Fruits and Orchards
It’s so easy to enjoy cider and perry it can be easy to forget just how much hard work and magic go into our favourite drinks. With a little knowledge and armed with some fascinating new facts you can start to hone your appreciation of cider and perry to the next level.
In the first installment of his series on how cider is made Gabe Cook takes us on a short tour of cider producing regions. Gabe profiles the fruit grown there and guides us through the features and characteristics that cider apples and perry pears lend to the drinks we so enjoy.
With 10+ years of experience working in the cider industry, Gabe is leading the charge for a cider revolution. AKA ‘the Ciderologist‘ Gabe is an international consultant, writer, broadcaster, and educator on all matters cider. Resident cider expert for C4’s Sunday Brunch. Gabe also chairs the International Cider Challenge.
Cider, just like orchards and the apple varieties that they contain, is an incredibly considered process.
At every step, a cider maker will make decisions that will determine what type of cider they will create and the very first decision is what kind of apple will they use. For we must not forget that cider is made, just like wine is made.
There is no brewing associated with cider, where heat and water are the primary constituents and agents. Therefore, just like with wine making, the primary factor that determines the overarching profile of any cider is which variety (or varieties) will be used, and their inherent flavours, properties and characteristics.
The choice of which apples to use is often determined by a regional culture and heritage, by climatic conditions or (as is so often in life) simply what is easily available to utilise.
All apples have the same primary constituents and it is the relative proportions of these constituents that determines the broad classification of the apple and what kind of cider it will produce. These primary constituents are:
– Acid
– Tannin
Don’t be concerned that ‘acid’ sounds dangerous or unapproachable, it simply means ‘sharp’. It is the natural malic acid in apples that gives zingy, crisp characters, experienced when biting into a Granny Smith apple, for example, and these characters will be transferred into the ciders, too. It is acidity that helps to enhance freshness and fruitiness and is the bit the slakes one’s thirst on a hot summer’s day.
Tannin, on the other hand, provides characters at the other end of the spectrum. Here we are talking about earthiness, bitterness and astringency — a mouth drying sensation. Very often, ciders made from tannin apples, but also contain a lot of sugar, so they are referred to as being ‘dry’ due to the high levels of astringency negating the impact of the sugar. Tannins often coat the inside of the mouth, giving a feeling of texture or mouthfeel, sometimes referred to ‘chewiness’.
Consideration should also be given to the sugar content within an apple, as this will determine the amount of alcohol the resultant cider will contain. Why? Well, it’s simple. As you will see in Part 2 of this series, the fermentation process involves the conversion of these natural sugars contained within the apples, into alcohol by the action of yeast. In most circumstances, yeast will convert all of the natural sugar in the apples into alcohol. Therefore, the more sugar in the apple, the higher potential alcohol level – simple!
There are two broad families of apples that are utilised to make cider in the UK:
West Country Cider Apples
This is a group of apples that have been selected and grown in Western parts of England, and over the border into Wales, for at least 500 years. They are though to be the ancestors of classic French ‘cider’ apples brought over to the UK post-Norman invasion.
The culture of using these tannin rich apples found a home in the Western region that spans from the Welsh Marches at its Northern extreme and runs down through the Cotswold and Mendip Hills, Somerset Levels and Moors to Devon, Dorset and Cornish valleys at its Southern most end.
Hundreds of West Country cider apples have been identified, selected and grown over the centuries, with well over 100 in common use still today, some rarer than others. The soils, topography, relative mildness and precipitation levels makes this broader region suited to growing these types of apple, although these varieties are now grown all over the UK and all over the world, in such far flung places as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, USA and Canada.
Some of these varieties are more widely planted than other because of their desirability to larger cider makers of requisite levels of tannin and good cropping levels – e.g. Dabinett, Michelin, Harry Master’s Jersey etc. Conversely, some varieties are very specific to their County, or even parish, of origin. For example, it would be rare to find a Morgan Sweet growing in Herefordshire, just as it would be unlikely to find too many orchards of Brown Snout in Dorset. There are also a plethora of wonderfully names varieties, with particular favourites including Slack-ma-Girdle, Cider Lady’s Finger, Cat’s Head, Foxwhelp and Hen’s Turds!
Before tannin rich apples were brought over to the UK, as a legacy of the Romans, there was a heritage of growing eating and cooking apples, especially in the warmest and driest part of the UK – The South East of England. The Counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Sussex and Kent have a proud and long standing tradition of growing apples destined for the table markets of London and beyond.
Historically (and still today), not all of these apples would have met the grade for being eaten and so they are utilised in cider making. These apples, and the resultant ciders, are not rich of tannin – they are dominated more by acidity and fruitiness.
Older, traditional varieties such as Bramley (culinary), Cox’s Orange Pippin, Ashmead’s Kernel and Egremont Russet (dessert) have been used for well over a century, whilst more modern dessert varieties, such as Braeburn, Jazz and Discovery are also used today.
It is these type of apples that form the backbone of global, modern cider making, owing to their vast distribution and ease of access.
