Hereford - A Mini-Guide

Perry is still very much on-trend in this house. As indeed cider would be if I could just pull my finger out and get some of the Rockingham Forest 2016 vintage bottled-up. Tedious domestic circumstances have conspired against any ciderhouse work recently, so I've been relying on 'guest' ciders and perries from near and far to see me through, more of which later. But enough of this dull domesticity, I felt a mini-break in the heart of ciderland was long overdue. So where exactly is the heart of ciderland?

Well for one week only, the Nottingham Beer, Cider & Perry Festival is where it's at, everyone knows that! But despite England and Wales having a truly world-class reputation for traditional cider and perry, particularly in its current 'revived' state, it's my experience that no 'one' place truly fulfils the role as a 'centre of excellence' for actually drinking the stuff. I think I know this because I've been looking long and hard at the subject for the best part of 40 years. In that time I've come across some truly excellent pubs that specialise in cider and perry, a good few producers of the drink that welcome visitors, and a handful of museums with good local displays on the subject. But it's all rather dispersed, the majority of pubs even in the west country and three counties have either no truly crafted cider or perry on the bar, or at best a token national 'brand' that's hardly worth travelling for.

Of all the towns in England and Wales, Hereford might be regarded as something of a shoe-in for a cider and perry based mini-break. It's certainly not always been this way. I've been holidaying in Hereford for 30 years or more, and I can say with some qualification that the choice on offer has often been unbelievably poor for a city that prides itself on being at the centre of an orchard county, a county literally steeped in the traditions of cider and perry making. So have things improved in 2019? Well, yes and no...

I've found in recent years that whilst there's certainly a better choice on offer, with plenty of new and enthusiastic producers in the county, there are still precious few places you can actually drink their fine produce in. And whilst it might be argued that as far as top-quality craft cider and perry is concerned, we've never had it so good, what hasn't changed is that you really need to know where to find it, otherwise you'd really never know! Hence this little guide-ette to the best that I could find in January 2019.

Alongside the current excitement around 'craft' beer, it's largely the smaller, newer bars and micropubs that are driving interest in the very best ciders and perries. Micropub Beer In Hand has been open for a few years now, and is already something of an established fixture in the town. A highly regarded venue with a reputation built mostly around the excellent beer offering, but with a cider and perry board (above) that's without a doubt the best in town. Standout for me was the range from local perry specialist Oliver's of Ocle Pychard, of which I tried one or three over the course of the weekend, most memorable of which was the...

Oliver's At The Hop #8 (5.5%)

Hop-infused ciders were pioneered by Tom Oliver, the first example I tried being one of his hopped ciders back in 2014. I have to say I found interesting but slightly unconvincing. Five years later I was still waiting to be convinced when, like buses, two absolute stunners came along at once, and both from the originator, Tom Oliver. First-up a Cascade & Kazbech hopped Cider which was to die for. Then this Simcoe infused perry, literally the bottle that convinced me the future may well be lightly-hopped.

At The Hop #8 is a solidly medium perry, but in that nice frothy-fizzy sherbety way that’s refreshing without being cloying. There’s a fresh grassiness in the nose, a rich honey sweetness, zestiness, some grown-up mouth-puckering tannin, and here come the hops... a very subtle new-world aroma citrus hoppiness that blends beautifully with the perry rather than dominating it. Lovely!

I partnered this with Pizza and an impromptu traditional music session, because that's just the way the evening was going...

The Hereford Beer House has been open since 2015, but still seems very 'new' to me. It's a very welcome addition to the Hereford beer scene. Every town should have a craft beer specialist like this, in fact most do now, such is the appeal of aroma hops and eyeball-popping can designs! The beer house also features a very respectable cider and perry range from some of the very best Herefordshire producers. I started with a couple of excellent draught ciders from Olivers and Gregg's Pit , but settled on something from the small but comprehensive bottled range.

Ross-On-Wye Moorcroft & Bartestree Squash Perry 6.5%

Ross Cider & Perry has been my go-to producer for 20 years or more, and I highly recommend a visit to their pub and shop, the Yew Tree in Peterstow village. I first tried their Bartestree Squash Perry at an early Leicester CAMRA Beer Festival, a rare treat then, as indeed it is now. Ross produce what must be the widest range of single variety and blended ciders and perries in the world, and I'm more than happy to try any one of them whenever I get the chance. Many of their bottled ciders and perries are naturally conditioned, as this one is, and it really does make a difference. This one has a nice prickle of condition, a lingering off-dry sweetness, full-bodied, melon , a straightforward, quite robust perry.

