I’ve had several people’s share of good luck so far this year, and the privilege continues this week as I make my way to Frankfurt to fulfil a long-held ambition to attend Cider World.

I’ve followed what I believe to be Europe’s largest cider event for some time now, principally through the diligent annual updates of cider’s continental correspondent, Natalia of Cider Explorer.   I got closest to visiting in 2020, thanks to the impeccable contacts of Susanna Forbes, but covid put paid to that, and I’ve always been busy since. But this year I’m lucky enough to have been invited to judge, so I’ll be hopping on a plane to Frankfurt where people can rightly raise their eyebrows at my amateur takes on whatever is put in front of us.

The wonderful thing about Cider World, besides the event itself, is that it sits slap bang in the middle of one of the world’s great cider regions – Hessen. And indeed the city itself is a true heartbeat of cider culture. Ever since I read World’s Best Ciders by Pete Brown. and Bill Bradshaw I’ve wanted to visit Sachsenhausen in Frankfurt and drink local apfelwein poured from bembels (beautifully decorated jugs) into gerripte (diamond-patterned highball-style glasses). 

The importance of cities in cider regions revelling in their local produce cannot, I think, be overstated. We’ve previously discussed the difference that urban cideries can make to getting cider in front of new and more diverse audiences. But even where the cider isn’t made in the city itself, an urban saturation of cider culture is probably the most important influencer of tastes and minds when it comes to the drink.

This has thrown itself into sharpest relief in my experience when I have drunk Basque Sagardoa in the bars and restaurants of San Sebastián. Though unquestionably second fiddle to beer and wine, every bar boasts at least one brand of full-juice cider and generally two or three. Sit outside with a handful of pintxos, cast an eye at the tables around you, and you’re guaranteed to see friends, couples or just people enjoying a quiet afternoon pouring themselves a couple of inches at a time into those idiosyncratic, wafer-thin glasses. Another notable absentee in my cider passport is Asturias, where even more cider is made, where urban cider bars are ubiquitous and where, consequently, more cider is drunk per capita than anywhere else in the world.

One of the sad ironies of the British cider scene is that, despite our unique scenario of cider technically being ubiquitous in pubs right across the country, there is no city that truly revels in and celebrates cider – all of cider, and the best of cider – all year round. Cities like Hereford and Exeter, in the heart of cider country, are thoroughly unexciting places for cider lovers; no better than anywhere else that offers Stowford Press or Strongbow, which is everywhere else. Bristol is a marginal step up, but still nothing to compare to Asturias or Frankfurt.

Where there are cider ‘destinations’ in the UK, these tend to be islands within a broadly disinterested sea. London has The Hop Inn and the London Cider House (and soon the Fine Cider Company’s shop/bar, which is tremendously exciting), and once upon a time it had Hawkes on the Bermondsey Beer Mile, as well as the much-missed Pilango, to which I would invariably wend my way back in the pre-pandemic days when I led Gabe Cook’s London Cider Tour. But in a city the size of London and spread right across the breadth of the city, these oases of cider barely register. Manchester, similarly, has been galvanised by the likes of Nicky Kong, Dick Withecombe and Cath Potter, and there are various gems like Aeble and the Hop Hideout scattered across the country. But there’s no individual venue to compare to, for instance, Cidrothèque in Brussels or The Place in Portland where in January I had – be still, my beating heart – pommeau on draught. Never mind a whole city that rejoices in cider as those European cider capitals do.

This is, let’s not beat about the bush, entirely the fault of cynical macro brands and brewery-owned pub chains, who over the last sixty years have virtually guaranteed that the general cider experience of the UK cider consumer is siloed as one of a dilute, low-juice, low-flavour bulk brand with as much influence of apple and orchard airbrushed from it as possible, wholly at the expense of full-juice, flavourful, aspirational makers. This isn’t to say that big brands can’t be enjoyed – obviously many people love them (I certainly used to) – but they don’t inspire devotion, celebration or excitement. I know plenty of people who travel to Herefordshire to visit cidermakers like Tom Oliver or the Johnsons at Ross-on-Wye, but no one, nationally or internationally, visits Hereford in search of great cider the way they might Prague or Munich or Brussels or Sheffield or Manchester for beer or the towns and cities around Bordeaux, Tuscany, Rioja, Santa Barbara and so on for wine. Cider in the UK is treated much the way that Tuesday is. We know it’s there, we live with its presence, but don’t expect many of us to get all that excited.

In the last few years there have been valiant attempts to stir up urban enthusiasm for cider. The aforementioned folk in Manchester, London and elsewhere. Herefordshire’s Applefest, returning for its third year; Bristol’s Cider Salon, returning for its 6th. This is what aspirational cider needs if it is to prosper, grow, and rouse itself from the slight malaise that I worry it seems to currently find itself in. More power to the elbows of those making it happen. The models are there; Germany and Spain are there – and as ever, a bit of peering over the international fence has a lot to commend it.

On which note, let’s get even more excited for Cider World by tasting a few Germany ciders. These, I’m afraid, are not from Hessen, but we can’t have everything. (We’ve actually reviewed very few ciders from Germany’s actual cider heartland, now I think on it, despite a modestly reasonable coverage of Germany more broadly). Instead they are from the excellent Manfred Böhm, who Barry met in detail here, and whose perries I was privileged to taste here. I’ve since been saddened to learn that those perries were tiny-batch experiments and that after a challenging 2023 Manfred’s concluded that perry might be too much trouble. Whilst I very much hope he’ll change his mind on the perry front, I’m glad to hear that he’s full steam ahead with cider, and excited to try my first trio of Böhm Ciderwerkstatt ciders today (which, in the usual spirit of disclosure, were sent to me free of charge).

