I attended this year’s Green Man Festival, held at Glanusk Estate, South Wales, on 19-21 August 2011.

Our journey to the site started with an epic coach journey leaving Paddington Thursday 18 August in a near-apocalyptic rain downpoar.

Thankfully, the weather improved during the journey, and on arrival Christina, Steve, Des and myself swung into action by implementing our well rehearsed plan to erect our tents in the dark using two torches.

The festival site, held in the magnificent Brecon Beacons, has microclimate conditions, resulting in rapidly changing weather conditions. In the main the weather was fantastic, testified by my sunburn on the Friday, and the subsequent use of Christina’s scarf on Saturday as a protective measure!

Along with a wide range of food stalls, the festival also had five bars providing 24 hour coverage, giving plenty of time to savour the specially brewed Green Man Growler bitter in all the bars, and the Hallets cider in the Courtyard Bar.

For Green Man 2011 there were six performance areas – amongst the many acts I saw were:

• Bellowhead
• The Burns Unit
• Fleet Foxes
• Tim Minchin
• Polar Bear
• Gruff Rhys
• The Sonic Manipulator
• Justin Spear
• Treecreeper
• Zervas & Pepper

With its laid back but organised style, and family-friendly environment, I can understand why Green Man won the 2010 UK Best Medium Festival award.

Pictured above is the burning of the Green Man effigy on the Sunday night.

Green Man – highly recommended: I’m putting it in my diary for 2012!

Here’s the cider I sampled during my visits to the festival, along with marks out of ten:

• Addlestones Cloudy – 6/10
• Green Valley Cyder Strawby Cider – 5/10
• Mr Whiteheads Cider Festival Special Perry – 8/10
• Thatchers Traditional – 9/10

Well, the obvious answer (alcohol) was not the conclusion reached during discussion between Robert McIntosh and myself at the London Bloggers meeting on Tuesday at Ember in Farringdon.

During the wine tasting session organised by Robert, we discussed the common themes between the wine community and the real ale and cider movements.

There is an obvious connection between real ale and real cider, demonstrated by the regular appearances of cider (and perry) at CAMRA real ale festivals.

But what is the connection between the consumers of hop and apple-based drinks, and grape-based beverages?

The majority of members of both groups tend to drink wine, beer and cider (but not at the same time normally!).

The commonality between the real ale and cider groups, and the hard core wine aficionados, seems to be spreading the availability of the ‘real thing’.

In beer and cider it involves getting into as many outlets as possible drinks produced using traditional methods and ingredients.

In the wine world it involves making easily available wines that are outside the fairly standardised range distributed through supermarkets and the off-license chains

How to prove the thesis of a common ground between these interest groups correct?

I’m more from a real ale background, whilst Robert is from a wine background. Together we’re proposing a wine/beer/cider tasting evening in the London area to bring together those who might be interested in the intersection between these currently disparate areas.

The evening could also involve matching each drink with a food dish from a range that could be produced by food bloggers.

Whether this actually happens depends on the level of interest shown beforehand.

Therefore if interested readers could leave a comment to this post we can take the idea from there.

* With apologies to James Cridland for the title of this post!