The last time I was in Hereford was mid-Summer, and we found the Left Bank Village quite the funky enclave in an area of quite traditional boozers. Overlooking the wide expanse of the River Wye, the outdoor seating and fire pits attract a young crowd. Young by my standards of course! De Koffie Pot Café was the main attraction for me on what was a cold, wet evening. I like the place a lot, and can recommend the DKP Burger which I partnered with this bottle of organic perry.

I've been a big fan of Dunkertons ciders and perries since the late 80's when their classy corked and bottled drinks were relatively easy to find in the Delis and Wholefood shops of Leicester. In fact I used to always get a few cases in for the Leicester festival, something to take away, and if they didn't sell out, well I was happy to underwrite the stock. I still miss those early 'still' bottled ciders, but the current sparkling range is great too.

Dunkertons Organic Perry 6.9%

This bottle poured with a slight (reassuring) haziness, possibly the result of a slightly longer time in bottle as the current release of this perry is at 7.5%. It has a long, lingering medium sweetness with soft Elderflower and Melon, and some balancing acidity.

I really couldn't find anywhere else to drink good locally made pure-juice cider and perry in Hereford, which is still something of a surprise to me given the reputation the county has for this, our most traditional of drinks. If you're still hungry for more, as I was, and want to take home some of the best that Herefordshire (and the three counties) has to offer, I'd highly recommend a visit to the cidery jewel in Hereford's crown, the Museum of Cider (below), which I'll be coming back to with some pretty pictures in a forthcoming post.

Perry, And All That Jazz Pt.1 - Once Upon A Tree

I've been mulling-over a post about Perry for quite a while now. I've got an awful lot of the stuff in the ciderhouse at the moment, proper vintage perry made from top-quality Worcestershire grown perry pears. Perry that's turned out as good as anything I've made before, and we've been drinking quite a lot of it recently as well as cooking with it and giving a fair bit away. Which probably explains why it's been on my mind...

Green Horse Perry Pear

Perry at its very best is a drink that needs all the promotion it can get. It's a rare old drink that despite the continuing efforts of some world-class producers, and a handful of switched-on pundits and drinks journos, has singularly failed to ignite interest in the way that 'craft' beer and cider has in recent years. Of course there are compelling reasons why Perry may never achieve the profile that enthusiasts such as myself think it deserves. Perry pears are simply not grown on a commercial scale these days. For the most part it's a small-scale 'artisan' passion, a tradition kept alive by the smaller commercial cider and perry makers and teeny-tiny enthusiasts like myself. Most of the fruit used by these small-scale producers comes from very old trees, often solitary behemoths dotted around the old farms of the Three Counties area. Difficult to harvest, and some of these trees are literally hundreds of years old and hence approaching the twilight of their productive lives. Some new planting of Perry Pear trees is going on, but if Perry as a traditional high-quality drink is to survive, maybe even thrive in the future, a lot more needs to be done, and that means creating a demand for the drink that makes it a commercial proposition for growers and producers.

A bottle of vintage perry, yesterday.

So I was looking for maybe half a dozen good quality perries to eulogise about from the comfort of my own home. No dodgy commercial stuff, no Pear Cider, and for my taste, nothing too sweet. Perry has something of a reputation for sweetness. A reputation that can make it a difficult sell for some. Maybe it's memories of Babycham! More likely it's that too many producers 'do' have a tendency to over-sweeten their perries (and their ciders!), and 'far' too many festivals and pubs routinely shy away from the drier styles that do exist. Having said that, it's a fact that some perries do finish fermenting with a degree of sweetness. That's because many pears have quite high levels of non-fermentable Sorbitol in their makeup. My own perry has a touch more natural sweetness than I'd like if I'm absolutely honest, but it's certainly not 'sweet'.

So, I just wanted some good perries to help demonstrate the variety and quality that's on offer. To show what most people are undoubtedly missing. Well that proved to be much easier said than done!

When you make your own, and therefore have hundreds of litres to hand at the turn of a tap, you forget just how difficult it is to get hold of proper pure-juice Perry outside of the Three Counties area. In fact for some people I'd imagine it's not so much a difficult task as an impossible one. If you fall into this category, the answer is of course the 21st century miracle of online sales, of which there are several offering a good range of perries. I resorted to the tried-and-tested method of 'going-west' in search of the best that the Three Counties can offer, and tapping friends and colleagues up for a few freebies of course...

