PRESS RELEASE FROM THE BRITISH CIDER CHAMPIONSHIP HELD AT ROYAL BATH & WEST SHOW 2024
Bere Cider Company is Supreme Champion in the British Cider Championships at Royal Bath and West.
A single variety cider produced by one of the best-known cider-making families in Somerset has been named Supreme Champion in the British Cider Championships, hosted in the Orchards and Cider Exhibition at the Royal Bath and West Show.
The championship-winner was a Yarlington Mill, made at Bere, near Langport on the Somerset Levels, home of the Lockyer family, who have been on the farm for almost a hundred years. But long-time Somerset cider-maker Jim Lockyer credits his son-in-law Chris Smoldon for the vision which has come to fruition at the Bath and West.
“I’ve been making cider here since 1988”, says Jim. “But in the early days, it was really just farmhouse scrumpy for local consumption. It was when Chris became involved that the business was taken to a new level. Almost from the start, he said that his ambition was to win a Gold Medal at the Bath and West, and now he’s gone one better.”
It was Chris Smoldon who was presented with the Rupert Best Trophy by Professor Geoffrey Dixon on behalf of the Worshipful Company of Fruiterers.
“We couldn’t be happier or more surprised”, he said. “I knew it was a pretty good cider when we tasted it, but to come out on top ahead of some of the finest ciders in Britain was something I never expected.”
#champion #championcider #yarlingtonmill #localcider #somersetcider #britishciderchampionships #britishciderisbetter #ciderspples