In 1903, the now defunct Long Ashton Research Station (LARS), just south of Bristol created a classification for West Country cider apple varieties to further understand their properties.
Although not originally intended for dessert and culinary apples, the following can be utilised to classify all apples used for cider making in the UK today:
– Brown’s Apple
– Bramley
– Braeburn
– Falstaff
– Kingston Black
– Foxwhelp
– Dymock Red
– Porter’s Perfection
– Yarlington Mill
– Somerset Redstreak
– Chisel Jersey
– Major
– Sweet Coppin
– Court Royal
– Jonagold
– Worcester Pearmain
Technically, the utilisation of pears to make a fermented drink is entirely different from cider. But given that the process is essentially identical, and undertaken by cider makers, if it weren’t included alongside apples and cider, pears probably wouldn’t be championed anywhere. So we’re proud of our pears, too!
Pears can also be divided into two camps:
There are over 100 different varieties still in existence today that are the legacy of a traditional perry making heritage that harks back over 500 years within the Counties of the Welsh Marches, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Monmouthshire. Today there are still relics of old pear orchards, with trees reaching 20 metres or more into the sky and more than 300 years in age.
These traditional perry pears, which contain varyingly higher levels of both tannin and acidity (relative to dessert pears), make drinks more and more floral than an equivalent cider using tannin rich apples, but still with the potential for robustness.
Although no ‘official’ taxonomy exists for perry pears, one could split them broadly into 3 camps (with example varieties):
Acid driven
– Thorn
– Olfield
– Gin
Fruit Driven
– Hendre Huffcap
– Brandy
– Blakeney Red
Tannin Driven
– Rock
– Butt
– Barland
The classic tannin rich West Country cider apples have always been picked from the ground. Why? Well, firstly, because they were always destined to be squished into juice, physical perfection was never necessary. Secondly, these apple varieties will only drop off the tree when they are nearing ripeness, and using ripe fruit is key to ensuring the resultant ciders are not harsh of tannin. Lastly, the final portion of maturation that is undertaken amongst the cool, autumnal grass appears to bring out the full opportunity of fruity and tannin intensity from these apples.
Outside of the Welsh Marches, dessert pear varieties, such as Doyenne du Commice, Concorde and Conference, are utilised to produce a low acid, low tannin, soft and fruity fermented pear drink. The words are chosen carefully here, because there are some folk who think that a perry can only be called a perry if made from ‘true’ perry pears. An alternative term, pear cider, is preferred by some to provide a differentiation, but still there are others who dislike this term, thinking it a misnomer as cider can only be made from apples. Incidentally, the law permits either term, but for the sake clarity and finding a mid ground, it could be said that the resultant fermentations are respectively traditional perry and modern perry.
The traditional system of orcharding is the same for all types of apple in the UK – dessert, culinary and West Country cider varieties; often, they were planted in the same orchards. This traditional, or “standard” orchard, system is rooted in the premise that most agriculture, until 70 years ago, was based upon a mixed farming system. All land was needed, and often had dual purposes.
These standard orchards were generally a blend of different varieties, planted on a grid pattern, with 10 metres plus between each tree to allow sufficient light for the trees and the grass. The canopy was raised sufficiently high so that livestock could graze underneath for the majority of the year, and only removed prior to harvesting.
Sadly, today, 95% of these traditional orchards have been lost. Not only are they valuable relics of our agricultural and horticultural past, but they are crucial for wildlife too. Traditional orchards are recognised as a Priority Habitat under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP), thanks to their importance for rare species of bird, invertebrate, lichen and moss.
As a result of the industrialisation of agriculture post WWII, today we grow the vast majority of our apples in the UK in a more intensive fashion. Orchards now tend to have one function, and that is to produce fruit as efficiently as possible by increasing the yield per acre. This has been achieved by the planting of varieties on dwarf rootstocks, resulting in smaller trees, planted closely together to create linear, ‘bush’ orchards.
These orchards tend not to have the biodiversity value of standard orchards, as they are likely to be planted as a monoculture, and with a greater likelihood of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides being applied. That said, even modern orchards have greater environmental benefit than say a field of wheat, owing to the semi-permanence of the canopy and the carbon sequestration capabilities of the trees.
While there has been a modernisation in the way that these West Country cider apple varieties are grown, so too has there been a mechanisation of the harvesting process. Although many smaller cider makers do still hand pick from the ground, a great proportion of apples are harvested from the ground using push along, sit on or tractor mounted harvesters. In the more commercially-focussed orchards, a tree shaking machine might also be employed to ensure all apples had fallen to the ground prior to harvesting.
For any apple that had the initial intention of being eaten harvested by hand, directly from the tree, is often slightly underripe to allow for ripeness to be achieved by the time it hits the supermarket shelves. If, for some reason, it doesn’t make the grade for going to the supermarket (too small, not colourful enough, finger bruise etc), it will be placed into cold storage for utilisation by juice and cider makers as their discretion through the year. There is also an increasing number of cider makers who are growing dessert and culinary apples specifically for cider making, only harvesting when the fruit is perfectly ripe.
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