Cider Voice

It's the 44th episode of Cider Voice and in Albert's absence thanks to his exciting new role we have a huge question: do we finally have a 13th listener? To celebrate we're joined by whisky writer and new Cider Review contributor Beatrix Swanson . Bea talks to Justin and Adam about growing up in Germany's apfelwein country and how she joined the cider community. We extol the virtues of the bagnum...

Well, it's another Albertless episode, but that doesn't hold Justin and Adam back from interviewing the once and future Cider Critic James Finch of Chapel Sider and Cider Review fame! They discuss Chapel Sider's origin and future, James' love of orchards, and the vicissitudes of cider writing and advocacy, along with a bit of a retrospective on Cider Review and how it came about. Not to mention th...

With the whole CV team back together again we thought about doing an earnest and serious conversation about apple and pear varieties. But with all the sport on we changed our mind and turned it into a knockout tournament to discover the greatest (British) cider apple or perry pear of them all.  Pitting 32 contenders against each other, Adam tasks Justin and Albert with finding the ultimate. Thorn...

In this episode Justin and Adam demand the finest ciders available to humanity and they want them here and they want them now, so who better to speak to than Felix Nash, founder of the Fine Cider Company. We talk the 10-year development of Fine Cider, the ways Felix has found to bring restaurants round to the concept, parallels with and differences to fine wine, the new Fine Cider Shop in London a...

With Adam still MIA, Justin and Albert make it all the way to the top, sitting down with the godfather of aspirational cider, Mr Tom Oliver @ tomoliverscider . Drawing on Tom's wealth of knowledge and abundant wit we chat adventures in America, ordering everything on the menu and the increasing importance of aspirational cider on keg. As a kindred Herefordshire cidermaker Albert and Tom compare no...

Absolute cider royalty comes to the pod this week as Justin and Albert are joined by Alison Taffs, head honcho at multi-award-winning might-as-well-keep-the-trophy cider pub The Hop Inn. We talk about Alison and Justin's shared background as drama students at Mountview, and how that armed them to become tasting host extraordinaires, we touch on managing alcohol intake when working in the drinks in...

In the latest instalment of 'Seminal Ciders' Adam catches up with someone who's been writing about cider even longer than he has – Natalia of @ciderexplorer. Based in Germany, Natalia's been covering the continental cider scene since 2017, shining a light on central European cider cultures as well as countries whose cider doesn't always get a spotlight. We talk about the cider that got her started...

Albert and Adam sit down to chat with Gabe Cook aka The Ciderologist on everything from his origins in the cider world, to the state of bittersweet cider, to education in cider and perry and the way forward. Part trip down memory lane and part assessment of the current British cider scene. Join Gabe's substack: https://theciderologist.substack.com/ Sign up for the Certified Cider Professional Prog...

Albert’s away again so it all goes off the rails – Adam’s distracted by how good a cider is and Justin’s gone for a sauna. But then we rein it back in and chat about Justin’s first experience leading a cider and perry tasting – ‘an introduction to Herefordshire.’ We talk what he served, what he learned, preferences and preconceptions and and Gin Pear/Cookie Dough Affogato. Planning a tasting with...

For the third instalment of our 'this is your life, but in cider' series, Adam finally stops just talking to co-hosts and sits down with drinks writer Rachel Hendry ( @ratchellle ), who is definitely appearing in a full-length cider voice episode for the first time. With absolutely no technical hitches whatsoever we cover accidentally becoming an award-winning beer writer, the relationships betwee...

In the second part of our series on the drinks that shaped our journey in cider, it’s Albert’s turn to reveal the bottles that have most impacted him. Shockingly, three of them are Ross-on-Wye – though Albert didn't actually press the apples in any of them, though he helped bottle and shape the latter two. Even more shockingly however, two of the ciders aren’t Ross-on-Wye's at all! In this episode...

In our new episode we finally sit down and get properly technical (ish) thanks to Laurence Cocking, former winemaker now cidermaker extraordinaire at @ littlepomona . In other news, we get an earth-shattering four emails from listeners – and it turns out we’ve had one of them since February. Justin and Adam refuse to skip the banal bit. Laurence brings traditional method know how, ably supported b...

