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The Cider Voice Podcast began in 2020 as a series of interviews with some of the UK’s leading cidermakers, exploring their origins, philosophies and differences and capturing the challenges they were facing from the impact of COVID-19.
During the podcast’s two-year hiatus, aspirational cider and perry has emerged from lockdown in a shape that would have been unimaginable just five or six years ago. All around the world, in pubs, bars, bottleshops, restaurants and peoples’ homes, cider and perry is being consumed and talked about in new ways, by new drinkers and reaching fresh new heights.
Feeling that this inspiring movement deserved the support of its own podcast, we restarted Cider Voice with a fresh format and brief. Now hosted by original founder and fourth generation cidermaker Albert Johnson, along with cider and perry writer, presenter and author Adam Wells and actor, director, harvest-hand and serial enthusiast Justin Wells, we aim through conversations, fun, and more than a few technical hitches, to give voice to the worldwide cider revolution.
During the podcast’s two-year hiatus, aspirational cider and perry has emerged from lockdown in a shape that would have been unimaginable just five or six years ago. All around the world, in pubs, bars, bottleshops, restaurants and peoples’ homes, cider and perry is being consumed and talked about in new ways, by new drinkers and reaching fresh new heights.
Feeling that this inspiring movement deserved the support of its own podcast, we restarted Cider Voice with a fresh format and brief. Now hosted by original founder and fourth generation cidermaker Albert Johnson, along with cider and perry writer, presenter and author Adam Wells and actor, director, harvest-hand and serial enthusiast Justin Wells, we aim through conversations, fun, and more than a few technical hitches, to give voice to the worldwide cider revolution.
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Our new year's resolution for 2024 is to double down on 'cider with food' content. With limited skill and dangerous enthusiasm, we turned to a proper professional to put us on the path to gastronomic glory.
Fliss Freeborn is a Fortnum & Mason Award-winning food writer, the brains behind the blog Student Cuisine for the Gloomy Teen (Jay Rayner-endorsed, no less) and the Amused Bouche newsletter. She's a panellist on Radio 4's Kitchen Cabinet, has bylines for all sorts of national newspapers and in 2023 published the brilliant cookbook Do Yourself a Flavour. If Fliss can't level us up in the cider kitchen, who can?
Armed with four ciders and perries – which Justin and Albert have to guess – Fliss has created four brilliant bespoke recipes. A four course feast for the cider chef that you can find in full here [Link to Recipes]. Along the way we chat about her journey to cooking and writing about it – everything from marble pantries to yellow labels and the nonna method.
Albert is Head Chef @RossCider
Adam tosses word salads @Cider_Review
Justin boils over @justinwells1346
In this episode the team go back to basics to discuss the reason we're here podcasting in the first place. With hot takes, rambles, sporadic bickering and even a bit of education here and there, we cover varieties, making, perceptions and definitions as we attempt to figure out exactly what cider even is.
No knowledge assumed; precious little imparted. Enjoy the ride!
Albert makes cider @RossCider
Adam writes about it mainly @Cider_Review
Justin just sort of hangs out at @justinwells1346
We chat to cider legend and founder of The Cat in the Glass Nicky Kong. Everything from dream cider bars, to the rise of online cider merchants, from keg conditioning to Mostviertel perry cats – and even matching apple varieties to Liverpool football players.
Join the Broome Farm Orchard Walk audio story. This is a narrative discussion between Albert, our regular host, and his father Mike and his brother Martin, of the Johnson family at Ross-on-Wye Cider & Perry Company in Broome Farm, Herefordshire. This is the complete audio story of their new orchard walk - a free to access walk with a choice of a 2.5km or 5km route, with 27 information signs, two picnic areas, an orchard library, a bike rack, and fully signposted directional signs. The audio for this episode was recorded and edited by neighbour and friend of the farm, Paul Kennedy. This episode is meant to be enjoyed whilst on the walk, but it may work for you as a way to transport yourself to our farm from whereever you discover this podcast!
