Hermitage Farm‘s Bramley Apples

Here we are, five miles north of Hereford, in the middle of the organic Bramley apple harvest and the sad thing is that the bottom has dropped out of the Bramley apple market in the UK.

We are seeing Bramley apple trees being grubbed out, but what we need is a high profile celebrity chef to re-educate the British public about how to use Bramley cooking apples.

It has to be said though, that the French don’t even have a word for “cooking apples” there are many French varieties of apples and you can either eat them or cook with them. Or make cider with them of course!

Some advice about pruning Bramley Apple trees and grafting:

If you have a large Bramley apple tree, maybe up to 70 years old and it’s taking up a lot of space where you might prefer to have several other different varieties of apple trees growing, then you might want to consider grafting or top working the old Bramley tree after a severe prune but there are limitations to what can be done in such circumstances. For example it may seem a good idea to graft several different types of scions onto the same family tree or stock, but this can cause problems with differentiating growth rates of the various grafts, and also necessitate removing as many as possible of the original Bramley buds when they come through in spring, which is hardly practical on a large tree. A very large very old tree may present some challenges and you certainly
should leave ‘nurse branches’ but it is achievable, and if the tree is
lively you may be surprised how strongly the scions grow way.

Top working or grafting is not so difficult really, but the timing of the various prunes is actually quite crucial.

You need to cut the desired type of scion wood in late winter one season, then store it carefully, and do the grafting onto the old Bramley apple tree sometime between bud burst and blossom time. It’s well worth practicing first on some less valuable trees in order to make mistakes, learn, and then get the right cuts that work for your orchard.

Bramley Apple Tree

By Trevor.

Halloween Cider festival

At The Jack Russell Inn, Swimbridge

The Jack Russell
Swimbridge
Devon
EX32 0PN

01271 830366
contact@thejackrussell.com

As always, a hand picked selection of the finest Ciders from Devon and Somerset.

http://www.thejackrussell.com

The cider fruit are then washed down in trays using a hose pipe, and piled into the hopper of the scratter or apple grinding machine which turns the apples into mash ready to be pressed.

The big cider press squashes the cheeses filled with the apple mash and the juice is squeezed out, dripping through the cloth and racks into the collecting container.

You can see  the freshly pressed apple juice later starting to ferment and being stored in large oak barrels.

Let’s just all act like grown ups as if there isn’t a Llama in the room shall we?

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/

Details and full menu for the Bristol Cider Dinner on Friday August 19th at  Bishopston Supper Club

Hosted by: Bishopston Supper Club with Bristol Cider Shop

Entry Price/Session times:

Yarlington Mill Cider Apple

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THE GREAT BRITISH CIDER, BEER AND FOOD FESTIVAL AT BROGDALE

THE NATIONAL FRUIT COLLECTION - Brogdale

 

Brogdale Collections is a charity with the principle aim of creating awareness and interest in The National Fruit Collections and to enhance the long term sustainable future for the living collections at Brogdale.

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