London Cider Co Rooster, at The Pembury Tavern

It’s always a relief when Friday evening arrives, it’s certainly my favourite time of the year. I’m on my way to the Pembury again, on this warm evening, to meet a friend and I find it’s not very busy with plenty of room. At the bar, I’m debating whether to have the WGF Hunt Devonshire, or the London Cider Company’s Rooster. While I’m deciding, a young lady approaches the bar, and we have the ‘you first,’ ‘no, you first,’ ‘no, you first’… conversation. It’s nice to know people still have manners. As I’ve tried Hunt’s before, I decide on a Rooster and find a table by the window. My friend is running late, so I can have some quality time with my cider.

The Rooster is 5% cider with a rich, fruity smell. It is flat, and has a warm taste, a little bit toffee, a little bit sherry, but actually very dry, not sweet at all, and to me, it tastes a bit watery. As I sip it, I start to detect some kind of boiled vegetable in there, but I can’t put my finger on which one. It’s advertised as a sweet cider, by the Watford-based London Cider Co

The Pembury is still strangely quiet tonight. I look around my fellow customers, which makes me feel better that I have more hair than the guy opposite who has a seat on the express coach to Combover City. £5. One way. I decide to choose from the menu, there are many interesting recipes. However, I’ll wait for my friend before I order, so I don’t look like a greedy bastard. A pleasant chap comes over to me, peering behind me, and tells me he’s looking for science fiction fantasy. I’m about to reply that I ain’t no Barbarella, then I turn round and see he’s looking at the selection of books available; Red Dwarf, Ratha’s Creature, Cool Runnings…

The name, Rooster, harks of a farmyard-grown bruiser, but as I pick a barfly out of my pint, I’m thinking that the Rooster is not really strutting his stuff today. Instead, he’s left his farmstead, headed for London, found a quiet little flat in a leafy street, invited round some Guardian readers for a vegetable casserole, and then read some Terry Pratchet, but he still retains a bit of his West Country accent, has long hair and wears a leather wasitcoat on weekends.

A nice, civilised cider for those who don’t like it too sweet, but it’s not gonna win a cock fight.

2/5

 

Hallets Traditional at the Pembury

I’m still at The Pembury Tavern, now one of my favourite cidering holes, it has stared up Amhurst Road for 128 years. It probably remembers when this was all fields.

Checking out the info on their website, I see they have biannual booze-fests. I intend to find out more about this, as a normal day at the Pemb, seems like a beer and cider fest, in this pub, so a festival would be a riot of real ales and ciders! They also allow pets, and don’t play music, though I can’t say I’ve noticed as it’s always buzzing and certainly loud enough. I always secretly pleased when there’s no music to drown out the high-brow discussions of my drinking buddies, and I don’t have to cup my hands over my ears to hear what’s said. Secretly pleased, as I’m sure it must be cooler to enjoy pubs with loud music. Perhaps I’m getting old, or going deaf.

This is a top pub, for a real cider lover. There’s always two real ciders on draft here. Tonight, following a Green Valley cider, I’m going for the Hallets Traditional. Though it has a slightly more prefessional tap sign, that’s no indication of a better cider. Indeed, the hand-written tap signs are quite exciting, suggesting that all the tap is hooked up to is a fruity old barrel of some barely legal, bumpkin moonshine.

After the strong Green Valley (8.2%), Hallet’s has a cool taste. Bit of a blue smell, like a fresh toilet. However, after a while, I start getting a more treacly taste, and the more I drink, the more treacly it gets! Like a sticky toffee pudding. Like me, it seems to become more acceptable with time. Or maybe my taste buds are failing as well as my hearing.

My ciderkick’s acquaintance tells me that people used to pee in cider. After an internet investigation into this, I can only find details of how cider stops you peeing or how it stops cats peeing in your garden. Phew, no wazz in me scrumpy, then. However, it may be possble that the wee has the same effect as the meat in cider, offering the yeast extra nitrogen for fermentation process. I suspect the acquaintance is just a  gobshite.

I find out that Hallets is the same as Blaengawney, made at the Blaengawney farm near Caerphilly, South Wales. It seems the sweetness of the cider is due to their use of the traditional method of keeving. Ah, the old ways are the best. Saying that, I’m looking at a chap who looks like he should be younger then me, but has the whiskers and attire of a man of three score years and ten. It’s not even fancy dress. Well, at least all the anti-oxidants in these real ciders will keep my face looking young, and my liver looking preserved.

My medication reminder starts beeping, I turn down my hearing aid, and totter out of the Pembury, slip into my power assisted chair, and swerve up the street home, waving my stick and shouting incomprehensively, at rapscallions high on punk-rock.

Verdict 4/5

 

Green Valley Vintage at the Pembury

from greenvalleycyder.co.uk

I’ve been hanging out all day, in a Chelmsford shed, pretending to be Welsh. I eventually arrive home, and I’m considering going out to the pub, when I receive a photo of a scrumpy tap. That’s my cue to go meet a ciderkick who’s back from snowboarding and getting lashed in the pub.

Within fifteen minutes I’m back at the Pembury. This is becoming my second living room, and the bread and butter of Cidersense material. Looking into the history of the pub, as you do, I find that this large pub was built in first opened in 1886, and after a fire in the mid 1990’s it was re-opened in 2006. I’m glad it did. It’s quite a big pub, I wonder what’s upstairs.

My ciderkick has kindly chosen a cider for me, and has it ready at the table when I arrive. It’s an 8.3% Green Valley Vintage. Flat and room temperature, this cider smells like a proper scrumpy. Something of silage, and haystacks about it. It’s a paint stripper, but a fruity one. It’s almost dusty-dry, with a good bite. Just like slowly crashing a combine harvester into an old barn.