I can’t possibly tell you more about Böhm than Manfred did himself in Barry’s excellent interview, so I shall confine myself to pointing you towards that with another link and simply noting that Manfred makes his cider from meadow orchards in the Hohenlohe region of Baden-Württemberg, near the wine region of Franken.

I’ve three to try, all from the 2022 vintage and from various blends of apples (and, in one case, quinces) detailed by Manfred on his website. 

First up is ‘Rot’, a semi-dry blend of French Renette, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Brettacher, Spice Hatch, Kaiser Wilhelm and ‘various bittersweet varieties’, listed as €9.50 a bottle.

Böhm Ciderwerkstatt Rot 2022 – review

How I served: Not too long out of the fridge

Appearance: Brass. Bright fizz

On the nose: You know what? Some ciders just smell like apples, and this is one of them. Ripe, juicy red apples – skins, flesh and all – offset by a little red berry and some clovey lignin spice. Super clean, super alluring, fresh, full, inviting nose (medium (+) in the romantic language of the SAT, if you like). It’s not super complex,  but you know what? That’s fine.

In the mouth: Follows through on delivery; a big, fresh, spotless mouthful of deep, juicy, ripe apple, lightly spiced; with its helping of sweetness beautifully offset by fresh acidity, cheerful mousse and a light, light brush of structural tannic crispness. Really just fantastically put together. Good blending, good making, good stuff.

In a nutshell: It’s a joy. A cider to kick your shoes off with. God, imagine if this was just how cider was as standard in pubs.

Next up is ‘Französische Eiche’ (French oak), though in this instance, rather than casks, the cider (a mix of different apples) was put ‘with French oak in a glass balloon’. Whether this means oak chips I’m not entirely certain, but I think we can assume so. €12.50 a bottle.

Böhm Ciderwerkstatt Französische Eiche 2022 – review

How I served: Half an hour out of the fridge

Appearance: Old gold. Still.

On the nose: Takes a moment to open up – don’t over-chill this, but it’s a lovely, complex creature when it does. (My sense is that it is at the very start of its life; might even be worth decanting!) Not too intense; a layer of polished wood and vanilla gently brushed over apple skin, blood orange and possibly dried grapefruit. One of those noses that is less lots of different and distinct things than one harmonious whole. Very concentrated. At the start of its journey.

In the mouth: Bursts into life on the palate; lovely, sinewy, very white wine-esque in its body and structure, if you’ll forgive a gross generalisation. A fuller but brighter style of white wine, I mean; less Chardonnay than Grüner Veltliner. The apples have some citrusy, sherbety, strawberry laces zing, a slatey minerality and, unusually for cider, a waft of almost Riesling-y petrol amidst greener tones of lime and hawthorn. A little pithy bitterness – just a touch – which I love. The oak is very sensitive – merely a brush of spice and vanilla and polish and luxury over the top. This is very much my bag – and still totally in its infancy.

In a nutshell: Elegant, accomplished, whistle-clean, delicious dry still cider for the dinner table or for sitting with contemplatively. I love this. Keep some back for ageing, but its great now too.

Last up is Apfel-Quitte, a sparkling blend of various apples and various quinces. We always love a quince here on Cider Review – or I do, anyway – and they seem to make, if not ‘common’, then certainly not infrequent appearances in German cideries. I’ve tasted many a good apple-quince blend in the past, but this one comes with extra weight of expectation, since it took 97 points and overall first prize in the Nordic Cider Awards. ‘Close to perfection’ says the website. Right then…

Böhm Ciderwerkstatt Apfel-Quitte 2022 – review

How I served: About half an hour out of the fridge.

Appearance: Fairly similar to Rot, in both hue and bubble.

On the nose: Boom! There’s nothing like quince aromatics, is there, and here they come bursting out of the gate, bouyed by soft, ripe apple; a starburst of yuzu and rose petal and… well… just plain golden quince. Totally clear, hugely aromatic – again, as with the Rot, not necessarily as much a complex creature as it is the single, crystal-clear peal of a golden bell. And I love that.

In the mouth: And I love it even more on the palate; an explosion of flavour – of citrus, of red apple, of fresh tropical flowers, of a whole tangfastic mouthful of sour skittles. Red cherry too. God it’s so flavourful and vibrant and buoyant and gleeful and alive. Fizz level is perfect, dab of sweetness perfectly balanced by flavour and acid and body.

In a nutshell: I aspire in vain to the joy and brightness and energy and sheer life of this drink. Well, I can dream. Delicious.

Conclusions

Well that’s put me in the mood for Germany, and no mistake. A delicious trio, even better than Manfred’s perries, united in their clarity, their precision of flavour. Two bottles of infectiously buoyant joie de vivre in Rot and Apfel-Quitte, and a gorgeously-built, confident, elegant still dry beauty in Französische Eiche that I confidently expect to get better and better with age. Keep going back and forth between the last two trying to pick a favourite, but they’re so different – in what they are, in when and how they should be drunk – that it’s like choosing between Beaujolais and Bodeaux. (Yes, I know loads of people would have no problem doing that, but you get my point).

Anyway, brilliant stuff from Manfred. Bring it on, Cider World.