Crazy Dave's Cider
05 October 2016
One of the best things about the shop at Rebellion are the large
numbers of top quality local products on sale. One of those local
products is Crazy Dave's Cider.
Crazy Dave's Cider is a fairly recent addition to our shop's
cider range, which fits very nicely alongside our beer. We sell
both fresh and bottled ciders with a variety of different strengths
and flavours.
Dave's story...
Dave has made beer and wine as a hobby for most of his life.
After buying his first press in 2013 he had a go at cider,
producing 80 litres with fruit from apple and pear trees in his
garden. In 2015 he produced 4750 litres, which required a lot more
fruit. What makes the story particularly special is where he gets
his apples from.
Rather than just buy his apples in bulk from large orchards, he
used 19th century maps to located orchards in Berkshire which he
then visited. A lot of the trees, were in people's gardens and on
private land, so Dave asked if he could collect their fruit. Last
year (2015) 6.5 tonnes of the 8 tonnes of the apples pressed for
the 2016 cider were collected by Dave, that's about 60,000
apples!
Dave moved his operation to a unit on the Berkshire College of
Agriculture site (BCA) in January 2015, which means his cider press
is only 5 miles from the Rebellion Brewery! He has got
involved with the college too, lecturing to students and running
demonstrations about the cider making process. The used apples go
to the college animals as feed too!
There are 2 varieties of cider in the Crazy Dave cider range,
'Berkshire' and 'Wessex'. 'Berkshire' is a cider made entirely from
apples picked locally, and 'Wessex' is a blend of local and
traditional Somerset cider apples. He has produced a dry and medium
version of each variety, creating a nice range for different
tastes.
The cider making process is simpler than brewing beer, but
making good quality cider requires knowledge and skill, choosing
the apples and being able to guide your cider from press to a
drinkable product.
The process is basically...
Wash the apples, remove dirt and grit, remove very
damaged/mouldy apples.
Break the apples up into a pulp using the mill, the pulp which
is produced is called 'pomace'. Leave the pomace to relax and give
up its juice (the process of Maceration).
Wrap the pomace in cloth and layer on top of each other, then
put the stack under the press.
Press the pomace to collect the juice.
Let the juice ferment, monitoring its strength and taste. Bottle
your cider!
Obviously there is more technical detail, but that's the basic
idea....
After trading in his desk for a cider press, the office for
orchards and his suit for gloves and wellies Dave will tell you
he's happier and healthier than he's been for years.
Crazy Dave's Dry and Medium Berkshire Cider is available in the
Brewery shop now....
