We’re finally back to normality after the amazing weekend that was the Alltech Brews and Food Festival. We had the best year ever, and met so many amazing people, both long-time fans of Mac Ivors Cider and new faces who we will see again I’m sure!

Gold medal winners

Thursday kicked off with a bang, and we had plenty of delicious treats on offer. As always our 3 core ciders were flying out – Traditional Dry, Medium and Plum & Ginger Ciders. We were thrilled to hear that all 3 ciders got medals in the Dublin Cider Cup, announced on Thursday by head judge Gearóid Cahill. Our Medium and Plum & Ginger Ciders both won Gold medals, and our Traditional Dry came out with Silver. With such fierce competition, and a really high standard there were happy faces all round.

Dry Hopped Cider

Also on offer at the Mac Ivors stand, Greg had his brand new batch of Pedro’s Trip to tickle the taste buds. A fantastic, lightly dry hopped cider – absolutely delicious with food too! Greg added Citra and Hellertau Blanc hops to our Medium cider, giving gorgeous bitter notes and grassy aromas, but balancing perfectly with the natural sweetness of the cider. This is one to keep an eye out for in the future.

Cider Cocktails

Our good friend Jain then had everyone tasting his superb cider cocktails. Anyone who was there will know how good these were!! Pomegranate & Black Grape was a favourite for those wanting to hit the sweet spot, and the Cucumber & Elderflower cocktail was perfect for those wanting a refreshing spritz! We had great fun making these up, and they flew out!! These spritzes are the perfect sessionable tipples – not high in alcohol and just so tasty!!

As always, it’s just such a pleasure to meet our fantastic customers and chat with all the lovely publicans who sell our cider throughout Ireland. We love catching up with our friends too from breweries and distilleries all over Ireland. The choice of beers and spirits as well as ciders and cocktails was fantastic. Delicious food (for soakage) was on offer too! The bands kept us going throughout the evening and of course the rugby on the big screen (say no more)…..

We wanted to say a huge thanks to Alltech for organising yet another fantastic fair, and of course a huge thanks to everyone who stopped by to say hello and tasted our award winning ciders!!