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Celtic cider’s core values Take the case of Radnorshire cider-maker and farmer Ralph Owen. Born over the border, but married to a Welsh girl and with Welsh-born grandparents, he was collecting a fistful of awards for his Draught Dry Perry at the Big Apple Cider Trials in Putley, on the edge of the Welsh Marches in Herefordshire, when his mobile rang. It was wife Mary letting him know that the judges at the Reading Beer and Cider Festival had voted his 3Bs national cider champion. To make things even more Celtically incestuous the perry winner was Gwynt y Ddraig from near Pontypridd.
Looking down a list of Ralph Owen’s successes in the past few years, winning has become a bit of a habit. Based on a farm outside the small village of New Radnor, in the shadow of Radnor forest and the once tempestuous Welsh Marches (Owain Glyndwr had a spot of agro with the English a few miles north), Ralph Owen’s exquisitely crafted and stubbornly traditional ciders have been winning friends throughout the cider world. He won Welsh champion cider with Bertie’s Orchard two years running in 2003 and 2004, as well as picking up the odd silver and bronze, plus a gold for his splendidly toffeeish perry. There have been other awards but this engaging, passionate and self-effacing cider-maker is nonplused by it all. ‘I think we are a victim of our own successes,’ he laughs. ‘Because of the awards I am asked to go to a lot more agricultural and food shows than I can physically visit.’ Ralph Owens has cider in the blood. His grandfather made cider and perry (‘the best I have ever tasted’) not far from where he now farms and when helping out on the land the young Ralph always liked a drop of it. ‘When I was 12 I was sent up the road in the tractor to get cider for the men during harvest,’ he recalls. ‘I had too much and had to come home on my bike but I got away with it. The following week I went and had far too much and the farmer had to call my mother to come and collect me. After that, he was under strict instructions not to give me any cider, but when I next got there he said he wouldn’t serve me. Then with a wink he added, “you know where the mug and barrel are”.’ Cider-making started in the hot summer of 1976 when Owen was running a Bulmers-owned farm in Anglesey. The fruit would be picked from around the Marches, pressed in Hereford and the juice taken to Anglesey where it would begin the long march into cider. During the 1980s he moved to current home Old Badland Farm and continued to make cider for his own consumption. It wasn’t until 1997 that he went commercial, when he was one of the first of the new wave of Welsh cidermakers. Now there are over a dozen. His growth, and that of the others, he reckons coincided with the emergence of farmers’ markets, farm shops and food shows, the latter being one of the main outlets for his cider. As well as selling cider through the odd pub, he took the unusual step of building his own licensed bar on the farm. Ty Back Seidr (Ty Bach means smallest room, or the loo) was once an old storeroom for the odd cow and also had a privy attached to it. Now, it is a cosy bar with a tempting selection of barrels, polypins and bottles fill of Ralph’s cider and perry. It’s the only only licensed cider house in Wales. Exposed beams and bare red brick add to the characterful ambience, while the compact drinking area at the front has a couple of swivelling stools and wall seats, one of which is where the old privy was. There is space to sit outside on a hot summer’s day plus a newly built cabin, whose walls are festooned with a fascinating collection of cider placemats, collected and mounted by the Owens’ son James, who helps dad out with selling and making cider. As you can imagine, this is traditional cider and perry making at its best. Their apples come from local orchards and the Owens’ own four-and-half-acre orchard. On the manufacturing side, there no belt presses: ‘I don’t call that way of making cider traditional but that’s just my personal opinion.’ Instead come autumn it’s James and Ralph first of all doing their own milling using something called a scratter, which looks like a mediaeval torture instrument but is in effect a drum with flat-headed nails embedded in it. Apples such as Dabinnet, Harry Master’s Jersey, Kingston Black and Bulls Bittersweet are used.
Afterwards, ‘we then build up the cheese, using nylon-based hessian sacks for up to layers and then start turning the screw.’ The press comes down over 10 minutes and then they leave it for a few more, as the luscious golden liquid pours out into barrels, ready for its long sleep of fermentation. These barrels are left outside and because the winter is a bit brass monkeyish in this part of the world the cider is not looked at until after lambing and Easter. Come the late spring and the ciders are winning awards and satisfying gasping palates. I try a sample of the winner, 3Bs. In line with several innovative breweries such as Brecon and St Austell, Ralph is trying to see what effect different wooden barrels have on a variety of tastes. I reckon 3Bs being matured in whisky barrels had something to do with its success. What a stunning cider it is. Dark gold in colour it has a powerfully punchdrunk nose of vanilla, whisky, oak and those full buttery aromas you usually associate with big fat Burgundies. On the big full-flavoured palate, there is more vanilla, a hint of fiery whisky leading to a lasting dryness with a hint of bittersharp provided by the Kingston Black in the mix. This is a cider for a summer’s day as well as the wintertime where its spirit-like qualities are warming and comforting.
The 8% medium still cider was pale gold with aromas of lemon, barley sugar and an honest earthiness on the nose. The taste was full-bodied, with a spark of sweetness that never threatened to break out into a Tate & Lyle overload, plenty of gorgeous apple flavours before a gentle dryness, which had enough bitter-sharpness to make it drier than most mediums. The Dry Still I tried had also spent time in a whisky cask and had aromas of whisky, apple, vanilla and something that I wrote down as leather saddle (I hadn’t been drinking that much, honest). It was slightly sharp and full-bodied on the palate but made its mark with a ferociously dry and lasting finish. Very lambic. So if all of this tickles your fancy you can make your way to the Ty Bach Seidr over the weekend October 22-23 for Ralph Owen’s annual cider festival with plenty of his cider, food, tractors and a cider-making demonstration where Ralph and James will work on the scratter and screwpress. As Brian Blessed might have said if he’d been born further west: the Welsh are coming!
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