Australian Cider

Along with the emerging Australian craft beer movement which is playing host to a number of new micro, nano and contract brewing operations, there is a new wave of Australian cider operators producing a product that fits between artisanyl craft cider and the glucose wines characterised by the Irish style craze which swept the UK in 2006. These 'ciders' are made with pure fruit juice, however the fruit they use are generally not cider varieties. Australian apple cultivars such as Granny Smith and Pink Lady are used predominately and produce a dry sparkling wine style cider that is clear, tart and refreshing. The tannin component that pervades the best west country ciders is noticeably absent which makes these drinks a little uncomplicated, but then UK ciders tend to be simple compared to the complexities of French examples from Normandy. Its horses for courses (speaking of which, I just won $60 on the Melbourne cup!).
First cab of the rank is Pipsqueak which is brewed by the same blokes who bring us Little Creatures (OK, Lion Nathan is a major shareholder but push that to the back of your mind). This cider gets the thumbs up from my wife so that's an indication towards its styling. Actually it tastes and smells very little of apples. Its neutral and if anything could easily be confused with Champagne - which is the style of dry cider I think LC were setting out to achieve.
Three Oaks Cider Co. are also a relatively new player on the scene. Their Original product takes a different approach to Pipsqueak and while still being clean flavoured, still maintains a strong apple and pear aroma and a residual sweetness. Their product range of Sweet, Dry and Original is slightly concerning though and mirrors that of a famous glucose wine manufacturer - Strongbow.
Punt Road Napoleone & Co Apple Cider is produced by a notable Yarra Vally vineyard which is branching out into the emerging cider market. Their offering is more in tune with the dry fizzy styling of Pipsqueak although the bottle I had displayed a rotting fruit aroma on the nose. If you have ever had the cider or perry from the cider stall at Borough Market you will know the aroma I am describing. Putting the aroma aside the cider was fine, if not a little dry and bland.
Continuing with the Yarra Valley theme, Coldstream Cider by the Coldstream Brewery was very much in the mould of the 3 Oaks offering with a semi-sweet slightly fruity offering. But still lacking the body and flavour that you get from a cider brewed with real cider varieties.

In a nutshell this is the current state of play for these emerging ciders. Its an interesting market play for these products as they are looking towards piggybacking on the niche craft brewing market where some of the more artisanyl products from Thorogoods Fine Apple Wines, Sully's Cider House, and Small Acres Cider seem to have found a niche within the fine wine industry. Fingers crossed my small operation will be able compete in both of these niches in just a few years time - well after these early market entrants pave the way and reintroduce cider to Australian drinkers again.

Reidsdale Gold

Reidsdale Gold (9.6% abv) is a sparkling cider made in the Southern Tablelands at the Old Cheese Factory. Made from apples sourced from local orchards and trees found on the roadside in the Braidwood region it reeks of provenance and terroir. The cider itself is complicated, semi-sweet and slightly sharp but is well balanced. Being brewed from both cider and non-cider variety apples it tastes similar to Westons Old Rosie but with the mouth feel and slight carbonation prickle of an Irish style cider such as Magners or Bulmers. Over all its a decent drink and more of a sipper than a hot summer afternoon quaffer.
The sample we had at the cellar door tasted a lot sharper than the bottle I am writing about here. This could be either oxidation of the sample we had at the cellar door which may have been opened a few days before hand, or it could be inconsistencies in production from batch to batch. We are talking about cottage industry style production here after all.
Sully's Cider have a number of other varieties becoming available such as Monga Mist, which is a cloudy cider made from apples scrumped from the Monga State Forest region of NSW and an apple and blackberry wine. I'll investigate these further and post in due course.

In other news, yesterday I planted three new hop rhizomes. The varieties are Chinook, Victoria and Pride of Ringwood. The planting is a little late, but hopefully they will establish themselves quickly. I'll propagate them and run a few new rows in my hop garden when they are ready.

