Last Friday I managed to get away from the office for a few days; to South Wales and Devon to be exact. The reason for my travels was to again meet our friends at the multi award winning Gwynt Y Ddraig cider and then onto Devon to see my father. I traveled to South Wales with my business partner, John and stayed with friends of his in Barry.

For Saturday lunch we called at The Bunch of Grapes, Ynysangharad Road, Pontypridd. I had called here last year but on a Sunday evening when no food was available. It’s in the Good Beer Guide, and is run by the excellent Otley Brewing Co. It’s a good few minutes’ walk from the town centre, and is a multi-award winning gastro-pub and the flagship for Otley Ltd. (more…)

Until earlier this year I knew very little about cider and in fact, in the realm of things, still don’t. However in early August I spent some time in the company of Bill George of Gwynt Y Ddraig Cider, at their Summer Cider Festival at Llest Farm, Llantwit Fardre, Mid Glamorgan and learnt more in those few hours about cider, than I had in my lifetime before. I wrote about the visit here on 10^th August 2010.

Not that my prior knowledge of the subject amounted to much, my previous experience consisting mainly of getting pissed on Strongbow, on school camps at Tyn y Felin, Anglesey. However because earlier this year All Gates were lucky enough to get an agency to sell Gwynt y Ddraig’s award winning ciders through our own pubs and wholesale, that had to change.   

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Last Sunday Ian and I managed to get away from The Anvil and the office, respectively, to South Wales for a couple of days; to Llest Farm, Llantwit Fardre, Pontypridd to be exact. The reason for our travels was to meet the people behind multi award winning  Gwynt y Ddraig  cider with whom we have recently established an agency.

We arrived at Llest farm around 4 p.m. on Sunday, when the second day of their Summer Cider Festival was in full swing. The farm is thrown open two times a year, in late April and then again in August. In recent times the gates, as they were again this weekend, were closed early on the Saturday with over 600 people turning up. Visitors can camp over on the Saturday night in an adjacent field.

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