This time, Justin, Adam and Albert go on a walk through the complex world of bittersweet (and bittersharp) cider. Armed with questions, praise and a few fairly satisfactory answers, our earnest trio attempt to define dryness, get technical about tannins, try to figure out polyphenols, and ponder the platonic ideal of corner shop snack pairings... with only a mere couple of digressions about punts...

The team debriefs after a truly epic craftcon. We try to choose favourite moments – from Albert’s grey face to Justin’s journey home to Adam pretending to understand the science of tannins. We celebrate the marvellous positivity, dynamism and curiosity that craftcon instils in the British – and Italian! – cider communities, and we deviate seamlessly into a discussion of ourpomona.org, and the ways...

In this mini-episode Adam runs out of both co-hosts and synonyms for superlatives as he sits down to chat with two of the pod's best friends, Helen Anne Smith and Rachel Hendry of Burum Collective. We talk through their newly-launched collaboration ciders with Little Pomona: what they are, why they were made, what the process was and how come one of them just wouldn't sparkle? Along the way we tou...

Adam has written a book! It’s called Perry: A Drinker’s Guide (guess what it’s about), and it’s out at the start of May. So in this episode we’re indulging him by chatting all about it. Why write a book about perry? How did it all come together? What were the challenges and surprises? And who wrote that AMAZING foreword? Meanwhile Justin is on his own mission for perry. Listen out for crunching so...

With Albert back in the fold and Justin finally having picked his ciders up from his friend's house we journey back in time into cider's murky past via a fantastic conversation with Elizabeth Pimblett of the Cider Museum – no, Museum of Cider! We learn about cider in the Civil War, Bulmers Pomagne, the hidden history of women in cider, riots and crystal glassware, and along the way dig into archer...

What are the ciders that have shaped the way you look at the drink, and possibly changed your life? In this episode, Albert hands the pod keys to Justin and Adam, who sit down to answer this very question. In the process they discuss their seminal ciders and perries, with only a moderate number of seismic conversational segues to discuss mid-20th century Japanese cinema, what you’d top up a Raison...

Today we take another massive step on our ‘cider with food’ adventure as we jet off (not literally, guttingly) to the Basque Country for a chat with Haritz Rodriguez, the cider artist best known as @Ciderzale . With a mere several segues for conversations about scurvy, neolithic wheat harvesting and the proper looms for making 16th century sails, we learn about one of the world’s greatest cider cu...

In our mini episode for this week, Justin gets back at Adam for being muscled out of the last episode, to sit down with Albert as they two talk about group cider tastings. Justin has been planning a tasting to host with his friends, and we talk about why that's a good idea and how you think about formatting your tasting! Find out Albert's one simple trick to always have an amazing time in a cider...

*Albert won’t be talking about bittersweets* In this new episode you get a break from food content, because the UK’s number one aspirational cider convention – Craftcon – is steaming towards us on April 5th and 6th and Albert and Adam can’t wait. To tell you all about this brilliant event and why you should buy a ticket whether maker, advocate, seller or drinker, we sit down digitally with Lydia a...

For your slice of pod today we continue our season’s cider and food theme. This time we’ve got baking in our sights as we sit down with an old friend of Adam’s, who just happens to own and run one of the most wonderful bakeries in London – Laura Almond of Beaten By a Whisker We talk about how BBAW went from a roadside honesty box to its beautiful new home in Walthamstow, chatting plant-based-bakin...

Albert and Adam, ably assisted by stand-in producer Norman, catch up about their recent trip to Portland, Oregon, to fulfil a long-held dream of attending CiderCon and speaking on a panel. What did they learn, what did they taste, what were their highlights and can Norman resist thrashing the tug of war toy about for 15 minutes? Only one way to find out. Albert makes cider @RossCider Adam writes a...

Our new year's resolution for 2024 is to double down on 'cider with food' content. With limited skill and dangerous enthusiasm, we turned to a proper professional to put us on the path to gastronomic glory.   Fliss Freeborn is a Fortnum & Mason Award-winning food writer, the brains behind the blog Student Cuisine for the Gloomy Teen (Jay Rayner-endorsed, no less) and the Amused Bouche  newslet...

In this episode we go up in the world as we’re privileged to talk to Michelle McGrath, CEO of the American Cider Association. We talk about her 8 year tenure and how the American cider industry has changed in that time, then get into apples, approaches and, most of all, the inspirational and epic annual event that is CiderCon – which Albert and Adam are both attending and speaking at for the first...