campaign

Contents
Loss of Traditional Orchards Threatens Species
Cider is Apple Wine
UK cider stickers and posters
Who are the Responsible Drinkers Alliance ?
Cider duty increases expected in budget
Small cider producers on You and Yours BBC Radio 4
No ice in my cider please!

Archive for the 'campaign' Category

Loss of Traditional Orchards Threatens Species

Published at April 24, 2009 in campaign and orchards. Closed

Matt Helliwell on the ukcider email discussion group pointed us to an interesting article on the BBC website about the National Trust campaign to retain what’s left of the country’s traditional orchards.

Loss of Traditional Orchards Threatens Species

Orchard losses ‘threaten species’

Traditional fruit orchards are vanishing from England’s landscape – with serious consequences for wildlife, conservationists have warned.

The National Trust says 60% have disappeared since the 1950s, putting local varieties of apples, cherries, pears, plums and damsons under threat. It is launching a £536,000 drive to reverse the decline of the orchards. Their trees provide important habitats for species such as the noble chafer beetle and lesser spotted woodpecker.

The orchards – some with as few as five trees – also offer sources of pollen and nectar to bees, which are thought to be declining partly because of a lack of suitable food. Pressure from commercial fruit growers has led many small-scale producers to develop their orchards or convert them to other uses.

via BBC NEWS | England | Orchard losses ‘threaten species’.

Cider is Apple Wine

Published at April 2, 2009 in campaign, craft cider and wine. 3 Comments

Two unrelated provocations cause me to blog about the nature of cider and where it belongs related to other beverages. The first is a resurfacing of the old strategic conflict as to whether it’s worth putting an effort into attempting to reform the soul of real ale organisations in order to push them more in the direction of  understanding cider and perry.  The second is a call from a wine blogger to widen the conversation about wine into the wider food and drink blogosphere.

So all I want to establish at this point really, is the fact that cider and perry have a lot more in common with wine than they do with beer.

Wine and cider are made from pressed fruit juice which is left to ferment and mature slowly. They are not made from a selection of recipes which always produce an identical product  year in year out like beer, which is created from chemically neutralised and adjusted water with added malt sugars and hops flavourings.

Each craft cider or perry maker develops their own blend of fruit and either natural or selected yeast fauna. The vintage  will vary from year to year almost as much as the terroir from one cider producing area to another.

The problem is that industrial cider is seen as little more than an alternative brand of lager beer, but this has nothing to do with the full juice craft cider which we promote at ukcider. And the role of cider and perry within the real ale organisations will always be a minority role, and that has proved to be much more of a restriction that it has an opportunity. Real cider and perry need a campaigning organisation of our own, not one tied to the interests of the lucrative beer festival organisers, which will always attract overwhelmingly beer drinkers.

In the meanwhile we would do well to explain , explain and explain again that cider has much more in common with other fruit wines than it does with beer.  You need to understand that in order to produce quality craft cider, and to appreciate it too. To that end we  would do well to read, learn and associate a lot more with our European counterparts with small vineyards who produce craft grape wines than with the beer drinkers.

UK cider stickers and posters

Published at August 11, 2008 in campaign, real cider and wiki. Closed

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 printed without any central funding, but where there’s an enthusiastic community like ours there’s always a way.

ukcider stickers and posters

A short run of prototype stickers have already been distributed to most of the real cider pubs in South Dorset thanks to Rose who reports a great reception wherever they are offered. The stickers themselves have been designed by Jez, and printed in small batches by Dick Dunn over in the USA and posted over to Rose here in the UK. Now there are just enough to send out a handful each to people who know they can definitely get them put up in doorways and windows of pubs that serve full juice real cider and perry.

The idea to get this up to the next stage is that the artwork is made available on the ukcider wiki so that anybody with a good quality printer can follow the instructions to make some more for local distribution. There are over 1,000 cider pubs recommended in our online cider pub guide but we want to concentrate on those that sell unique, local craft ciders. Much as we really do appreciate all those Wetherspoons pubs that sell Westons Old Rosie and Vintage cider, both excellent drinks, we are aiming at the outlets for smaller producers at first.

Who are the Responsible Drinkers Alliance ?