After discussing various injuries and deaths on the snow slopes, I decide that I will check out the Milton Keynes snow experience before I go sledging on a  placcy bag, again. Then the topic of alcohol content comes up, as the Green Valley’s 8.3% sounds a little worrying. Someone once told me, (his uncle owned a cider orchard), that the maximum legal content for a cider is 8.4, before it’s taxable as a wine. I wonder if there’s a market for apple wine. Having checked on HMRC website, it looks like you have to pay an extra £100 duty per hectolitre of cider of 8.5% alcohol or more, which is probably why it never reaches more that strength. Remember all those extra-strength ciders as a student, like Blue Ocean, White Lightning, K cider? (I did collect many of the limited edition K bottles, one is even still full!)

Green Valley Cyder is a Devon cyder, their website tells us all about the way they make cider and how cider originated in the Mediterranean. Green Valley is cyder with a Y, and I wonder Y there’s a picture of a bloke having a poo in a bucket on the homepage. Having a pre-ordered pint has thrown me off my routine, and I’ve failed to take a photo, so I posted the pic of the man pooping apples. A full flavoured cider, on the edge of the law.

Verdict 4/5

Traditional London at the Pembury

I’m back at the Pembury Tavern, It’s a gem of a place, and always has two new, real ciders each time I visit. It’s a cold night, and I start off with a mulled cider, which comes in a lovely little glass mug. I’ve been wanting to have a mulled cider night for some time, so I need to gather some recipe ideas. This one is quite sweet, like honey. And there’s a bit of ginger in there, too! Hmm, nice. Well, that’s the obligatory mulled cider done. Unfortunately, you have to drink mulled stuff quick, cos it’s not that nice when cold.

So, back to the bar, and I see The London Cider Co Traditional is on draft. I take a glass of this back to the table. It’s dark. Very dark. Like an old wooden chest. And I can’t see through the murky haze. Leaning over this mysterious brew, I brace myself for a smell of musty old wood. But there’s no smell. Not the slightest hint of Barbie’s head or barge toilet, though my ciderkick thinks it looks like wazz after a whole week of boozing.

I take a sip. It’s flat. It’s dry. The dryness strips my tongue, but apart from a slight taste of apples, there’s nothing. This is the most inoffensive cider I’ve ever tried, even more so than Magners. Despite it’s dryness and intriguing colour, it’s not such a strong cider at 4.2%.

I can’t find out much about the London Cider company, but I assume it’s a company based in London, that makes cider.It feels quite Christmassy, probably the dark red colour, and as I continue, the cider gets more of a sweet, fruity smell. Maybe it needs space in the glass for the aromas to circulate, but I’m warming to this cider, as the old wooden chest begins to reveal the little gems, hidden within. In fact, by the end of the glass, I even like it.

I wonder what it would be like mulled.

Verdict: 3/5

Old Bike at the Pembury

It’s Design Week, which is where people in square glasses and perennial scarves, mooch around looking interested in shiny things, while trying to drink as much free booze as possible. I arrive at a swanky, disturbingly white showroom with my dirty old cycle bag and jeans. I descend the white stairs to the white basement, say hello to the host and head straight for the bar. As you’d expect at a swanky do, they don’t got no scrumpy. The day will come. Until then, I opt for a champagne

Fortunately, I have a designer accomplice and we proceed to wander round, sitting on all the very expensive furniture, without spilling any champagne. Friendly waiters in black, presumably so people can see them against the whiteness, circulate with narrow trays of dark brown things and rows of cherry tomatoes on kebab sticks. I wonder how much it costs to have a tray of very expensive crumbs, and how much it would cost instead, to have a tray of warm cheese and onion pasties for the punters. Now THAT would be a canapé. The day will come.

The booze is disappearing and the party draws to a close. I know there’s some friends celebrating a birthday at the Pembury Tavern in Hackney. I mount my trusty steed and brave the boy racers and minicabs and wheel through the roadworks of London. Inside the Pembury, I’m looking forward to what new gems are on offer. The Pembury always seem to have two new ciders each time I visit. I really should visit more. They do nice food, too.

There are two new ciders, but I only notice one -the appropriate ‘Old Bike’ cider. Check out the quality tap sign, lovingly drawn by the Pembury staff. While waiting, a local tells me that this isn’t Dalston, but Lower Clapton, and the adjacent development have changed the postcode and renamed the square after the pub, in order to increase the house prices, and flog ’em to people in square glasses who want to be where it’s at, (The Pembury’s where it’s at). I make sympathetic noises, and eventually escape, wondering if the pub will soon be full of those folks who pretend they’re designers, dress like Dexy’s Midnight Runners and talk too loudly.

Some research on the old Bike cider shows this to be a Hereford cider, 5.8% and this Grenet Moyle variety cider seems to be the sole cider of Old Bike. It’s a strong golden colour, flat, filtered and does smell very tangy with a lot of sweetness. The taste is equally as bold, seems like a lot of bitter and a lot of sweet at the same time, like a concentrated Aspalls. Perhaps it’s called Old Bike as it can’t quite make it’s mind up which way it’s going to go, but after getting used to the lumpy seat, it’s a pleasant ride (and downhill all the way).

I photograph the cider at the table with the lone birthday card in the background, featuring a cartoon dog, that looks like Gene Hackman, sitting next to a tiny cartoon dog. Weird.

I’m intrigued by the nose on this one, as I sip away, I start to smell things like tar, paint, nail varnish remover and orange juice. However, my ciderkick can only smell Barbie’s heads. It’s not the Bianchi of ciders, more like an old Raleigh; a few spots of rust, but it has character and a very loud bell!

After a second, my wheels start to get wobbly and I think it best to return to base with the Cidermobile.

Verdict: 3.5/5