Moving on to the next cider I tried at the Great British Beer Festival, I come to something a little more risky. Whilst very traditional, pressing juice through straw is one of those things that that vast majority of makers avoid like the plague - not simply because the world has gone health and safety mad, but also because it must increase the chance of things that you don't want in a cider getting in.
Saying that though, if you want to taste cider like they did 'in the old days', then straw pressed cider must be one of the ways of achieving that. Looking at Brimblecombes website, they appear to be cidermaking farmers in the real sense - operating with old equipment and keeping the old 'ways' alive in their use of ancient cider press and wooden barrels.
This one is either going to be lovely or odd.
Its quite a hazy cider, though aren't any bits of straw flaoting in it (Okay, that was a joke - there wouldn't be, would there!). It smells fairly deep, although reasonably faint (though I confess that this could just be because I was in the middle of a festival and didn't concentrate sufficiently!)
To taste, I have to say I think the straw does make a difference. Whilt being more dry than the grading of medium dry (which is done by GBBF in any case), it is a very mellow cider. It is all cider fruit again, with very little acid to offset the drying in the mouth. The tannins are bvery rounded and don't impose too far though, and I think this is the affect of the traditional method of production, which is much slower than the modern mill-it, press-it all in a short time.
I really like this cider. It has a loooong aftertaste which just sits in the mouth nicely.
So far, so good. A score of 83/100 gives the GBBF suppliers another silver apple.
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