Alan Dearling with his friend Alan Henry ventured into a different kind of voting experience
In Lindley, near Huddersfield, is the home of Udder’s Cider. Dave is the cider-maker and was mine host with his colleagues for the event. And this weekend was their Cider festival. In fact there were 26 ciders and perrys available. Many punters bought paddles of ‘thirds’ and voted for their favourites, scoring points out of ten. It was a fun event held over three days. Quite a trek for us on the train to Halifax, then the bus to Huddersfield. But, it was worth the return trip and we even had a couple more pints of apples, Udders, of course, in Hop-In bar in Halifax before getting the train back to Todmorden.
Definitely more than the prescribed five-a-day!
CAMRA – the Campaign for Real Ale – also support ‘real’ ciders. And it is good to see so many people travel to the Uddery to sample from their own range of beverages and those from other orchards and cider-makers and farms around the UK. Udders Cidery and tasting rooms is currently the Huddersfield Cider Pub of the year 2026. You can see what they are getting up to on Facebook at: Udders Orchard Cider and at:
https://www.uddersorchardcider.co.uk
Here are some words from Dave about the event, which pretty much sums it up! A lovely mingling of people, liquid fruits of the day, plus Jamaican food, pies and live music.
“The voting booths have been put away, the lampost signs down, and now we wait to see if the winning candidates, err ciders, will actually rock up.
A final word on this year’s festival. What a blast. Queuing out the door as people were, the atmosphere was amazing:
411 litres, that’s 723 pints of real (mostly) cider were sunk (and only 15 litres of beer).
The community spirit was palpable, with friendly debate raging about what was real, what was not, West Country versus Eastern Counties, to fruit or not to fruit. People shoving up to let others sit beside them, escaping the torrential rain. But when it needed to, the sun came out! Once again, congrats to Pilton Cider on a fine win.
Thanks to my team (Ali, Jamie, George, Rick, Sam and Harry) for keeping it going, and of course you for turning up and showing that real, full juice, natural cider is the best.
What a weekend!”
Lindley is a nice little community. The 1902 art nouveau clock tower is a special landmark. Apparently it was built for Mr James Nield Sykes, owner of the nearby Acre Mills. It was locally joked that it was an expensive alarm clock to keep the employees arriving on time!
And I’d like to add a thanks from me to my mate, Alan Henry, for aiding and abetting our visit, Dave and his Udders’ team and the Halifax Hop-In, too…
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