What Wales Is Best At

Today is St David's Day, the national day of Wales. Being part of the British Isles it has a tradition of brewing real ales. In fact two breweries still exist which started production in the 1800's. Brains, and Felinfoel, both from the more industrial Southern half of the country.

Brains flagship mild has won silver once and bronze twice in the Champion Beer Of Britain Competition while Felinfoel has its place in British beer folklore, being the first brewery from these isles to sell beer from a can; a dispense method which people were very sceptical would take on.

Some decent microbreweries have started up in the last few years; notable ones being Jolly, Otley, Kingstone and the sadly short lived Bryn Cyf. However for me the best drink being produced in Wales at the minute is fruit based.

Both cider and perry is enjoying a real revival in Wales. The Welsh Cider and Perry Society has its own website which is in the throws of being replaced, but on which at the moment a good deal of information about the many outstanding producers can be found. We are lucky in that Welsh cider and perry is quite common at our better beer festivals so you don't have to dig out your Welsh/English dictionary to find somewhere to drink it.

Producers I would particularly recommend are Gwynt y Ddraig who do a large range of ciders most of which are bottled, but whose perry is without question the nicest perry I have ever tasted, Troggi another excellent perry producer, and Seidr Dai who have a prolific range of both ciders and perries.

Don't forget to drink Welsh real ale, but do not overlook the ciders and perries; there's some great stuff out there.

Fancy A Pint Of Cider For 26p?

Well you are too late and will now have to pay the astronomical 34p a pint. Supermarket chain Sainsburys have been forced to withdraw their cheapest cider brand from the offer of buy three bottles and get a fourth one free. The cider has the most basic of packaging and presumably the most basic of flavours, but it will still get you drunk.

To me 34p a pint is far too cheap anyway, but is not as bad as the 44 pence for a litre of lager I reported on in November.

Selling alcohol this cheaply does promote drunkenness, or at least bring it closer to people's level of affordability, but more importantly it is another nail in the coffin of the pub trade which is losing establishments at a fast rate of knots.

It's worrying that Sainsbury's feel the need to do this at a time when they are announcing their own beer awards. Clearly they have a schizophrenic outlook on alcohol sales.

Magners Light - I Can Hardly Wait

Those wonderful people from Bulmers in Ireland are really spoiling us now. They are about to release a lower calorie version of their over ice cider Magners in the UK. It will be the same 4.5% alcohol by volume, but will have approximately 91 les calories per 330ml bottle. Allegedly it is already selling well in Ireland.

Regular readers will recall that I didn't think much to the ordinary version and I am quite sure that this 'light' version will be equally poor if not considerably worse.

We are promised that it will be available in Asda from October 1st. I will probably be setting up a sleeping bag outside the night before in anticipation.

Actually, thinking about it, isn't there another way of making Magners lower in calories? Just use extra ice!

Tonight, I Have Been Drinking Crap Cider

Yes, I've just drank a bottle of Magners Original Irish Cider, and I didn't have it over ice. I'm not sure if the pixies might come and take me away, or if i might even be arrested, but I thought I would try it without any added frozen water. It was very very cold anyway and, as can be seen from the picture quite orange in colour. I was lucky to find one of the smaller bottles (330ml) on sale for £1. Can you believe this goes for nearly £3 for a 500ml bottle in pubs round here. Apart from its orangeness, the first thing that strikes you is the smell. Gosh it's artificial and bloody sweet. For every gram of apple there must be ten grams of chemicals. It's really offensive to the nose. I have to admit though that it gets better from then. Although the taste is sweet and it's heavily carbonated it's not too bad. It's quite smooth, no nasty harsh flavours at all, and the fruitiness is quite acceptable. In short, it's safe. It's a bit lowest common denominator, and I can see why it has such widespread appeal. Hell I might even be encouraged to drink this again on a very hot day, for it is refreshing.

Apparently sales have decreased quite a lot this year. The horrendous weather has been blamed, and I can believe that would have had some effect, but I also think the "over ice cider" phenomenon was always likely to take a step backwards in much the same way alcopops did. I wonder what will be the next big thing?