AAARGH! Not my Darling, Alistair's gone too far with this 10% tax hike.
 
This savage taxation is fine for the big boys and the industrial ciders, but we are championing the farmhouse and artisan cider makers who make the fine products we sell. We don't want to see these fine artisans going out of business.
 
So let's get together to try to raise a head of steam why don't we?
 

Congratulations to Mike Johnson, proprietor of the Ross-on-Wye Cider and Perry company, for his well deserved achievement of CAMRA's Pomona award.

This award is given most years, but not all, to the person or persons, group or organisation who have done the most to promote real cider and perry during the previous 12 months, or for ongoing work.

I've spoken to both Severn Cider and Ross-on-Wye Cider recently and they both report a bumper crop of perry pears this year, so we can expect 2010 to be the year of perry.
 
Both of these producers are perry experts, so their beverages are bound to be in great demand.
 

Here's an interview from last December with martian from CiderPunk, on Radio Vague's "Sunday Roast" show. This was just after we met Roger Wilkins for the first time so he features heavily.
 
 
CiderPunk interview on Radio Vague

So you want to drink some of our fine artisan ciders but you're not sure you can manage a whole 5 litres, let alone 20 litres, or you just want to try before you buy?
 
Well we've just launched a new site to sell our ciders directly to the pub trade, so get down to your local pub and let them know about our new site http://CiderProvider.com where they can choose from over 20 different ciders and perries, delivered in our bag-in-box system which keeps it fresher than the poly barrels that pubs are used to dealing with.
 

If you've been following the Twitter feed, you might have noticed a little conversation between ourselves and @davecann regarding cider in Australia.
 
What happened was that Dave emailed us to ask whether we could send him some cider to his home in Australia. We checked the delivery cost to Aus and it was really off the scale, not really an option. He mentioned that he thought it was possible to find Weston's Stowford Press in Australia but he didn't know where.

I've just heard from Tom Oliver at Oliver's Cider that he picked up a few prizes at the Three Counties Show: Best in show, Best in Herefordshire and two first prizes for medium cider and for bottle-fermented cider.
 
Well done Tom! Customers wishing to buy some of Tom's prize winning cider can do so in our shop

The Big Apple Cider Trials took place in Putley over the May Bank Holiday weekend and Ross Cider and Perry Company were delighted with the results. Mike not only won first place with his medium dry cider, he was placed third with his dry perry and then judged overall cider champion.

Last week on the 23rd of April, Aardman Animation launched their own cider, "Aardcore", at the Orchard pub in Bristol. The Aardcore is none other than Ben Crossman's medium cider.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Thanks to a recent tour through Herefordshire and Gloucestershire, we've managed to line up a number of new cider producers, as well as introducing perry to the site for the first time.
 
Perry is unlike the "pear cider" you see everywhere these days - that is made from concentrate, whereas perry has to be made from at least 75% perry pears - it's a fantastic beverage and we're very pleased to have two of the finest perries we've ever tasted now available on the site.