Cider Week 2024 - Cider Session 1 in Rye

I've been looking forward to a few ciders for a change, and it being British Cider Week (blog), with the Rye Waterworks micropub (website) providing my first few ciders of the week. If you know nothing about the Rye Waterworks (above), and the building's 300 years history, please read this blog I wrote soon after the pub opened 6 years ago, oh yes, and the address is Tower Street (corner with Rope Walk), Rye, East Sussex TN31 7AT.

I started with the Biddenden (website) Biddies Kentish Kiss (5.0%), a pale rose blush coloured cider, with a natural sparkle, that I had never had before. This is a medium cider, created from apples with a 'slight red blush' on the skin and 'rosy coloured flesh' with the apples pressed and fermented on site at Biddendens in Kent, and 'very easy to drink' I noted.

My second was the excellent cider portrayed in the photograph above, as you can see, pale and very clear, the 5.8% Earl's Reserve Still Cider, made from Russet apples grown on their own 100 acre farm in Matfield, near Tonbridge in Kent, where they've been growing apples since 1964, that is Charrington's (website). What can I say, crisp and refreshing, with a dry finish and so easy to drink, now this is what apple juice should taste like! 😉

I finished off with East Sussex Perryhill (website) 6.9% Double Vision Dry Cider, they sell 2 versions at the same strength, this one a "crisp dry" cider, and a Double Vision Medium Cider. Anyway, I have written about this before (blog) and it remains pale, complex, and dry, almost sour, like being back in Devon again at Ye Olde Cider Bar in Newton Abbot (blog)! 

More to come in my next blog, cheers! 🍻

Not to mention Cask Conditioned Ale, cheers!

I recently posted a blog about ale, cider and perry delivery initiatives around Britain, and elsewhere a blog about similar but specifically closer to where I live in Hastings. Indeed, last Friday I had delivered by the jolly crew of The Jolly Fisherman (website) Alfred, Becky and Oliver (respectful social distancing), 2 litres of genuine cask conditioned ale, a luxury indeed!

The cask ale, you will have gathered from the image immediately above, was the Kent-based Iron Pier (website) 3.9% Long Ferry, described as an 'easy-drinking dry-hopped golden ale' which I shall disagree with a smidgeon...  It is certainly 'easy-drinking' cannot argue with that, very drinkable indeed, however, it was a wee bit darker than one would expect from the description, I'd written down pale copper colour, and for a style of ale I noted it as tasting like a "very good traditional best bitter, light and refreshing!" Anyway, much enjoyed...

Oh yes, and also delivered were 2 litres of a genuine real Perry, from Bartestree Cider Co (website), their 7.0% Taynton Squash, made from a specialized single Perry Pear, believe it or not, the Taynton Squash. 😉 Apparently (see, I do undertake a wee bit of research other than just drinking beers, ciders and perries), a highly rated Perry Pear going back to the 17th century, so drinking a real bit of history too. So, what was it like?

Well, I'm not a great expert on ciders and perries, but I know what I like, and I've drunk some rough stuff in my time, particularly when I lived down in Devon and sourced from local farms, or went to the Cider Bar in Newton Abbot, which is a great experience, please do read the blog regarding this award winning bar! What was it like, get on with it Steve!?! (Too much time alone in this 'lockdown' is encouraging me to talk to myself 😮) Well, I've ordered another 2 litres to be delivered this week, which lets on that I liked it, but then I do tend to prefer perries to ciders, not always though, but they tend to be more dry and bitter, like the ales I tend to drink. Yes, it's dry and bitter/sour, with that more subtle pear flavour that you get rather than the more robust flavours of apples in cider, very more-ish, cheers!

And cask ales being delivered from The Jolly Fisherman this week are local, from Gun Brewery (website) Project Babylon, a 4.6% APA that is vegan friendly, and from Pig & Porter (website) a 4.0% Blackbird Stout which I would imagine is also vegan friendly, knowing their beers, and a stout. You can guess what I've already ordered, or just wait until I write about it/them... If you live down here in Hastings, go to the website to order for this Friday delivery, and they provide keg beers, bottled beers and ciders, wine, well, look at their website for more detail.

If you don't live down here, check in your own locality for suppliers, or I provide some ideas in a recent blog, anyway, good searching and drinking, and cheers!

Ye Olde Cider Bar, Newton Abbot

"Ye Olde Cider Bar?!?" I hear you question, "but you write about real ales and pubs, and sometimes brewing, Steve." Indeed I do, but I'm writing this blog for a number of reasons, not least, because I used to visit the Cider Bar quite a bit in my youth, though I haven't been there for getting on for about 25 years now... Also, they've just won the award of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) National Cider Pub of the Year!

Ye Olde Cider Bar is at 99 East Street in Newton Abbot, Devon TQ12 2LD (tel: 01626 354221), which I first visited in about 1978 with an ex-girlfriend, Teri, and two friends, who are still together and still living in Newton Abbot, Steve and Jude, who we were visiting after making friends with them on a holiday to Austria. I visited Steve and Jude many times before moving to Devon to train in Mental Health with Exeter Health Authority in 1985, obviously nipping into the Cider Bar every now and then, and also when visiting Newton Abbot races in the 1990s. Though Steve, Jude and I have met up in Exeter more recently, I do need to visit Newton Abbot again, soon.

As you can see, many ciders are sold, and straight from the barrel too, which has changed over the years. When I first visited in the 1970s, they had 3 ciders from handpumps, a dry, sweet and medium, that cost 25p a pint, no spirits or beers, but fruit wines and mead, I'm guessing it's sold as a honey wine, and they do still sell mead and fruit wines, plus ciders (though many more!) and perries, and I note from their facebook page "a few selected spirits" are sold now, and it is believed to be one of the "four remaining cider houses in the UK." 

My first impression, at lunchtime I believe, was of a small bar (it has been enlarged since) with a number of small older men seated around the edges, each with big red noses, which is more like a description of me now! The dry cider tasted to me of apple flavoured white spirit, not that I've ever tasted white spirit, but proper cider was new to me, the sweet was like sweet apple flavoured spirit, and the medium, well, I could happily drink that at the time, though I am obviously an ale man, I do enjoy drinking cider from time to time, though I do prefer a good perry. 

By the late 1980s, Julie (ex-wife who I met in Exeter, no, that's not us in the photograph!) and I regularly were travelling over from Exeter on the train, often with friends, and you should have seen the state of some people returning to Exeter after enjoying the delights of Newton Abbot, though not us, of course! The bar was bigger, there were still the 3 'rough' ciders, and a collection of keg stuff too. By now, if not drinking the medium cider, we sometimes drank the dry with a lemonade top, how things change over the years. Indeed they don't appear to sell 'keg' anymore.

So who are the two people in the photograph? Well they are Kim Leonard and Jonathan McCool, who have been running Ye Olde Cider Bar for just 2 years now, and have already won the prestigious CAMRA award, so congratulations to the both of them!

I have borrowed images from CAMRA and Devon Life, many thanks.