Home
Beers
Breweries and beer styles
Pubs
Whatever
About the author
Contact
Corporate tastings
Links
|
Apples & Pears
In search of the perfect glass of cider
- Cider is one of the oldest drinks in the British Isles — it was made almost everywhere they grew apples. Along with mead and beer, it got your average Celt through the day. The Vikings and Danes liked their ale after a long hard day’s pillaging but the Normans brought a renewed taste for cider along with their love of battle (not much difference from the previous invaders then). In the countryside, especially in the west with its plentitude of orchards, cider was the wine of the agricultural worker. Woe betide any farmer who didn’t have a jug of cider at each end of the field during the harvest. The workers would go elsewhere.
- An apple a day keeps the doctor away, especially if it’s in a glass.
- Apples have been around since Adam and Eve and if she hadn’t have got into trouble by eating one, then Adam might have let the side down by making cider instead.
- In recent years cider fell from grace and was seen as the tipple of choice for those for whom the phrase No Fixed Abode was claimed. For others cider is a quick fix to the sound of a quiver of arrows hitting a target — pint of Strongbow anyone? On the other hand travel through the counties of Somerset. Herefordshire and Worcestershire and away from the main roads there are cidermakers renewing the old craft with passion, vigour and expertise.
- Cider still has its heart in the countryside, and there still remain old chaps with acres of hair coming out of their ears who make their own cider on in ways that haven’t changed for generations. Old men with faces as dark as the inside of a teapot still gather up the apples at autumn to make cider for their own consumption. Cidermakers work with the cycle of the year — you can only make cider in the autumn after the harvest. Cider is a cottage industry.
- Cidermaking is a way of life, a lifestyle change choice — high flying TV producers move to the middle of nowhere and make high grade ciders which are sold in Waitrose. On the other hand there are cidermaking dynasties that echo the old brewing families with their long lineage — Aspalls, Westons.
- The fat of the land. Cider vies with wine and beer in the coastal communities of Brittany and Normandy, where it is also used in cooking. Cows are fed on windfalls.
- Perry is one of the UK’s rarest drinks and been adopted by the Slow Food movement. It is made from pears with names such as Blakeney, Merrylegs and Lumberskills, and is found in the three counties of Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire.
- Cider is part of our rural heritage. It is a way of life for those who make it. It is on the margins but a sturdy survivor. It is a way of life that is full of many human stories.
- Cidermaking is a great survivor from the days when it was made in a barn and locals were invited in for a sample before it went out in stone jugs to the workers in the field.
Cider maker profiles, cider events and cider tasting notes
Radnorshire cider-maker and farmer Ralph Owen
Tasting notes
|
|