Raise a glass, with autumnal evenings drawing in and, beyond that, celebrations around Christmas and the New Year we often think about our favourite tipple.
The Brecon Beacons Food Festival has a wonderful choice of drinks to take home and quaff at your leisure.
If we firstly look at ciders there is a choice of threewith which to raise your glass:
Brecon Beacons Cider Award winning ciders and perrys from local pesticide free orchards.
Afal Y Graig making 100% pressed apple and pear cider and perry, all products contain no chemicals or flavourings, are vegan and gluten free. All fruit used is either from our own orchards or locally sourced and all from Wales.
Toloja Orchards makes traditional cider with no added yeasts or sulphates but goes much further. Cider Brandy, Apple and Pear Wine and Mead adds to the list of products from the artisan maker. There is also mustards and preserves many of which have cider / brandy additions.
From apples and pears we move to barley and malt and the brewing of beers. Wales has so many wonderful breweries these days and the selection brought together at this festival demonstrates the depth and quality with which it is so good to raise your glass.
Starting with the Little Goat Brewery a young brewery established in 2018 brewing a variety of beer types including a Yankee Doodle Nanny New England IPA 6.5% and Hillbilly Pilsner 4.0%.
It’s worth dropping by all of these stands to discover the wide variety of beers.
Another new brewery is Antur Brewery. Using hops from around the world their beers reflect the international flavour with New England IPA with American and UK hops and Helles Lager with German noble hops.
Tudor Brewery is a Family owned and managed traditional brewery which focuses on crafting award winning quality Beers, Ales and Stouts. With a wide range of bottled beers they also have a few mini kegs ideal for that party.
Moving to wines, maybe the traditional drink to raise your glass, we firstly look at what you could consider is a traditional Welsh Vineyard if there is such a thing.
Springhollow Vineyard is situated in the Teifi Valley where this small vineyard is hand planted on South facing slopes with sandy soils over slate and shale providing excellent drainage. Following both Organic and Biodynamic principles and they aiming to produce the most natural wine that they possibly can.
Moving across the border Monkhide Wines have taken possibly a more traditional path using initially foraged ingredients they say “Every glass celebrates the very best Herefordshire has to offer in fresh fruit and flowers. Each product is hand made from start to finish in our family winery, using our trusted fermentation techniques and specialist yeasts.”
Cwm Deri Estate is a boutique winery based in Carmarthenshire.
With a wide selection of fruit wines, sparkling wines, fortified wines and liqueurs this is the ideal stand for a gift for your friend but more than likely once tasted a gift for yourself.
Gasm Drinks. We think it better to let them explain: The sporting inhabitants of the British countryside, in general tough eggs clad in green, have for many years been refreshing themselves in hot weather and warming themselves in cold with a mixture of sloe gin and champagne. Now, the intelligent folk at Gasm have decided that this stuff is too precious to be confined to the back of Land Rovers and picnic baskets at the races. So they have found the ideal mixture of fizz with powerful spirits and bottled it.
If you want unadulterated spirits then the food festival has those as well but you may well need a smaller glass to raise your glass.
Cardiff Distillery produces a range of gins including Perthyn which is a low alcohol spirit (10% ABV) making unforgettable moments unforgettable. The perfect balance of 12 of the finest botanicals for a zesty spirit with notes of citrus, cardamom and thyme.
Da Mhile is an organic distillery creating a range of spirits where quality is the key. Whisky Gin and Rum plus Orange Liqueur, Sloe Gin and Apple Brandy. Distilling the first organic whisky of the modern era innovation is huge in this family business. The latest innovative product is Dark Skies Rum celebrating the dark skies of the Cambrian Mountains.
As you can see Brecon Beacons Food Festival has a wide selection of alcoholic drinks where taste and quality reign supreme.