Once Upon A Tree - Medium Dry Herefordshire Perry (5%)
So where exactly 'is' the centre of the cider and perry making tradition? A question that's vexed me for several hours now, and one guaranteed to rouse fierce debate amongst those who care about these things. Which is of course why I ask...

Putley and the Marcle Ridge area of Herefordshire could certainly lay claim to the title (if there were one), located as it is within a dense forest of old and new orchard plantings centred on the regional giant, Westons of Much Marcle. Home to the annual Big Apple cider and perry trials jamboree, which is a gathering place for some of the finest producers in the business, a significant handful of which harvest and squeeze their fruit locally.

Simon Day of Once Upon A Tree is one such local producer. A winemaker by trade, he's been building an enviable reputation for his fine ciders and perries since establishing the company in 2008. I got in early, supplying his draught Tumpy Ground cider to the Raunds Beer Festival back in 2011. Once Upon A Tree ciders and perries are some of the more easily found in the Three Counties area, their bottles a relatively common sight in delis and farm shops which is where I got mine from. In Warwick!

This perry is a bit of a sparkler, pouring (from a great height) clear and significantly less sparkling, which is how I like it. It carries the Protected Geographical Indication label for Herefordshire Perry, ensuring the fruit was sourced entirely from the aforementioned county, and much else of a reassuring quality mark besides. Quite what will become of this PGI when we've dumped ourselves out of the EU is anyones guess, but given the absurd and frustrating regulations around cider in this country (practically anything goes so long as it's had an apple dipped in it at some point!), any promises of a UK replacement should probably be regarded with deep suspicion...

The perry is a rich, sweetish, medium-dry sipper, as befits a drink made from a high percentage of freshly pressed juice. I get ginger beer and barley sugar, Melon and citrus, and a slightly vinegary tinge that mellows to tongue-tingly sherbet. I've paired this zesty sparkling perry with the cool West Coast Jazz classic, Jazz Erotica by Richie Kamuca and friends (Jazz Track JT1024)*

More perries coming when I've drunk 'em…

*Music pairing for guidance only. Other styles and genres are available.

Harvest Home

2014 looks to be 'set fair' for us here at Rockingham Forest Cider. Bumper crops and full-to-brim tubs were the theme of this seasons cider and perry making. So now seems as good a time as ever to take stock of what we've achieved so far, a kind of show-and-tell in the virtual ciderhouse. So come with me through the pear-shaped window, for a tale of bumper crops, broken branches, and more Wasps than you can flail an arm at, in the first part of this years Ciderhouse News Round-up. Mostly via the medium of pretty pictures:

The 2013 Picking and Panking team take a well-earned rest on a pile of bagged-up Yarlington Mill cider apples. From left: Me, Him, Her, Ooh-arr!

This is one of the mighty Green Horse perry pear trees. A very good crop this year, so much so that it took a couple of days to harvest just this one tree. Sadly the weight of fruit and some high winds had already brought down a large branch, seen to the left in this pic.

Karen & Susan draw breath and adopt the classic 21st Century Orchard Posture, all Posh Wellies and Android Phones. This pile of Green Horse pears required 'Tumping' in the orchard, mainly because Ninny-Boy Mark didn't bring enough bags on this trip. Oops! By the time the whole Green Horse harvest were finally hauled home to press, they were ripe to the point of pressing themselves under their own weight in the van, resulting in a trail of pear juice and Wasps all the way from Evesham to the Welland Valley. The damn Wasps still haven't left...

This is the Kingston Black crop, with Green Horse tree in the background. I don't know why I've included this, we simply didn't have time to pick these tiny but tasty cider apples.

A reflective moment on the final visit to the orchard in November. Those of you skilled in the techniques of road accident forensics may already have spotted this particular near-miss in the muddy tracks. It was at this point, heavily laden with over a ton of Yarlington Mill, halfway up the sodden hill in the pouring rain, that the Van got well and truly stuck. But thanks to the man-skills of John the orchard owner (and a LWB Landrover) we managed to save to day and get the van, crop, and a gently sobbing me out of the orchard and home. Thanks John, every home should have one.

More Android Phone action. If a jobs worth doing, it's worth photographing and uploading to Twitter immediately.

I've called this image, 'Man With Buckets Of Apples'.

What it's all about. Yarlington Mill cider apples, destined for a pint of Red Kite Cider.

