Well, RossFest has come and gone again, and if you couldn’t make it this year then I hope you had a very good excuse, because you missed out on an event that was once again like all my birthdays and Christmases rolled into one, only better.

As seems to be tradition, we once again increased the number of Cider Review contributors in attendance, and it didn’t take very much persuading for them to write a few words in personal reflection (alright, a couple of us took a liberal approach to ‘a few’, but it’s important to be consistent to personal brands).

Many thanks to Barry, Bea, Brett, Ed, Jack and James for their contributions and companionship, and an extra big thanks from all of us to the many, many people who put so much work into making the festival happen. Safe to say that we’re all planning next year’s visit already.

Adam

And so there I was, sitting astride a wobbly tower of pallets in a perry pear orchard in Herefordshire, drinking Norwegian ice cider and chatting to an award-winning recipe book author whilst the scents of Panang wafted over through the Bartestree Squash branches, and it’s really only reading that sentence back now that I realise how utterly absurd it seems, and yet how perfectly normal it all was at the time.

The ice cider, I should say, was only the fifth in the lineup of bottlings, presented off-the-cuff by Thomas, over from Norway. Not to be confused with the off-the-cuff blind tasting of still, dry North-Eastern US ciders led by Kris, or the extremely off-the cuff tasting of special-release 500ml Herefordshire bittersweet ciders that I had never tried before and certainly hadn’t realised I was going to be presenting until Nicky from The Cat in The Glass informed me otherwise. None of which, of course, are to be confused with the broader stylistic lineup of 750 ml special releases presented very much on-the-cuff on opening night.

That all of this, each of which would be a hotly-ticketed headline tasting at any other individual cider event in the UK (ok, probably not my ad-libbed stumble through the bittersweets), seems so utterly natural, organic and almost to-be-expected of the Ross-on-Wye Cider Festival says most of what needs to be said about my favourite weekend of the year, and why it has come to hold such a special place in the hearts of all who have attended.

RossFest is the place where cider obsessives can nurse a quiet half or fall into rhapsodies over the best bottle they’ll taste all year served in plastic cups in an orchard, whilst those who have never thought much about cider before form passionate attachments to Foxwhelp, to Moorcroft, to Islay cask Bisquet. It is the cider festival that allows space for a rum tasting, a talk on the health of the River Wye, a presentation on the history of cider in a repurposed polytunnel. It is the festival where Thai food sits next to home-made sausage rolls and both find a perfect foil with perry. The festival where dog shows are applauded with jazz hands rather than clapping, and where you can buy a two pound half pint at a stall next to a twenty pound traditional method and both have their place, accepted, celebrated and natural.

And thinking back on all that RossFest is and was again this year, what stands out most keenly of all is quite how wonderfully ‘Albert Johnson’ the festival has become, and how perfectly it seems to reflect what I understand to have been Albert’s own journey through cider of the last half-dozen or so years.

I never had the privilege of visiting RossFest in its earlier iterations when Mike ran the show. I’ve no doubt I’d have loved them and become every bit the devotee that the RossFests of the ‘twenties have turned me into. But the international scope, the stylistic breadth, the emphasis on food, the increasing ambition and the desire to reach all drinkers and meet them at the place they are most personally comfortable; all of this chimes perfectly to me with what I have seen become Albert’s approach to the international cider community and the broad tapestry of cider drinkers both long-standing and recent.

There are few dynasties in aspirational cider. Most producers I encounter are first generation. Albert is a rare exception, and the reverence for the cidery he now runs and the respect and love in which his father, Mike, is held comes with significant weight and a long shadow. But, although I say this admittedly as someone who has come to count Albert as one of my closest friends, I think it is incontestable that he is amongst the most significant figures in aspirational cider’s revolution, both in terms of the drink itself and the cultural and international resonance it has come to assume.

That a family cidery with such an unflinching personal love for dry bittersweets offers such a platform for makers across all styles and varieties, that a small farm in Herefordshire can be such an international lightning rod, that a festival which exists ostensibly for the celebration of cider can offer such breadth and enjoyment to those who barely drink it, and that a single event can be a natural home for so bewildering an array of flavours and formats is the most fitting possible testament to the person who has come to oversee it. RossFest is the result of collective endeavour from so many, many people (and a huge shoutout, incidentally, to the volunteers who not only ran the festival so smoothly, but were headliners extraordinaire on Saturday night). But the 2024 edition, more than ever before, existed in the image of Albert Johnson, and cider and those who celebrated it at Peterstow this year are incredibly fortunate for it.  

