Sulgrave Orchard Slider

The making of Slider fits nicely into the natural order of the cidermaking year. The Sloe Gin we made in November is now ready to decant, filter, and bottle-up; and by a happy coincidence the new-season cider is ready to receive the gin-soaked sloes.

Slider is a longer, less potent version of the many spirit-based fruity concoctions which are traditionally made throughout Europe. The sloes from a batch of Sloe Gin are given a second life, re-used to flavour a similar batch of cider. We made a Slider last season, but got the timing slightly wrong, meaning there was only a limited amount of our own cider available for the experiment. Nevertheless, what we did manage to make came out very well indeed, so this year we've decided to do things properly.

The cider we've used is our Sulgrave Orchard Cider, fruity and sharp which should take the herbal richness of the sloes well. We've made up a gallon this time, so the flavour will probably be less pronounced, but we hope that a longer maturing time will help draw out more of the sloe character. The Slider will be under airlock throughout the 2 or 3 months of maturation, so there should be no chance of the whole experiment becoming explosive through fermentation!

The Slider should be ready in time for the Welland Valley Beer Festival in June. It's a strictly non-commercial experiment so if you see me at the festival do ask for a sample, I'll be carrying a bottle or two for the purpose.

As you can see, Dolly insisted on getting into this picture. I think the hens were very disappointed that the sloes didn't come their way. Patience girls, your time will come...

Mansfield CAMRA Beer & Cider Festival

Open season has been declared on cider and perry at the Mansfield CAMRA Beer & Cider Festival (Thurs 2nd - Sun 5th April). Ray & Gail of Mansfield & Ashfield CAMRA (and makers of the award-winning Torkard Cider) have put together a very attractive range of ciders and perrys for this year's festival, with a particular emphasis on East Midlands ciders.

There are now nearly a dozen small-scale cidermakers in the East Midlands, all producing ciders with a truly distinctive flavour from locally sourced apples. These four local ciders represent a modest sample from the much wider range now available throughout the East Midlands, and I know that Ray & Gail would have liked to offer more from the region had they been available.

A cider bar as good as this has definitely got to be worth a visit. I'll be sampling my way through a few during the Friday 12-6pm session, probably starting at the top and moving downwards...

East Midlands Ciders

Nottinghamshire
Floppy Tabs (6.0%). Torkard Cider, Hucknall.

Derbyshire
Three Cats Cider, Morley.

Lincolnshire
Skidbrooke Cyder, Skidbrooke, Louth.

Northamptonshire
Sulgrave Orchard Cider (6.4%). Rockingham Forest Cider, Middleton.

Welsh Ciders

Monmouthshire
Dan Y Graig (6.0%). Dan Y Graig, Grosmont.
Old Barn (7.2%). Springfield, Llangovan.

Glamorgan
Pyder (6.5%). Gwynt Y Ddraig, Llantwit Fardre.

English Ciders

Gloucestershire
Day’s Cottage. Day’s Cottage, Brookthorpe.

Herefordshire
Sarah’s (7.0%). Sarah’s Cider, Bosbury, Ledbury. Blend.
Yarlington Mill (7.5%). Denis Gwatkin, Abbey Dore. S.V.

Somerset
Home Orchard (7.0%). Ben Crossman, Hewish, Weston-Super-Mare. Blend.

Port Wine of Glastonbury (6.5%). Hecks, Street, Glastonbury. S.V
Parson’s Choice (7.0%). Parsonage Farm, West Lyng, Taunton. Blend.
Legbender (6.0%). Rich’s, Watchfield, Nr. Highbridge. Blend

Perries

Herefordshire
Oliver’s Draught Perry. Made by Tom Oliver in Ocle Pychard
Newton Court Draught Perry. Made by Paul Stephens, near Leominster.

Cider - A Book for all Seasons

Books on cider and cidermaking are always pretty thin on the ground. Cider doesn't seem to get the prominence that Beer, Whisky and Wine get in bookshops, so when two books on cider arrive in relatively short order it could be considered as something of a literary glut. But is it...

Last year I was delighted to receive a copy of James Crowden's new book Ciderland, a weighty discourse on the history of cidermaking with several in-depth profiles on some of the movers and shakers of modern craft cidermaking. The book is beautifully illustrated, and full of useful information and anecdote. It's also just won the drinks category of the André Simon Book Awards. Just the sort of book cider and perry enthusiasts have been waiting for.