Cider Barrel Half-Empty

This evenings blog post was supposed to be a lengthy treatise on the cidery delights of Tewkesbury, a town set in the very heart of Three Counties cider and perry country. Our trip to Tewkesbury was long overdue, the perrys need racking off, and we can't do that without a couple of new Food-Grade Blue Tubs. It's a little known fact that Tewkesbury is a good source of these tubs, and we hoped to 'add value' to the trip with a day out in the town.

I'd researched my subject well, and was reasonably sure that the unspoilt medieval charm of Tewkesbury would conceal a reasonable range of traditional Ye Olde Worlde Local Cyders, and maybe even some Fyne Glostershire Perries. Sadly, t'was not to be the case.

The Royal Hop Pole almost delivered the goods. A Westons cider and Wetherspoon newcomer Gwynt-Y-Ddraig Black Dragon Cider might seem to you a good result, but the fact is I could have stayed at home for these. The Nottingham Arms proved to be another Westons stronghold, nice but not what I was after. The Berkeley Arms promised cider, but there was none to be seen, and Tewkesbury newcomer Theoc House listed bottles of Archies Cotswold Cider, but didn't have any on my visit. To make matters worse, the only pub in town I was guaranteed cider of sorts, was the White Bear, but I ran out of time for this pub. In the world of Twitter, this is known as a #totalciderfail.

Never mind, in an attempt to salvage the day, I turned to retail therapy, which is something Tewkesbury excels at. So here's what I got:

At last! Proper Gloucestershire Cider from Severn Cider of Awre near Newnham. This is a pure juice medium cider, full flavoured, fruity, tannic, and beautifully rounded and smooth to drink. That Wine Place on the High Street also have ciders from Three Choirs Vineyard, Gwatkin, and Lyne Down Farm. Thank heavens for that!

This weighty tome would certainly have been considered 'modern' in 1956 when it was first published, but there's still plenty in here of relevance to the fruit grower and orchardist today. It's got some nice pictures in it too.

This little scrumpy-swilling fella came with a 50p price tag, and will take pride of place amongst my collection of jars and jugs in the ciderhouse. I've decided to call him 'Little Ray', for no particular reason...

We've also got the aforementioned Blue Tubs, so next weekend I'll be racking the perries, and needless to say blogging about the experience here.

Ciderhouse News-ette

With our cidermaking over for another year, and pleasant days spent harvesting in the Cotswolds but a distant memory, it's nice to sit back with a pint of something appropriate and read all about it from the comfort of home. We're nothing if not self-absorbed.

Not content with cluttering up this Blog with our torpid adventures, we also like to graffiti other peoples online space. So I was delighted when the obliging folk of the Shakespeare Branch of CAMRA kindly allowed us a full colour page in their lovely newsletter Shakesbeer to document a day in search of Real Cider in the tourist hot-spot of Broadway during this years harvest. You can read all about it by following this link (We're on page 18, but there's plenty of other good reads too):

http://www.shakespearecamra.org.uk/pdf/Shakesbeer_Issue47_Winter_2011.pdf

Cider Apples Are Go...

It's been a very productive weekend in the orchard...

Shaking down the very large crop of Yarlington Mill cider apples. Five of the seven trees are cropping heavily this year, though sadly some of the the trees have suffered as a result. The very dry conditions seem to have made the wood drier and less flexible and the very heavy crops and high winds have caused several large branches to break under the strain.

By the time we finish harvesting all the Yarlington Mill trees, we will have approaching 100 of these bags of apples to transport home. It will then be a couple of weeks or more before they have fully matured and are ready to press. Despite the large quantity of these 'vintage quality' bittersweet cider apples, it remains to be seen how much juice they'll actually yield, since the apples seem rather light in weight to us this year.

The Aylestone picking team take a well earned rest at the Crown & Trumpet after a hard day in the orchard. The illumination around Susan head is not an optical effect, that really is a Halo. Susan capped her performance on Sunday with a difficult perry pear picking session today.

Pubs We Like - The Plough, Prestbury

The perry pear harvest is now almost done for us, and there's a slight lull before the cider apples are fully ripe and ready. This gives us a great opportunity to behave like proper Cotswold tourists and go stare at the locals in some of our favourite pubs.