With the brothers Wells conspicuous by their abscence (are they out there right now, spreading fireblight?), Albert has an opportunity to talk to Dr Kathryn Bruce, a social historian of horticulture and plant science who recently completed her PhD at the University of St Andrews. Kathryn's PhD had the title "The Fireblight Menace: Knowledge communities and their response to crop disease in the Anglo-world, 1880-1939", which attracted Albert's fascination as rapidly as new growth in a Gin Pear tree attracts Erwinia amylovor.
Don't forget to contribute your data, tasting notes and experiences to ourpomona.org
If you are an expert on fireblight, get in touch! We'd love to spread more awareness and knowledge about dealing with this disease.
As a point of reference, the British pear varieties Albert has observed to be resistant to fireblight appear to be: Thorn, Hendre Huffcap, Yellow Huffcap, Red Pear, Butt, Winnal's Longdon, Taynton Squash, Hellen's Early and Barland. The varieties that are susceptible are Gin Pear, Moorcroft, White Bache, Oldfield, Green Horse, Turner's Barn, Bartestree Squash, Dead Boy, and Blakeney Red.
Chat to us on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cidervoice
Whilst Albert heads to Westminster, Justin and Adam recruit Little Pomona's James Forbes to chat about all things fortified in the cider category.
James has just brought out his first Mistelle, Fomo (even if he's forgotten it today) and we learn how an 'alarming' coloured cider led to one of the most hyped releases of the last couple of years. Just and Adam are both card-carrying fans of all things fortified, and we chat about styles, approaches, ways to drink them and fortifieds with food.
Plus Justin has hosted another cider supper club, this time with a Japanese-inspired vegan menu, Adam has unexpectedly won an award for Perry: A Drinker's Guide, and we learn how to tell the difference between fermentation and malolactic fermentation using just a bowl of Rice Krispies.
Available on all podcast providers. Like, subscribe, follow, get in touch and share with all your friends and enemies!
An anxiety pulling up of my socks, with Martin Johnson
We continue to mine our families for quality cider content, and this time it’s Albert’s turn to provide a relative, in the shape of his fellow @rosscider maker, @yewtreepeterstow supremo and, coincidentally, brother, Martin Johnson.
We discuss the running of a perfect cider pub, and everything Martin has done to transform the Yew Tree into just that. Storage and service of cider, how to get drinkers to give new things a try and bringing cider together with food. (Stand by for a wet sandwich supper club now that Albert has rightly fallen for the mighty Italian Beef).
Featuring a swathe of Broome Farm ciders as you’d expect, we test Albert’s knowledge of his own batches and discover just how hard we can plug Ross-on-Wye.
The plight of the hapless cidermaker, with Caroline Wells
For absolutely definitely 100% the first time ever on the show, we reveal that Justin and Adam have started their own cidermaking project, Three Wells Cider, and we’re joined by their business partner, cidermaking colleague and fellow Wells, Caroline, to tell you all about it.
From being accidentally compelled to become craft drinks producers after buying a pair of blundstones to dodging storms, breaking mills, grey-faced conversations about hose fittings and vanning cider from Bromyard to Reading, this episode became part group therapy, part exposé of the lies propagated by the minimum intervention movement.
Listen along and enjoy the story of Three Wells Cider’s first ever vintage.
Bonus ciders from Hjulsjö, Find & Foster and Little Pomona.
Liberty to Cider – with Elisha Mason
We take an apple-tinted journey into the past with our guest this week, Elisha Mason, @museumofcider Archives and Collections Officer.
Leading us into the mysterious (and, apparently, heavily haunted) archives and cellars of the magnificent Museum of Cider in Hereford, Elisha talks us through British Cider Riots, and how they inspired revolution in America, dream teapots and finding an unexpected foot in a box (different museum…)
Continuing to answer the big questions we ponder who would be the best starship captain amongst historical pomologists and orchardists, ask what an ingenio is and string out the great Cider Voice debate: Bulmer’s Norman vs Thorn Pear. Also, is Adam secretly the Scrooge of Wassailing (and can he even pronounce it?)
