This article titled “Consider cider” was written by Oliver Thring, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 9th August 2011 09.00 UTC

I don’t think any food or drink plummets through quality quite like cider. Its best examples are sharp and auburn, tasting of hay and meadowsweet. In the middle lie the fizzy wee of Strongbow, its jumped-up, overbranded cousin Magners and a slew of similar products like Gaymers and Bulmers. Thrashing at the bottom is gutrot white cider, at once the friend and enemy of many underage and homeless drinkers.

This country has had a continuous tradition of cider-making for at least 1,000 years, and likely longer. It’s hard to be sure because both Roman orchards and the eighth-century monasteries that revived them might have used their fruit for eating or cooking. The Normans have always been enthusiastic cider-makers and no doubt a few came over after 1066. But basic scrumpy-making isn’t particularly difficult, and it seems probable that not long after the apple left Turkey, Iran or elsewhere in western Asia, people worked out how to ferment its juice.

Real cider remains happily bucolic, rooted in druids and wassailing and hymned by the sprites of the orchards. The jug-eared mugs you traditionally drink it from are descended from old English loving cups.

But cider has only recently returned to fashion. It all but vanished in the first half of the 20th century, choked by hops and decimated by Britain’s sad rejection of domestic apple varieties. By the 1960s it was close to a yokelish footnote. Its market has swollen more than fourfold since the 70s thanks in large part to a favourable tax situation. The Treasury takes a little over 30 quid for every 100l of “mainstream” cider, compared to about £125 for beer and just under £170 for spirits. (“Fizzy” cider attracts a much higher tariff.) This was to protect traditional cider-makers and revive a moribund industry, and to a large extent it succeeded.

Companies like Sheppy’s and Aspall had been quietly making cider through the slump, and unlike most of their competitors (Bulmers, Magners, Gaymers), both avoided being taken over. But all cider producers benefited from the system, and 2m new cider apple trees were planted in the UK between 1995 and 2006.

In its final budget in 2010 Labour announced plans to hike the duty on cider 10% above inflation: it shelved these plans after a bizarre and very British outcry. I’m not sure this rediscovered taste for the drink means we cook with it any more: English recipes use cider almost exclusively in pork dishes, though Normandy has been somewhat more inventive.

Sadly, the cider renaissance also helped to spur the growth of white cider, which remains the cheapest way to get drunk. Alcohol and homeless charities are tireless in explaining the social costs of white cider. In April this year the chief executive of Thames Reach likened its use among alcoholics to that of heroin among heroin addicts, and Alcohol Concern has called for it to be banned altogether. All cider has to contain at least 35% apple juice by law, but white cider manufacturers make this up using imported apple concentrate.

It seems astonishing that Magners only launched nationwide in 2006, so ubiquitous has it become. I have to say I find it unpleasantly acidic and gassy, and the conceit of serving it over ice is perhaps the most affected thing to happen to alcohol since Anthony Blanche’s brandy alexanders. But what a clever bit of marketing that was: fill the glass with ice and sell less product for more money. Magners led to the relaunch of Bulmer’s Original and, this year, to Stella Artois’s “Cidre”, which I haven’t tasted but which the great beer writer Pete Brown describes as “not unpleasant … but odd”.

As the Guardian’s wine writer Fiona Beckett points out, by buying decent cider you get “the best artisanal products Britain has to offer for the same price as the dullest commercially produced wine”. Despite 40 years of government-led investment, most of us could still be drinking more of this criminally underrated drink, which at its best easily rivals champagne. I like Westons from Herefordshire, and Healey’s sent me a bottle the other day which was excellent. But there are now enough small cider producers that every half-decent pub should stock them, and there’s only one way to find your favourite.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

Celebrity chef Marco Pierre White has taken the controversial step of banning Foster’s lager and Strongbow cider from his new pub.

The Hell’s Kitchen star removed the popular drinks from sale at his Angel pub in Lavenham, Suffolk, just months after buying the pub from its previous owners.

He bought the pub with a view to creating an authentic ale and cider house in the village.

“I don’t like Foster’s and Strongbow,”explained Pierre White, “I like traditional ales and ciders. If they don’t like that, I’m sorry.”

His plans have already upset some local beer drinkers who feel they are being pushed out of their local pub.

“The Angel is the heart of Lavenham,” said regular Rod Benson, “We like a drink, but we’re not lager louts. When the drinks we like disappeared, we got the message he doesn’t really want us there.”

The pub, which was first licensed back in 1420, had come close to closure prior to Pierre White’s purchase.

Since restoring the interior of the pub, the chef has sought to attract a different kind of beer drinker.

He is also taking steps to curb “laddish” behaviour, with swearing, tattoos and dogs on chairs also outlawed.

“If I was going to take my mother to dinner there I would not wish her to be exposed to that sort of thing,” he said.

“When I take over an establishment I see myself as the caretaker. I accept not everyone will agree with my decisions.”

http://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2011/08/tv-chef-bans-popular-drinks/

The content previously published here has been withdrawn. We apologise for any inconvenience.

cider taste grading

1. = Very Sweet Cider
2. = Sweet Cider
3. = Medium Sweet Cider
4. = Medium Cider
5. = Medium Dry Cider
6. = Dry Cider
7. = Very Dry

So that’s an attempt to differentiate down to quite a fine level really, on the Sweet/Dry axis. But perceived dryness can also be affected by factors other than the actual proportion of sugar per volume. Real ciders should be full juice and not strengthened then watered down so the character of the original apples is what really matters. Some will have more bittersweet varieties in the blend than others, and the eventual amount of tannin and acidity in the cider will change the way it tastes to an extent that possibly eclipses the sweetness indicator when it’s trying to be meaningful at the 1 in 7 level.

Of course ultimately all that matters is whether you enjoy drinking it but how would you grade real cider for taste?

River Cottage – Real Cider

As a prize I’ve won free access to some online courses about mushrooms, game, pigs and fishing. River cottage do sell some ciders through their online shop but it’s not a very exciting selection. Eventually I’m sure there’ll be an online how to make cider membership course, unless perhaps we decide to make one first?

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.