The Crown & Trumpet in Broadway continues to act as our temporary 'local' during the cidermaking season, with Gwatkin Silly Ewe Cider my 'pint-of-the-usual'. The other nice thing about the Crown & Trumpet is the way it seems to attract Morris Dancers and their brightly coloured ilk from literally miles around. The mighty Morris Federation recently held their AGM at the nearby Morris Stronghold of the Fleece, Bretforton. Never ones to miss the opportunity of fine ale and cider, the massed sides of the Federation descended on Broadway to shake bells, bash staffs, and generally make getting served at the bar a bloomin' nightmare. Nice work from all the dancers on the day, and it doesn't end there. Next weekend sees Adlington Morris on their (seemingly) annual tour of the Cotswolds, and they'll be dancing at the Crown & Trumpet during the Saturday lunchtime session. Hmm! Tempting...

Another favourite of ours is The Plough in the well-appointed village of Prestbury near Cheltenham. I say well-appointed, the village is lucky to have at least two truly outstanding pubs, the Royal Oak being the one which usually draws the plaudits, and for good reason. They hold an annual Cider & Cheese festival in August, what more need I say...

The Plough is more of a village secret, tucked away as it is on a tiny back road opposite the church. A thatched and beautifully unspoilt village local which has a little of the feel of a rural ciderhouse. Real ales are stillaged behind the bar, with handpumped ciders from Westons of Much Marcle. I went for the Wye Valley HPA myself but the locals appear to prefer the ciders. There's a nice orchard beer garden for the Summer, and a real fire in the bar for when the ice and snow comes. I could easily see myself losing an afternoon in the cosy confines of The Plough, so it's really just as well I'm not allowed to!

Ciders on handpump, Beer from the cask

Back on the Green Horse

Green Horse - One of the few!

One of the good things about harvesting fruit from a truly mixed orchard, is that for every tree having an 'off' year and bearing little or no fruit, there's likely to be something else fully turned 'on' as it were. It's not good for consistency, but it means there's always something to press.

There are two Green Horse perry pear trees in Johns 'Far Orchard', one of which has cropped very heavily for us for the last couple of years. The other tree is tucked away in the corner, close to a row of conifers which compete for water and nutrients, consequently it's never had much of a crop on it. This year, Green Horse is having an 'off' year, which means instead of the usual half a ton or more of fruit, we've got barely four sacks of pears to play with. To fill our press we need something like seven sacks of fruit, so there will be no single variety Green Horse Perry for the 2012 season. A great shame as its one of my favourite perrys, even more so because its specific gravity came out at a whopping 1.064, up from 1.050 last year. I guess this is down to a combination of factors, including the dry Summer, optimum ripeness (these pears really needed pressing today), and the paucity of the crop.

To fill the press, and go most of the way towards filling a large fermenter, we pressed the sharp Green Horse pears with a few sacks of another more tannin rich perry pear (another whopping gravity of 1.068). This will be topped up tomorrow with a vigorously fermenting 25 litres of Blakeney Red from last weekends pressing session, making a three pear blend which will hopefully taste great, and won't be as lumpy as our last blending experiment.

The weekend harvest included our first few sacks of apples from one of two Blenheim Orange trees we'll be using to produce a nice sharp blending cider. This will be used for much needed acidity, and as a fermenting starter for the Yarlington Mill and Vilberie apples later in the season. There's perhaps one more perry pear pressing session ahead (Red Longdon is having an 'on' year), then it's full steam ahead with the cidermaking.

Blakeney Red - Yields Down, Gravity Up

Our Perry merry-making continues. This time it's the Blakeney Red pears that need our attention. The orchard has (or had) three Blakeney Red trees, good annual croppers, and more compact than the huge old Malvern Hills trees making them so much easier to harvest.

Sadly, as with many of the trees in this elderly orchard, the Blakeneys are not in the best of health. In fact one of the three trees appears to have given up the ghost this year. We've noticed die-back on the odd branch before, not necessarily a fatal situation, but the whole tree now appears to be either dead, or having a very serious rest! I think that an already struggling tree may have been pushed over the edge by the extremely dry Summer we've had this year. John will be leaving the tree in for the time being, just in case it shows a spectacular recovery next year...

So, only two trees harvested, which is a great shame as the Blakeney Red Perry was probably our most popular drink this year. Even so, we've come home with a similar quantity of pears to the Malvern Hills, and managed to press almost 50 gallons of juice from them, which is a little less than last year. I think the pears were close to a peak of ripeness. Larger than usual, mainly yellow and still quite firm, but perhaps not as juicy as the Malvern Hills. The sugar levels are similarly high, with a very respectable specific gravity of 1.060, the highest we've recorded for Blakeney Red by a long way. It's that dry Summer again I think.