Barry

It was only my second trip to RossFest, but such is the welcome it somehow felt like I had been attending for years. People I had met for the first time last year coming up and addressing me by name, though my brain hadn’t had the capacity to store all the new names I’d gathered last year.

That’s the kind of festival it seems to be. People return year after year, though the cycles of regulars shift slowly over time. And as with last year, I didn’t have half the time I would have liked to chat with people I’d have loved to spend more time with, though I did meet quite a few new people that I was so glad to meet.

The ciders and perries weren’t bad either! Of the launch night releases, the standouts for me were the Moorcroft, which I think is a real crowd pleaser, the Cask-Aged Foxwhelp, which I did not expect to like at all, but it was wonderfully balanced, and of course the mighty Flakey Bark, this time also from an oak cask, adding even more depth to its bassy, growly timbre.

The new addition of a few talks was great, and I especially enjoyed the Cider History in 20 Objects talk from Elizabeth and Elisha from the Museum of Cider, and of course our own Adam again putting perry in the spotlight, with quite an amazing turnout in the converted polytunnel venue!

I’ve been thinking about making and community a lot recently. During Covid, everything seemed to be online, and I felt very much an integral part of that. As normality returned, living out in the German sticks, away from the bright lights of Ciderdom, it can sometimes feel like ploughing a lonely furrow. RossFest was again just what I needed to relight that flame and feel part of something greater.

It was also the perfect place to start my Perry: A Drinker’s Guide side-quest of gathering autographs from all the makers listed in the book. At least a good crack at the Herefordshire crowd!

Beatrix

Ever since I first heard tell of its Raison-y revelry and orchard magic, I’ve been waiting to attend RossFest. This year, I finally got to make an appearance at this cider festival.

Sorry, did I say cider festival? I meant, sausage roll festival. Ah, the sausage rolls, the chutney-laced sausage rolls… I’m pining. Indeed, everything made by Albert’s auntie Hilary and her ‘Broome Farm Favourites’ team and sold from their stall outside the cider barn was utterly delicious (and paired perfectly with Ross cider). Truly, it’s Hilary’s world, and we’re just living in it.

Right. I’ll pull myself together.

I assumed that RossFest would be a bit of a RaisonFest. And of course it was, what with the release of the new vintage and the first-ever Raison magnums for sale. ‘750ml was never enough,’ cheeky posters around the farm proclaimed, along with other odes to the flagship cider (‘Scrumptious!’; ‘More please!’). On 29^th August, Raison d’Être Day was suitably celebrated by the launch night banquet.

I love Raison as much as the next Cider Review contributor, but there were plenty of other quality ciders on show, including 13 (!) other festival releases. Allow me to indulge in reminiscing about some of my favourites.

One may or may not have begun the festival with a cider barn sesh (very sensibly, post-tent pitching). Lots of delicious things were consumed as usual, but as 2am is not my peak tasting note retention timeslot, I can relate only what really stood out.

In this case, it was an unmarked Kertelreiter bottle of Belle de Boskoop cider infused with clary sage (read more about Barry’s research on this and other historic cider adulterants in this article). The cider was transformed into something herbal and aromatic that was almost like a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc! ‘Muscatel sage’, indeed. Crucially, it was amazing to finally meet Barry in the flesh — and his Mitbringsels did not disappoint.

Thursday’s launch night dinner was attended by a record number of keen beans, which made cider baby Freya very happy (she said it with her eyes). The accompanying tasting of the 2024 750 ml festival releases revealed many delights, but almost everyone agreed on two standouts: Foxy and Flakey.

The seminal juxtaposition of oak-cask Flakey Bark and whisky-cask Foxwhelp was an onslaught of deliciousness: sweetness and tannin on the one hand, smokiness and acidity on the other. I freely admit, I couldn’t get enough of either. I’d add the ultra-honeyed Moorcroft as my third standout — it’s certainly more of a crowd-pleaser than the other two — but those cask-driven tours de force were something else. 