Published at June 13, 2008 in campaign, discussion and media. 5 Comments

“Lucy Mcs” dropped by the Cider Facebook Page to leave a message about The Responsible Drinkers Allowance which I’ll publish here without any endorsement, as a means of perhaps gathering further opinion on the subject. In particular I’d welcome any research which can establish whether this is a genuine grassroots campaign or a front for the big manufacturers of the drinks industry.

Responsible Drinkers Alliance

Hi everyone,

I want to let you know about an important new organisation designed to put your voice into the debate around alcohol. The Responsible Drinkers Alliance is the first time the vast majority of responsible drinkers can have a voice in this debate.

The Government is about to make some major decisions on how we all buy and consume our drinks. There are voices calling for major restrictions and taxes. They are getting a widespread coverage in the media and vocal support amongst some politicians. The voice of the moderate drinker is being drowned out.

The Responsible Drinkers Alliance will change that by giving us a platform to make our voices heard. So come visit the site and become a member. You can join in our online debate or you can simply add your name to our community of responsible drinkers.

As they say, it’s your choice, it’s your voice, so use it!

Cider duty increases expected in budget

Published at March 9, 2008 in campaign and duty. Closed

All three main UK political parties are falling over each to be seen as coming down hard on binge drinkers after the failure of 24hour pub opening to introduce a new continental cafe style drinking culture. Coinciding with a slowdown in the economy and an expected fall in tax revenues, this can only mean one thing for alcohol duties, they’re going up.

Alcopops, cheap white ‘cider’ and strong beers have been singled out for criticism, but spirits and wine duties are expected to rise also.

At present, cider holds a special place in the customs and excise duty regulations. Already lower than other alcohol duties, duties on spirits, sparkling wine and cider have been frozen for at least the last two years.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/budget2006/bn55.htm

The rate for beer is calculated on a percentage alcohol basis at £13.26 per hectolitre per cent of alcohol in the beer so a 5% lager would attract duty at £66.30 per hectolitre

The duty on still cider and perry however is levied at a fixed rate of £25.61 per hectolitre up to 7.5% abv, with only a slight increase to £38.43 for 8.5% ( above this strength it counts as apple wine)

So the duty on a mass produced white cider at 7.5% is currently only around a quarter of that on beer of a weaker strength. Wine and spirits are taxed at a higher rate again.

What are the implications for high quality, 100% juice, craft ciders? At present these have the same alcohol duty advantage as the mass produced industrial imposters, so if the duty rates for cider are increased anywhere towards parity with beer, then the cost of retailing craft ciders will have to go up as well, at least for all except the smallest producers who make only 7,000 hectolitres per year or less.

Those are the facts, but these are some of the questions arising:

1) Why is cider taxed less than beer?

2) How can they get away with calling something fermented from less than 30% apple juice “cider” ?

3) Will increased taxation reduce binge drinking?

4) Will it hit craft cider producers worse than cheap white ‘cider; manufacturers?

5) Is this why NACM tried to squash the campaign to defend the small cidermakers exemption? To what end?

And more importantly, here are some possible actions to be urgently adopted:

* Step up the campaign to defend the small cidermakers exemption – the petition currently has 1,400 signatures and is due to be presented to the prime minister in May.

* Build the ukcider Campaign for Real Cider and Perry – only an independent campaign can represent the interests of the real cider producers and drinkers.

* Expose the deceptive NACM definition of cider which allows for less than 30% juice with the unlimited addition of water and sugar before fermentation.

* Support sensible drinking awareness – http://www.drinkaware.co.uk/

Small cider producers on You and Yours BBC Radio 4

Published at November 20, 2007 in campaign and media. Closed

Last Thursday the You and Yours programme on Radio 4 had a discussion
on the small producer’s exemption.

Listen to Rod Marsh from the National Cider Collection in Sussex, Barry
at Borough market and Simon Russell of the NACM.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/items/04/2007_46_thu.shtml

No ice in my cider please!

Published at September 14, 2007 in Magners Irish Cider and campaign. 1 Comment

“No ice in my cider please” the T-shirt design.

no ice in my cider please

I just wondered if this might strike a chord with some people.

There’s a Facebook group