Mitchells & Butlers’ 115 Castle pubs across the UK will be celebrating the nations appetite for all things crafted and turning its focus to Cider. Following on from the huge success of Craft Keg Fest, the Craft Cider Fest will see everyone’s favourite apple elixir taking over the taps from 3rd July to 30th August, with a total of 20 fruity tipples to choose from over the course of two months. And the Castle team have identified four types of cider drinkers and are asking their customers which one they think they are. So here you go:
- The Rosy Cheeked Connoisseur – you are a cider aficionado who drinks cider all year round, come rain or shine
- The Musical Drinker – you choose cider to watch your favourite band and it’s always your drink of choice at a festival
- The Beer Hater – for those who like a hardy drink without the bitterness of beer
- The Thirst Quencher – you enjoy your annual cider in a baking hot beer garden with lots of ice
The pubs will offer a wide and diverse range of ciders with a rotating programme of guest drafts including two exclusive newbies courtesy of American-based brewers, Docs. Their Hard Apple cider is semi-dry and served on draught, giving it a wonderful effervescence with a remarkably fresh apple nose. The Dry Hopped Hard cider option is made using a method normally reserved exclusively for craft beer, dry hopped with Centennial and Chinook hops. The result is a real punch of flavour by twisting traditional methods on their head.
The Stateside sip will be joined with many others, such as Kentish-born Jakes Cider and Hawkes Urban Orchard, made from donated apples with the company contributing profits to restoring some of the UKs abandoned orchards. Now that’s some ethical refreshment.
Laura Milne, Head of Brand Marketing for Castle said “All of our pubs are passionate about new and innovative tastes, whether that be with our food or our drinks. We try and encourage our customers to try new things and hope our passion rubs off – so If you love the cloudy allure of boozy apples and fancy a try of some different ciders then one of our 115 pubs is the place to come and over the festival period we are offering a loyalty card where customer can buy six pints and get the seventh free”