Which leads me nicely onto the cider makers’ bottle share on Friday afternoon. There, I enjoyed Jack’s ‘White Stag Dinner’ cider: 75% Bramley, it was matured in the sister Lagg Distillery cask to the one he kindly supplied to Ross for their Foxwhelp. An even more peat-forward and savoury drink, lacking Foxwhelp’s juicy-fruit qualities, this was a fascinating counterpart to the Ross release.

I hurried around the rest of the bottle share in just an hour — Adam’s rum tasting was scheduled for right afterwards — but I still got to try a good range. I shall list a few favourites along with the impression they left: Eve’s de Ridder (artisanal limeade), Palmer’s Upland Cyder’s Strawberry Norman (woodland thicket of berries and herbs), Cwm Maddoc’s Knapper (pear sherry), Sam Everitt’s Museum of Cider competition-championing Dabinett (incense syrup), and Chapel Sider’s Awakening (lovely gentle freshness).

After the rum tasting, where I particularly enjoyed the chance to try Renegade’s grassy, almost seaweed-y unaged sugarcane spirit, things started to descend a bit (in a good way). I remember an impromptu tasting of the six oak-forward 500 ml festival releases getting my weary tongue very excited for tannins again; I remember snagging a heavenly sip of Eden’s ‘Falstaff’ ice cider; I remember returning to the festival bar several times for pick-me-up half-pints of straightforward, gloriously enlivening strawberry lemonade (Foxwhelp 2022). When I finally went back to the tent after a little dance, I was very tired and very happy.

And that, alas, is all the RossFest that was allotted to me this time around; my partner Alfie and I had to head out at 6 am the next day. I will be forever grateful to a certain Irish pear obsessive for taking down our borrowed tent for us; if he hadn’t done this, we might have missed the wedding our good friends were so inconsiderately celebrating that day!

I’m not the first to say that it’s about the people, not the cider. Okay, fine, it’s very much about the people as well as the cider. (And perry.)

From watching friends fetch a frisbee out of an apple tree using a drinking horn to the companionable silence that descends over scrounged cups of tea in a groggy morning orchard; from cider delegates from as far away as Czechia, Norway and America to cementing those weird parasocial friendships we all forge on social media nowadays over some of the best drinks made in Herefordshire and further afield… It was the connections that really made the festival. Huge chapeau to Albert and everyone in the Ross ecosystem for creating such a warm and welcoming environment.

Can you tell I can’t wait for next time?

Brett

Being the newbie, having only just entered into the Cider Review fold I have to admit a little anxiety about attending my first RossFest. It definitely felt going in like something I should have done long ago, something I should have done long before they let me loose at a keyboard. 

All nervousness evaporated upon arrival though. Broome Farm and the collected cider community there being instantly welcoming. And with family in tow it was wonderful to see so many other families camped there too. 

Unfortunately, in a turn of events we’re thankfully already laughing about, a Saturday afternoon pilgrimage to Little Pomona left us with a dead car battery and waiting on the RAC for rescue, meaning we missed the second day of the festival completely. The upshot of the visit to LP was we met James Finch and Jack Toye for the first time, and after some conversation over sampling a few unreleased bottles they kindly jumped into action to try and help with our car. Once again proving that people in the cider community are genuinely the nicest people, and if you’re ever in trouble it pays to have a cider reviewer or two to hand to help out. 

Upon returning to the campsite the next morning both very kindly gifted me bottles of their ciders to try, consolation enough for missing the previous nights festivities. So all in all not to plan, but I’m considering it a beta test of sorts for ’25. With the beautiful community that Ross-on-Wye has fostered there, how could we not come back?!

Ed

The 2024 Ross-on-Wye Cider Festival was another festival of firsts for me. This year I joined the merry band of volunteers and what a fantastic experience it was. You will probably have worked out that the festival celebrates everything cider and perry and being able to immerse yourself in that world for a whole four days is a real treat. There’s something for everyone, from the makers bottle share where you can sample the creations from seasoned and hobbyist makers, there’s the dog show where you can witness Albert Johnson cheating, guided orchard walks, and there’s also stuff for kids too (storytelling, facepainting, bracelet making). 

Being a volunteer and working behind the bar gave me a chance to meet and talk to A LOT of people about cider. It also gave me the chance to try and help people, who didn’t know what they wanted to try next and, when faced with the huge selection of draught cider and an equally large selection of bottled cider, found making a good choice a little bit daunting. Being able to help find a drink that they’d enjoy was a real pleasure. 