The soon to be published CAMRA book, Cider, seems to be in a very similar vein, covering several notable cidermakers, and with a superb collection of photographs by Mark Bolton (browse around his website for a sneak preview of some of the images). I'm certainly looking forward to getting my hands on a copy, and I'm sure it will be a worthy addition to a limited literary field.

Of course it's a shame that two such similar books have arrived on the scene so close together, and it probably won't help the sales of either which would be a great shame as they seem to be equally deserving of success. But perhaps the most dissapointing aspect for me is the missed opportunity of the CAMRA publication. The book I really want to see is a new, bang-up-to-date Good Cider Guide, not another coffee table book no matter how good it is.

The last edition of CAMRA's Good Cider Guide was published in 2005, and it wasn't a bad effort, certainly better than some previous editions, though perhaps not as good as Dave Mathews excellent edition, or the early David Kitton books of the 80's. The problem is that this guide is now massively out of date, and virtually unusable as a travelling guide to pubs and farms which sell cider. This guide needs to be re-published at least every three years, ideally every other year, but sadly there seems little sign of a new edition.

I'll be buying the new 'Cider' book, and I do hope it's a great success, but the unfortunate truth is that this new book is likely to make the publication of a new Good Cider Guide even less of a possibilty in the near future.

'6 Nations Crowd Drink Pub Dry' - Read all about it...

What a day yesterday was. Glorious sunshine, oodles of rugby, and nothing much to do but drink it all in at the Red Lion, Middleton.

After a morning spent communing with the hens and rummaging through seed packets, it was off to the pub for the final weekend of Six Nations rugby action. This year's tournament has hardly been a vintage one, but the results were all good yesterday. England put in a stuttering performance to win back the Clacutta Cup, and the mighty Ireland team achieved their first Grand Slam since 1948. In between the internationals, news filtered through that the Leicester Tigers had thumped Saracens 46 - 16, which was the icing on the rugby ball shaped cake kind-of-thing.

There was a good crowd in at the pub, and a fair few of them were drinking the Sulgrave Orchard Cider. An impromptu survey of the (mostly) ladies enjoying the cider revealed comments such as 'It's lovely', and 'Very appley'. Good enough for me.

So enthusiastic were these lovely ladies for the cider, that half way through the Grand Slam decider they'd managed to drink the box dry. The beers followed soon after and a rapid re-stock was required today. So this morning I dusted off the trusty Rockingham Forest Cider Sack-Barrow, and a new box of Sulgrave Orchard Cider has joined the Phipp's IPA and Great Oakley Welland Valley Mild on the bar. Just in time for the legions of thirsty Mum's who've descended on the pub to enjoy on their big day.

The Joys of Spring

March is rapidly drawing to a close and I've yet to catch sight of a Hare, mad or otherwise. Rabbits galore of course, but these are hardly the harbingers of Spring we associate with the wonderful Hare. Oh well, there are plenty of other signs that Spring is finally upon us. The buds are swelling on many of our trees, and the warmer days have nudged some of the ciders into a renewed gentle fermentation.

Most exciting of all are the new signs of life in the potting shed. It's early days yet, but the Scarlet Crofton I grafted in February appears to have taken, the buds on the scion have well and truly broken, and it looks as if we may have a tree on our hands. I said at the time I was doing the grafting that if only one tree took I'd be a happy man, and it has, so I am. The Dabinetts have yet to burst into life, but most cider apple varieties flower late so there's plenty of time for them yet. The Golden Harvey is also showing little in the way of life at the moment, but the Calville Rouge D'Hiver looks promising, the buds have definitely grown a little over the last couple of weeks.

Out in the orchard I've continued to tie-down some of the more upright branches on the cider apple trees. The Yarlington Mill and Tremlett's Bitter trees have been particularly prone to this upright growth, and by tying down these branches we can encourage the trees to produce fruiting buds rather than too much vegetative growth. If we can get the Tremlett's to crop reasonably early there's a much better chance of reducing their vigour. The Tremlett's enjoy the conditions in our garden, and if we're not careful we'll end up with huge spindly trees which are reluctant to give us any fruit.

Of course the coming of Spring can bring problems along with this new growth. From now on it's 'Pest Watch' in the orchard, we don't want a repeat of last year's Rosy Apple Aphid infestation.