Cider Making in England
The production and enjoyment of cider is a centuries-old tradition throughout the apple-growing regions of France, England, Spain and other countries of western Europe. It is a tradition steeped in folklore and custom, and it has spawned nearly as many stories and legends as enthusiasts for one of the world’s oldest beverages.
In England it is said that Joseph of Arimathea came to Glastonbury in Somerset to found a center of Christianity in the years following the death of Christ. Glastonbury was known in Arthurian times as Avalon, which means the isle of apples. Joseph was said to have eaten apples at Glastonbury and then spat the seeds into Somerset. Cider-apple trees sprang from the ground as a result and created the vast orchards that grow today in Hereford, Somerset and Devon.
English villagers in Somerset still practice the traditional ritual of apple wassailing, which is supposed to ensure a bountiful crop. On January 6, Twelfth Night, they gather around the largest tree in the orchard, drink to its health, and pour cider over its roots. Then everyone joins hands and dances around the tree while some blast shotguns in the air to scare evil spirits away. Pieces of cider-soaked bread are tied to the tree’s branches as an offering to robins, the good spirits of the tree.
There are nearly 300 different varieties of cider apples growing in England today, some of which are descendants of ancient trees first planted by the Romans. Most have picturesque names like Slack-MyGirdle, Lady’s Finger, Cats’ Heads, and Sheep’s Nose. Their juice produces the bittersweet flavor characteristic of English cider. These apples are sour, bitter and coarse by the standards for most table or eating apples, but they are the absolutely essential raw material for proper English cider.
Thee juice from those apples is so essential to cider that H.P. Bulmer Ltd., the largest producer by volume of cider in the world, exports it in concentrated form to its plants in other countries, including a large operation located in Campbelltown, New South Wales, Australia, which was opened in 1969.
Thee concentrate is shipped halfway around the world and reconstituted and blended with fresh juice from apples grown in Tasmania and other parts of Australia. A typical batch of cider from Bulmer! Australia is 40 percent from apple concentrate pressed at the orchards near the main plant in Hereford, England. The blended juice is inoculated with a special wine yeast which has been isolated and kept pure for almost a hundred years.
Then the cider ferments for several weeks in huge 10,000 and 20,000 gallon tanks which, following Herefordshire tradition at the original cider works, are named for towns or people involved in the long history of the firm. The large tanks are called Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Koala, Kanza and Credenhill and the smaller ones are labelled Patrick, James Cook and David, for example.
Each tank ferments at a slightly different rate which is controlled by the surrounding temperature as the tanks are not refrigerated. Once fermentation is completed, the cider is allowed to settle and siphoned off to rest. After some days it goes into a centrifuge for clarification and then is passed through a diatomaceous-earth filter and finally through a filter of special paper. 111en the cider is ready for blending.
The cider is blended with water to create an alcohol content that depends on the label under which it will be sold. Carbonation also varies according to the label and is done as the cider is bottled. The bottles are filled at the rate of eight hundred gallons an hour and are pasteurized briefly before they are labeled and put into cases for shipping.
The original Bulmer cider works in Hereford began operation in 1888. Four thousand gallons of cider were made that year in a rented warehouse by Percy Bulmer, an enterprising twenty-year-old. His brother soon joined the successful business and by 1911, the Bulmers were granted a Royal Warrant, making them the official cidermakers for the British royal family.
Cider making in Hereford usually begins by mid- September and goes full tilt through October and November. The cider works uses apples from its thousands of acres of orchards, and buys still more from independent local growers. The apples are shaken from the trees and delivered to the cider mill where they are washed several times, ground to a fine pulp and pressed. The juice is stored in settling vats and then pumped into other vats for fermentation, which usually takes about three or four weeks. The storage vats, named for countries, planets, and even birds, store 15 million gallons of cider at one time. The largest tank is named Strongbow and holds 1,650,000 gallons of cider.