BTW - I have decided to expand the scope a little to discuss cider as well due to my latest apple related adventures. Also I guess tickers may be frustrated as I will be clocking up a few beverages which they will not have access to . Boo Hoo

Cider Country

My parents place in the Southern Tablelands of NSW is of significance not only because of my hop garden, but also because the region is rich in history ranging from bushrangers to gold mines. This history has left a legacy, and the area is literally covered with thousands of apple trees, mostly cider varieties in abandoned orchards and trees growing wild beside the road. The tree pictured to the left is one such tree and is estimated to be over 100 years old. It produces small tannin rich fruit which I aim to press and ferment into cider. I have also taken cuttings of this tree and a number of other trees in the area to propagate onto dwarf rootstock. I have also ordered some traditional West Country varieties to round out the flavour of any cider I brew. I don't have any aspirations to produce cider commercially and I will be happy if I can produce 360 odd bottles so I have to the option of having a bottle a day with dinner if I choose to. The whole area is undergoing a slight cider renaissance with a couple of commercial producers most notably the Sully's at "The Old Cheese Factory" who are scrumping old orchards and roadside bushes in the area for fruit. I visited The Cheese Factory over the weekend and sampled some of their cider at their cellar door, which I will post about tomorrow. For now take total care.

The Doctor MIA? No busy dealing with Twats

The busy stretch seems to have come to an end and fingers crossed I can get back to business as usual. I apologize again for being MIA and for my blog being a bit shithouse lately as well.

Firstly I have not stepped foot in a pub since I reported on the steak sandwich I had at The Queens Head a few weeks ago. I did make it to the beer garden of The Brook Green Hotel on one of the warmers days before the weather turned crap - but I opted for a couple of bottles of 'OIrish' style cider instead. I think this is excusable in warmer weather as is drinking copious amounts of lager. Oh and I have not been to the Gunmakers in over a month - it's a sad state of affairs (actually I might sneak out for a quick one this afternoon).

My fridge has played host to numerous bottles of Anchor Steam, SNPA and Punk IPA over the last couple of weeks and I spent £93 in Tesco sourcing a trolley full of these bottles. Basically I have been too lazy to stroll down to the pub for a pint and have been opting to drink in the flat with the Missus. Some CAMRA retards might think this is antisocial, but I think it shows common sense in these tough economic times, plus there is no barman to ever cut me off if I have one too many!

Last week I said I would have some kind of news announcement, well basically I don't have anything worth indulging yet - but fingers crossed I will have something soon. Also worth noting is that I placed an order with an asshole who runs a store called beerclearstore.co.uk. This fool refused to process my order due to some issue he has with PayPal and he was claiming he couldn't get the money I paid him. What a tool! Basically I ordered a few things through his website, chose to use his online checkout (which is with PayPal) and the order went smoothly. He gives me a call saying that he has received my order and it will be with me in 3-4 days. A week later and I haven't received anything so I give him a call;

"Oh, I am having some problems getting the money from PayPal. I'll look into it and call you back." I'm thinking fair enough - but he doesn't call me back. I call again and this tool is still claiming that PayPal are withholding funds. I tell him that his relationship with PayPal has nothing to do with me and to hurry up and process my order. He refuses to process my order - I've promoted this bloke from tool to twat at this stage. I then ring up PayPal and they indirectly tell me that this bloke twat can't access his funds because he has been stooging other customers. So I email the twat and ask for a refund which he claims that he can't provide. I then send him some emails telling him he has no idea about how to run a business and deal with customers etc. I received the expected email back saying that he not going to correspond with me any further. I then lodge a dispute with PayPal which is automatically escalated to a claim and I have my money refunded in a record 11 minutes! Basically PayPal asked this guy to respond to my complaint and he said that he can't do anything as PayPal have my money not him. Whatever.... But the moral of the story is DO NOT buy any thing from beerclearstore.co.uk as it's not worth the effort and you are not going to get the level of customer service which every consumer deserves. I should have picked up on this as he used two different surnames during the process of me trying to sort this stuff out. Anyhow I have reordered my items with another online vendor and should have them early next week. I will describe my purchases in an upcoming post, the items will almost certainly piss some people off. Let the good times roll.......