We loved recording this episode with Elisha. Drop us a line at albert@cidervoice.com with your suggestions of people we should speak to next, or just to talk all things cider and perry.
Ciders by @aldesider @tomolivercider @rosscider
After receiving an eloquent letter of encouragement from one of our 12 listeners, we re-run our extremely thorough and official tournament for the greatest cider apple or perry pear.
Bigger, better, with no apples off the table and two bonus judges in @helenannesmith and @ratchellle, this is Pome Total War, with apples and pears judged on every factor – taste, yield, vibes, name, treacherousness and level of freckles.
Who’ll triumph in Bulmers Norman vs Thorn II? Just how perfect is Porter’s Perfection? What’s the proper pronunciation for Plant de Blanc? And just who is ’T.O.’?
Discover the answers to some of these questions and more, as well as the identity of the true greatest cider apple or perry pear. Plus drinks by @palmers_upland_cyder, @littlepomona and (shockingly) @rosscider
Once again we dive into the inspiring international scene, this time learning all about cider in Japan thanks to our guest Lee Reeve, @inciderjapan.
We talk through Japan’s cider beginnings in the 1950s, its modern movement that began around 2017 and the different styles, makers, places and inspirations behind modern Japanese cider.
From French-style keeves to English bittersweets, from Fuji apples to wild indigenous varieties found in the mountain forests, there’s so much going on here to explore.
Lee also talks us through his journey importing the best of English, French, American, Norwegian and Australian cider to Japan, and how cider is gaining a foothold in a country with such a strong and historic drinks tradition.
Shoutouts to producers including @kamoshika_cidre @vinvie.jp @sonofthesmithhardcider and @marukame_farm_cidery
Thanks for all the messages you’ve been sending – keep them coming to albert@cidervoice.com. We love hearing from the 12 of you.
It’s about time we dug into one of the world’s biggest cider cultures – and the only only outside the UK with a large concentration of bittersweet and bittersharp cider apples – France.
So who better to catch up with than Virginie Thomas of @bouscule_tes_sens – author, consultant, advocate and trainer?
We cover all things French cider, chat through some of the similarities in how the drink’s perceived in the UK and France, then talk about writing a world cider guide during a pandemic, doing tastings with blindfolds on, the mighty crêpe and Brittany’s new cider route.
Follow the link in bio to listen, or head to your favourite podcast provider – we're on them all.
Something you'd like to hear us discuss? A guest we desperately need to get on? A hot take you'd like to share? We love to hear from our 12 listeners, so give us a shout at albert@cidervoice.com. We might even read it out if you're very unlucky...
We level up once again this week as we welcome international cider dignitary Darlene Hayes to Cider Voice.
One of the most important and influential figures in the American and now global cider revolution, Darlene has played a central role in expanding cider education, especially through the Certified Cider Guide and Certified Pommelier Programmes.
We talk through Darlene's introduction to cider, burrow down a rabbit hole of varietal curiosity (with a shoutout to Albert's new Sherrington Norman) and then chat all things Pommelier following the course's worldwide expansion.
If you want the inside track on these new cider qualifications; what they are, how they were put together, what's involved in taking them – and how to avoid any obvious slipups, this is the episode for you. Plus a special behind the scenes glimpse at the shape that these cider education programmes might take next.
With Albert on Freya-watch, Adam and Justin decide to celebrate a year of Cider Voice by learning how to actually podcast, and chatting to our secret producer, Neutral Cider Hotel's Martyn Goodwin Sharman, aka @cidershit
Cue a wide-ranging chat with someone who's watched the aspirational cider revolution first-hand for almost a decade. Everything from Daniel Craig ice lollies to cider tie-die t-shirts, not really caring about varieties (sorry Albert) and the question of how to get people to care about cider.
Turns out all we need to take the next step in podcasting is a celebrity presenter, six-hour recording sessions, a pandemic and a few convincing impressions from Justin. Cheers Martyn!
