard is cooked but still wobbly.

Quite one of the most delicious things I've ever put in my mouth, and that's saying something!

2011 - The Year of Perry

All that sampling of perrys on Friday gave me a bit of a thirst. As luck would have it, it was a thirst for more Perry!

One of the great advantages of making your own perry, is that should you get a craving for a glass, there's usually a bottle or two to hand. Good quality cider is now easier to find than ever (albeit mostly over-sweetened and overly commercial in style), but good perry is still as rare as hens teeth outside of its homeland of the Three Counties and Welsh Borders. The supermarket offerings are generally very poor, mostly Pear Ciders as opposed to anything truly Perry-ish. Waitrose Stores are probably your best bet for finding decent perry. They usually have the reliable, half decent, Westons Perry (and the Pear Cider too for some reason!), as well as their own-brand Waitrose Perry (which is probably also by Westons). But if you're really lucky, you'll find the truly excellent Dunkertons Organic Perry, and of course many of our local Waitrose stores are now selling the very fine Hogans Vintage Perry. Allan Hogan has now started to export his ciders and perry to the USA. I just hope our transatlantic cousins don't get too much of a taste for his perry, there's only so much to go round!

Which brings me to our own dwindling stocks of perry. We ran out of our delicate and delicious Blakeney Red Perry way back in the Summer (note to self: must bottle more Blakeney this year), and the rather nice 'Mystery Perry' is long gone (there's really no mystery where that went!). Which leaves us with a small cache of Malvern Hills, bottled and maturing nicely in the ciderhouse, and the last couple of bottles of Green Horse Perry.

Dusty from the pantry, the Green Horse poured with the same opaque, pearly colouring it had when it went in the bottle. Green Horse is one of those pear varieties that produce a naturally hazy perry, resolutely refusing to clear, not for me, not for anyone. For my taste, we really can't make enough of this perry. It's a real Summer refresher. Sharper than the other perrys, with a delicious juicy citrus flavour. Perhaps a little too thin for a true Single Variety perry, but distinctive and delicious nevertheless. It also goes very well with food.

I'll be taking some of this along to an East Midlands cider and perry tasting which I'm running for members of Rutland CAMRA. The last of the draught Malvern Hills will be making an appearance at the forthcoming Hucknall, and Leicester beer festivals (details on the right), and from there on in, our new-season perrys will be available throughout the Summer.

I'm on a mission to sample as many delicious perrys as I can find this year. It's too rare and special not to, so why not join me, and make 2011 your 'Year of Perry' too.