If I offered you a craft beer, you would probably expect to get something with a quirky name, with trendy branding and unusual, not always welcome, flavours and ingredients. But if I offered you a craft cider, what would you expect? A bottle of cloudy scrumpy or a cider with banana overtones? When it comes to alcohol, the well-worn term ‘craft’, can have very different meanings, but it is probably fair to say that beer coined the term first. ‘Craft cider’ is a much less popular term but one that is often applied to our range. We thought you might like to know what craft cider means to us.
The Craft Beer Revolution
The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) has been championing independent brewers since the 1970s but it was the government’s introduction of Small Brewers Relief (SBR) in 2002, which reduced rates of duty by 50% for breweries producing up to 60,000 hl (equivalent to around 12.8 million pints a year), that saw the beginning of the craft beer boom. According to Statista, in 2002 there were just 403 registered breweries, now there are over 3000! The growth is mostly due to an explosion in smaller breweries and these are the ones who have driven the craft beer revolution.
What is Craft Beer?
In general terms, craft beer is used to describe beers with more complex, sometimes adventurous, flavours, that have been created by smaller, independent breweries but dig behind the brands and you will find that isn’t always the case. It certainly has become synonymous with beers that push the boundaries and challenge the mass-produced mainstream offerings of larger breweries but, one of the UK’s largest breweries, BrewDog, still claims to be a craft brewery. They believe that beer that’s made with quality ingredients and brewed to perfection can still be a craft beer, however many litres are produced. To them, it is all about the craft that goes into making their beer. For us, craft cider is somewhat the same, it’s not simply the raw ingredients (although they are incredibly important) but the cider making knowledge and experience and the tried and tested processes.
What’s in the bottle?
Just like beer, the supermarkets are full of mass-produced cider. To be called ‘cider’ in the UK only 35% of the contents of the bottle need to be apple juice. This apple juice can be from any apples and from anywhere and, usually, large scale cider-makers use imported, concentrated juice with very little flavour. This means that they then need to add artificial colourings, sweeteners and preservatives to improve the end product. It is hard to tell what really goes into these ‘ciders’ as there is no requirement to list ingredients! At Sandford Orchards, we are proud to share exactly what goes into making our fabulous cider- 100% fresh-pressed, not from concentrate, West Country cider apples.
Concentrate!
Using fresh pressed juice rather than concentrate is a huge differentiator in cider making. As part of the concentration process, enzymes are added to break down pectins which smooths the process through the factory. The fresh juice is heated to evaporate the water until there is only about 15% of the original juice left. However, pectins offer wonderful depth and body to ciders, so the re-hydrated juice just doesn’t compare to the rich taste and flavours of fresh juice. The quick addition of artificial flavours means that this mass-produced ‘cider’ can be fast-fermented at high temperatures and bottled within two weeks. This is an environmentally-unfriendly, energy-intensive process that couldn’t be further removed from our low impact approach. We believe that good things come to those who wait.
Art not Artificial
Our autumn harvest sees the start of at least six months cold fermentation for our fresh juice, after which it is blended with cider well into its second year. As cider ages, the tannins and polyphenols develop to give us magnificent layers and depth. Try our multi-award-winning Sandford Reserve or The General and you will know instantly what we mean. But it is also true of our whole range. Even though we add spring water to reduce the alcohol content of our session ciders, our experience allows us to ensure every bit of its character is still absolutely intact. For us, it is not about turning things around quickly, it is about making the very best cider we can. We use all the skills and knowledge that our team has acquired over many years of tasting and creating cider. Typically, each cider will be sampled by at least four cider makers, at least four times before it makes it into a bottle or keg!
Authentic not Outrageous
We’d like to think that you can taste the craft that has gone into every bottle of our cider. Of course, you would expect our fine and vintage ciders to be something pretty special but we challenge you to compare our everyday session ciders, like Devon Red, to a mass-produced can from your local supermarket. We think you will really taste the difference. Thankfully, for us, craft cider has never been about the weird and sometimes outrageous flavours that are synonymous with craft beer. At Sandford Orchards, it is all about ‘cider done right’, and if you want to know what that looks like, come and see behind the scenes on one of our ever-popular Tour & Tasting events.