Albert makes cider @rosscider
@adamhwells writes about it @cider_review
Justin is getting dangerously knowledgeable @justinwellsjustin
It's been a year since we relaunched Cider Voice and to celebrate, Albert's holding a massive festival at the farm and launching 14 special edition ciders.
In this episode we run through all the festival releases, from the last of a particular perry pear ever to be grown on the farm to an apple that isn't called Hagloe Lobster. Has Albert been coerced into releasing a perry by Adam? And is Ross-on-Wye just becoming a sea of acid.
Have a listen to discover this year's full festival release rundown, and if you haven't booked your festival ticket yet, hie thee to rosscider.com
‘The wobbler’. ‘The shakey shakey’. ‘Ladder method’. ‘Plank method’. ‘Squolch’. What does it all mean? With harvest rapidly incoming, Albert and the Cousins Wells sit down to discuss the vital topic of Toil.
The physical business of making cider is, we feel, much underdiscussed. But between Adam’s leather jacket and Justin’s ‘hands more suited to picking up cake’ we feel we’re the people to do it.
From trees that are laughing at you, to trailers that won’t tip their apples, splishy-splashy filth water and the squolch bucket, every facet of toil is covered. Plus has it turned out that the route to big sales is dressing in a medieval cowl?
In other plugs, Ross Fest is round the corner, Justin’s becoming a regular at the brilliant Joyce and The London Cider House and it’s definitely not too early to buy Adam’s book Perry: A Drinker’s Guide as a Christmas present for everyone you know.
Albert toils @rosscider
@adamhwells spoils
@justinwellsjustin recoils
Bonus cider this week from @evescidery
The team pull a late one for an extra exciting episode with a serious time difference as we catch up with Camilla Humphries (@camillas_crush) cider maker, expert and advocate in Mornington Peninsular, Australia.
We see almost none of Australia’s amazing cider scene here in the UK so Camilla gives us the full rundown from climate to apples to the inspirational Cider Australia (@cideraustralia) movement.
We also learn about her travels around the cider regions and orchards of the world on a research trip for the Churchill Trust, and how her learnings have been applied by Cider Australia in their advocacy and research.
Read Camilla’s report here: https://www.churchilltrust.com.au/project/to-investigate-orchard-growing-systems-for-improving-australian-cider-production/
Albert pulls all-nighters @rosscider
@adamhwells moonlights @cider_review
Justin burns the candle @justinwellsjustin
The team welcome a transatlantic cider rock star to the pod for this episode as they're joined by Eleanor Leger, co-founder and owner of Vermont's @edenciders
We talk about all things ice cider and how Eden experiment with this magnificent dessert cider style. Plus the economics of fine cider, and how Eden have diversified over the years whilst staying true to their full juice roots.
Having experimented with British varieties we talk about the different flavours they produce in American terroirs, which leads us to a discussion of the new frontier of propagating wild American apples for cider.
Finally things get extra serious as Eleanor demonstrates the massive impact that climate change has had on not only her orchards, but the very styles of cider she can make.
An absolutely brilliant chat with one of the most significant figures in aspirational cider.
Albert is lightly chilled @rosscider
@adamhwells cools off @cider_review
Justin breaks the mill @justinwellsjustin
It's the 44th episode of Cider Voice and in Albert's absence thanks to his exciting new role we have a huge question: do we finally have a 13th listener? To celebrate we're joined by whisky writer and new Cider Review contributor Beatrix Swanson.
Bea talks to Justin and Adam about growing up in Germany's apfelwein country and how she joined the cider community. We extol the virtues of the bagnum and ponder whether cider and perry might be the ultimate drinks for Gen Z.
Since, like all the best people, Bea's come to cider from whisky, we also turn our attention to the vital question of the perfect whisky and cider pairings, whilst Justin worries that he might need a bigger bottle rack.
A really fun episode chatting to one of the most exciting new voices in cider.
Albert has a new job @rosscider
@adamhwells has a new whisky @cider_review
Justin has a new mouthful of pasta @justinwellsjustin
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