Peterborough Perry Festival

Well that was a wet one. The rain fell without break from the moment I alighted at Peterborough bus station, until our belated delivery of cider to the Red Lion back home in Middleton several hours later. As the waters rose, and the slightly bored food vendors sank into the mud, our merry band clung tenaciously to the Cider & Perry Bar (enter festival, first on the right).

It's rare indeed to find a festival so well stocked with decent Perrys that the Ciders don't even get a look in. I'm pretty fussy in my drinking, and if there's not enough tubs of genuinely Dry or Medium/Dry on offer, I'll resort to the worthy-but-dull offerings of the Malt'n'Hop variety. No such problems here. By my (slightly addled) reckoning, I tried 8 different Perrys, none of which were too sweet, along with a few sips begged from other peoples glasses along the way. Worthy of mention were a Moorcroft from Malvern Magic, Greggs Pitt Aylton Red & Blakeney Blend, and the Ross-on-Wye Cider & Perry Co, all from Herefordshire. But the pick of the bunch for me was a properly dry Springherne Perry, also from Ross-on-Wye, and the surprise winner was New Forest Perry, from well outside the traditional Perry making area, in deepest Hampshire. Juicy, well balanced, some tannin and a little Rum if my senses don't deceive me.

Here's a few pics from the festival:










Bar staff were friendly and efficient, moving far too fast to catch on camera

Stillages groaning under the weight of all the ciders I didn't get a chance to try

CAMRA supports Real Cider & Perry. Paul merely supports his glass of Cider

Torkard Cider's Ray Blockley adopts a typical 'Northern' pose whilst surveying a Red Lion Beer & Cider Festival poster

Oh! Almost forgot. Freeth stepped on a Guide Dog. Sadly no pictures are available...

Two Birds, One Egg

It's been a day of high emotion at Cider HQ today. Chucky-Egg, the newest member of the Rockingham Forest Cider Flock, officialy came of age today, laying her very first, perfect little egg. Well done Chucky, you're truly a Hen now.

One down-side to the boost in egg production has been the relentless decimation of what was promising to be a very good grape crop. It's perhaps unfortunate that grapes are such toothsome, beak-size treats, made worse by Karens 'training' of the hens with Raisin-treats. These hens have a taste for grapes, and what they don't wolf down is soon polished off by the Wasps. I really must be more vigilant with the netting next year, and fingers crossed they never get the taste for apples!

Ciders We Like - Pts 1, 2, & 3

What could be better on a sunny Summer afternoon, than time spent sipping & sampling at a local pub Beer Festival. Not much I hear you say. Well how about if the promised beer festival only goes and turns out to be a bloomin' Cider Festival. Yay-Hay-Hay!

Top Leicester pub The Western had billed their latest weekend event a Summer Holiday Beer Festival. True, there were a few beers on offer, but a glance to the right will show that it was actually Cider & Perry that had the top billing. Result!

Not everything was worth travelling all the way to Leicester for, but there was just about enough to make the journey worthwhile. I found the Swallowfield Dabinett & Browns a very well balanced cider, as was the Penalt Capsy Wennet. The cider of the festival for me by a country mile was from Green Valley of Devon, a former CAMRA award winner, and on this form understandably so. A really deep, rich and juicy flavour, with just the right amount of Rum finish (subtle, not in-your-face). The sweetness is really well judged too, and not a bit cloying. Absolutely lovely stuff.

Talking of Rum finish, the cider I'm drinking now seems to me to have a bit of Rum spirit character, which is odd because as far as I know it isn't fermented or matured in spirit cask.

Ciderniks is a small-scale craft cidermaker based in leafy Berkshire. I picked up a bottle of their Combe Raider cider from White Dragon in Burton-on-Trent, and very good it is too. Fully dry, light in body, but quite full-flavoured in a West-Country way. There's a bit of 'Tang', and some pleasant 'woodiness', but it's the mysterious 'Rum' character that lingers longest on the tongue. So, is this cider showing a 'Bit of Spirit', or is it just 'A Rum-Do'?.... Oh I don't know! I'll get me coat...

Anyway, the Sipping & Sampling is about to get a whole lot more serious this week, with the arrival of the mighty-mighty Peterborough Beer Festival, just up the road in.... err, Peterborough. I'll be going tomorrow, meeting and greeting fellow cider drinkers (and cidermakers) from the three corners of the country, at what's considered by many to be one of the heavyweight champions of the cider bar world. More ciders and perrys than I can be bothered counting, all washed down with one of several 'Traditional Festival Downpours' booked for the day.

Yes, it's going to be a wet one with rain predicted throughout the day. Oh well, Cest-La-Vie. It's all under canvas anyway. I guess we can pretend we're propping up the bar at the Burrow Hill Cider Bus, knee-deep at that other notorious mudfest, Glastonbury Festival...... again!

Chickenout Free-range T-shirt Competition

Here's our modest contribution to Compassion in World Farming's Chickenout Free-range T-shirt Competition. These designs feature our lovely hen Dolly, who we sadly lost earlier this year.

We at Rockingham Forest Cider fully support the Chickenout campaign, and urge all our readers to buy higher welfare chicken and eggs whenever possible.

Red Lion Doin' The Do!

Life moves pretty slow in Middleton. It's a 'Northamptonshire Village' kind of thing. Months, sometimes years can pass by without so much as a whisper of a newsworthy event. We rarely stop to look around once in a while as there's very little to be missed, and generally speaking that's just how we like it...

...and then our village local the Red Lion go and spoil it all by announcing a Mini Beer & Cider Festival for the weekend of the 3rd - 5th of September. Bah!

It's going to be a bit of a 'fun' day apparently, with a Barn Dance, Live Music, Food, Real Ales, Real Cider & Perry. Well I ask you, where's the fun in that! I suppose we'll throw ourselves into it, gritting our teeth, sharing a beer or two, making the best of a bad job. To that end we've agreed to supply some of our own ciders and perrys for the event. Here's the provisional list:

Rockingham Forest Cider (Med/Dry)
Welland Valley Festival Special Cider (Medium)
Red Kite Cider (Medium)
Rockingham Forest Perry (Med/Dry)
Green Horse Perry (Medium)

Well there you have it. Some of that new-fangled 'fun' is coming to Middleton. Whatever will they think of next! Never fear, I confidently predict that normal service will have resumed by Monday.