This infographic of ‘periodic table of apples’ – has nice information if you are looking for which apples to select for cider making.
Much like a brewer has hops to give beer it’s unique character, flavour – cider, desert and cooking apples, and nothing else are used in fermenting the juice into traditional cider
Over 150 breweries will showcase over 600 beers and ciders again this year to a backdrop of Djs and live music including headliner Rob da Bank.
Beer and cider aficionados can look forward to sampling over 600 different beers and ciders next month as the UK’s favourite beer festival, CBR London 2016, takes over The Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane.
To make January that little less dreary, we can enjoy the fabulous tradition that is “Wassailing!”..
We have blogged about this in the past, it certainly adds some colour (and merriment) to a month where we are recovering from Christmas excesses.
Photo Credit – Bill BradshawHere are some links to reviews that we favourited on Twitter and Facebook.
Here are some photos I took of this years event.
Very special as always, including the Wassailing, and guided cider tasting by Julian Temperley, as well as meeting local cider makers in this magical part of Somerset.
Here’s news of a cider that you’ll soon see in pubs and shops in and around the Surrey area from this month.
There has been a plague of so called ciders being released by the big breweries, that are anything but cider – merely flavoured syrup.
This one is different – in that this cider is the real thing, very tasty and thought about carefully by the team at Hogsback. Hence the worthiness of it being posted on the Real Cider blog.
When you look at it first in a glass, you can see the cloudy ‘hazy hog’ appearance.
Reminiscent of cidre bouche.. it has a light farmyard aroma to it, always a good sign that the correct apples and a suitable traditional fermentation process has taken place.
Mellow at first taste with richness of tannins hitting the back of the tongue on the aftertaste. Very smooth and makes you want to have another taste.
At 5% ABV the cider is made from bittersweet apples onsite at Thatchers in Somerset.
The difference with this cider is that further apple juice is added post fermentation for slight extra sweetness, and the naturally cloudy appearance.
The launch event in London this week also gave us a chance to catch up with Hogsback’s head brewer, sales team and Chairman Rupert Thompson. Rupert gave an open and frank presentation on their belief of doing something which other cider makers are not doing in UK, as they have been with their beers over the last 21 years.
Look out for Hazy Hog, I think you’ll like it.
The Independent newspaper recently rounded up 10 ten best ciders – they’ve chosen some great real ciders there..
Lyme Bay’s ‘Jack Ratt’ from Dorset, and new kid on the block Sandford Orchards ‘Devon scrumpy’ which i had the pleasure of serving to discrening cider drinkers at a recent cider festival.
Compare it with their top ten ciders in 2008. Glad to say most of the cider’s are still widely available.
If anything the choice and quality of ciders has improved things in quite a short period of time, due to consumers demand and interest.
All of these you will find at the Great British (beer and) cider festival in Earls Court, London this August.