A quick scan of the orchard revealed that the Green Horse perry pears are almost ready for harvest, once again around 1-2 weeks earlier than last year, so we'll be hard at it again this weekend.

Perry Pear Day at Hartpury Orchard Centre

It's been a hell of a weekend of perry making action already, and we've still got pressing to do. Meanwhile, here's a few images from this years Perry Pear Day at the Orchard Centre in Hartpury, Gloucestershire. Exhibitors included the Gloucestershire Orchard Group, Charles Martell, Albert Rixen and friends, Out of the Orchard Cider & Perry, plus many other food and orchard related stalls.


What it's all about. A world record 90 varieties of Perry Pear on display, presided over by perry pear expert Jim Chapman. Jim couldn't make the event last year, so I was delighted to meet him this time around, and deliver my small collection of unknown perry pear varieties for identification.



Workhorse of the world, a Lister Junior powers the Scratter for the vintage pressing demonstration



Levelling out the Perry Pear pomace on the vintage Workman Press.

  

Charles Martell, accompanied by Britains youngest distiller George Lewis, presented their new 'Owler Pear Spirit in the afternoon sunshine. I can confirm that it's very nice indeed, and despite being a little pricey for a young spirit, I've now secured a bottle for future enjoyment.



Gloucester Cattle crop the grass in the recently planted Perry Pear orchard.



The Goodnature Squeezebox Press in action



Perry Pears. All types, prior to washing and sorting.



Building the Cheese on the vintage Workman & Sons press. The pressing demo proceeded at a leisurely pace, interrupted by lunch breaks, downpours and the odd sample of last years vintage. Just as it should be.

 

Washing and sorting perry pears the 'hand-raulic' way, much as we do at home.



Time for a Swift One

In between the arduous task of harvesting a trailer load of perry pears, and the equally hard graft of milling and pressing them, I managed to find time for a mini cider crawl in the tourist hot-spot of Broadway. All work and no play as they say...

First a refreshing Cup'O'Tea, kindly supplied by the owner of the orchard we'd been bending our backs in for the last few hours. While we chatted, Johns wife dug out a few old photos of the cidermaking from back when my Voran press was still under warranty. It's good to see these old photos, which feature a spectacularly quiff'd John, his father the original cidermaker, and Ted, an old boy from the village, milling and pressing in the ciderhouse as it's always been done. It's represents a nice bit of continuity as we're now using the same press, and harvesting the same orchard as John was over 20 years ago, and his father before him. With Johns permission I'd like to reproduce a few of these on the Blog some time.

Tea refreshes up to a point, but real thirst requires something a bit stronger, so into the village for a pint of Hogans Draught Cider at the Horse & Hound, our usual lunchtime refreshment venue when working in the orchard. This pub is also handy for several top quality charity shops, so something for the ladies too.

Onwards to the smart and bustling Swan Hotel. Always busy it seems, and very popular with thirsty tourists. I retired to the patio with a pint of Aspalls Draught Cider, a great vantage point to watch the world crawl by whilst basking in what may well prove to be the last of the Summer sunshine. Beer options here include the excellent Purity Brewery Pure UBU, which is what I'll usually have when I'm not drinking cider.

My final destination was the ultra-cosy Crown & Trumpet, tucked away off the main drag and all the better for it. Popular with visitors to the village, but still a proper locals pub, and always very welcoming even when busy.

The beers are generally all from local brewers, including Cotswold Spring, Stroud, and Stanaway, but I was here for the local ciders. Hogans Draught Cider is a long standing regular, but occasionally during the Summer there's also something from Gwatkin of Herefordshire. The bottled cider and perry in the fridge were a little too sweet for my taste, but on handpump was a fresh barrel of Silly Ewe, a new-ish dry cider from Gwatkin. Properly dry, and surprisingly full-flavoured for a cider of only 4.5%.

There's much to admire in the Crown & Trumpet, not least the unusual range of traditional pub games on offer, which apparently include Evesham Quoits (otherwise known as Dobbers!), Devil among the Tailors, and the rarity shown in this picture, Ring the Bull. Perhaps not quite as sophisticated as our beloved Northants Table Skittles, but a game of some skill nonetheless. It definitely warrants a return visit in the hope of catching a competitive game in full flow. At the very least it's a chance to try more good ciders in one of our favourite Cotswold pubs.