One of my favourite things from the weekend was witnessing the birth of a few new Foxwhelpians. Watching their faces light up as they experienced the acid and the zing of one of, what seems to be, the most divisive apple varieties is a wonderful sight to behold. It’s a real pleasure knowing that you’ve broadened someone’s horizons and found something that they may not otherwise have tried. 

Aside from the amazing cider and perry that’s available to try and buy it’s really the people who come to the festival that make it special. Thank you for coming and thank you for the chats, and thanks for the friendships that I hope will continue to blossom year after year.

The highlight of the Cider and Perry calendar year may be over for this year but I’m already looking forward to and counting down to next year’s event. See you then!

Jack

Back from 4 sunny days camping at Broome Farm and volunteering at RossFest24! There’s nothing quite like packing away a dry tent without the weather trying to interfere. I asked Albert to be on the late-night bar shift this year, so from 8pm to midnight each day I got to meet a large portion of festival-goers and try to piece together what was popular on keg and from bottle. One young couple approached on the Saturday night to say they’d never tried perry, but thought this was the right place to try something. They left with a 750ml bottle of the new Moorcroft SVP, then came back for a few more as the night wore on. After which they then jumped right into the deep end with the new Flakey Bark oak cask SVP. They liked both. It seemed like a case of the right palates, at the right time, with the right perries in front of them.

I’d enjoyed listening to the run through of the festival 750ml bottles that Albert and Adam released on Cider Voice the week prior to RossFest. There seemed to be a genuine buzz on site about what new releases everyone could enjoy. This was complimented by an astounding array of kegged ciders and perries including blends, single varieties, and collaborations. Festival-goers were also treated to the final keg of the original Déjà Bu keg from two years ago, and a new 750ml and kegged Déjà Bu for this year (most destined for the Joran cider bar in Brussels). This was a lovely surprise. I was also taken aback by just how popular the Reinette D’Obry 2023 SVC was on keg – I think we got through 3 or 4 kegs of that throughout the festival!

This event is all about bringing together cider and perry fans and being surrounded by a plurality of voices all exclaiming their love for a specific drink. Back home you might be the one person in your family or social group that knows about and likes full juice, considered, crafted cider and perry – but here you’re part of a 500+ person collective of fans. Another real highlight came right at the tail-end of the festival: driving back with Barry and stopping off to visit Jim Chapman, who along with Charles Martell, is responsible for documenting and thus saving hundreds of varieties of critically rare perry pears. Two copies of each now reside in the National Perry Pear Collection in Hartpury – a dreamy library orchard of Pint, Boy, Coppy, Flakey Bark, and more! Chatting to Jim and seeing the smile on Barry’s face as we nattered away about sports (Burgundy from Blakeney Red, not football), rootstock, and lost varieties of perry pears, was a lovely way to end a brilliant long weekend! 

James

RossFest had a slightly different feel to me this year. 2024 has been challenging personally so far and whilst it was exciting to taste newly released ciders, talk optimistically about the upcoming harvest, and try to live in the excitement of the weekend, it was also a time for reflection.

One aspect of that was through the many aged ciders I got to taste; a 5-year-old Pét Nat Dabinett of my own creation that Albert had hidden away, which gently fizzed into life and delivered everything quintessential about that particular apple. An 8-year-old Little Pomona ‘Unicorn’ which had evolved into a dry, rich and complex liquid but still with plenty of fruit, a joy to be able to share with James Forbes at his cidery. A 10-year-old Ross-on-Wye Cider & Perry ‘Gordon’s Surprise’ that to me still tastes as well balanced and easy drinking as my first taste, but to share with Martin and Albert was extra special. A 25-year-old Gospel Green which had been barrel and bottle fermented and delivered notes of fruit cake and sherry, along with gentle acidity and soft tannins and finally, a possibly over 100-year-old calvados, that still held plenty of warmth and a touch of fire – huge thanks to Alex Belcher for sharing those last two.

Despite the wonders of those drinks and the chance to sip, savour and discuss, it was the people I sat with that made it all the more joyful and that’s what RossFest is all about. The festival is so well organised, the location is sacred, the music diverse, the food is always delicious, and the drinks are so enjoyable. However, it is the crowd, the atmosphere, and the friends new and old that really make it. Some I hadn’t seen since last year and some I may not see till next, but the annual pilgrimage will be all the more worthwhile.