Fermented apple juice becomes cider. No other ingredients are necessary, but some cider makers will use SO2 to protect the cider against infection, cultivated yeasts and maybe concentrated apple juice as a sweetner.
Real Cider
So real cider is high juice natural cider
Perry
Perry is just like real cider but made from perry pears.
Cider Resurgence
Cider has been making a comeback in the UK as a drink for younger and not so young people, largely as a result of huge advertising campaigns for Magners Irish Cider, but a spin off effect from this is an increased interest in real, full juice craft ciders as well. For example the supermarket shelves now carry ten or more cider varieties where only a couple of years ago there would have been only half this number.
Cider in pubs
Most of the cider sold in pubs is of the industrial variety, all made by only two or three of top manufacturers, with little of the true cider apple taste remaining. The trend for serving with loads of ice has exacerbated a tendency to replace subtle flavours with malic acid and fizz. There are some worth checking out though, either as traditional westrcountry pubs where the locals have always enjoyed a pint of scrumpy straight from the cask or as part of a chain with an arrangment with Westons or Thatchers. The best way to find these pubs is to look up the online cider pub guide at ukcider
Homemade cider
Some people try to make cider in the same way as homemade country wines, by fermenting water and bags of white sugar flavoured with a few crushed apples or even just by infusing chopped apples. That's not the same drink at all. What you need to do is find a way of pressing your own apple juice, then just let it turn into cider. Then keep it airtight otherwise it will turn into apple cider vinegar
Video
Tasting Cider
Cider makers FAQ
All the best information about cider is on ukcider's cider wiki
Cider Pubs
Over 1,000 pubs that serve real cider on the wiki cider pub guide
Real Perry with Abel & Cole Organic Boxes Real perry is such a treat but notoriously difficult to find so it’s fantastic that you can get perry delivered with organic boxes. That’s right, Abel and Cole one of the larger delivery schemes for organic boxes can also supply cases of Dunkertons Perry, in quantities [...]
James Crowden, has written a new book called Ciderland which documents the history of cider making and claims that the credit for inventing Champagne should really go to Christopher Merret, a West Country scientist who outlined his method of making sparkling wine in a paper to the Royal Society in 1632, six years before Dom [...]
It’s that time of year again when thousands of people in the Northern hemisphere are looking at all those apples ripening on the trees soon to fall and starting to think….hmmmm
The second edition of Ben Watson’s Cider Hard and Sweet, is now just out on sale. Ben is a noted US ’slow food’ guru. A fully updated and expanded primer for anyone who wants to make cider and for those who just like to drink it. With the rise in consumer demand for local foods [...]
This is a light cider ( 5.5% ?) with some good somerset cider apple flavour, but a hint of toffee I thought, although the label indicated a pure fresh pressed apple juice product. Found in a farm shop in Fife, Scotland. Share This
This bottled cider in the eastern counties style was of excellent quality and interest. I think the cider comes from Seddlescombe Vineyard and is labeled simply as “Organic Dry Cider” made by Organic County Drinks Ltd. Using only real, fresh organic English apples, mostly from Kent and Sussex. With wild natural yeasts and [...]
Ukcider is running a campaign to celebrate pubs up and down the country where they are proud to serve real cider. It’s taken a bit of a while to decide on the design for the real cider stickers and posters and to work out a way to get them [...]
Thanks to Mark Shirley for sending in a link to this short video which provides a nice tour of the Lyne Down Cider and Perry Limited products and organic orchard. Apple varieties mentioned are Stoke Red, Kingston Black, Yarlington Mill, Dabinet and Katy. Also a view of the twin screw press. Share This
Are you keeping up to date with Stephen Hayes’ Fruitwise apple tree pruning Videos? This latest one is all about summer pruning. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pReVULvggJE Summer pruning is a discretionary activity for orchard keepers, so you have to decide if it’s needed or not. Where a tree puts on a lot of new growth, then it’s worth thinning it out [...]
