Reply to: Get your thieving Oirish hands off our apples!

[vetran]

I hope you have applied for you £300 per year per tree EU subsidy

of course get it while it's still available!

I have a mini roundabout by the manshack sponsored by the EU, easiest £2 million ever!

[Pip in a Poke]

I wish I was, but I'm not a scrumpy fan. I always get excited seeing cider at a beer festival or what have you, but have come to the conclusion the cider I like is more of the French style, medium-sweet. Maybe if I invested some more time drinking it...

French cider I find a bit too sweet though I'm partial to the odd boulée to accompany a nice savoury gallette when I'm in Brittany.

I like Spanish cider. Or rather, I like all the ritual and parerphernalia that surrounds it whenever one visits a Spanish cidreria.

The actual drink itself is somewhat tart even for my tastes but it is taken is small measures with as much air incorporated during the pouring process as possible (I don't know whether this enhances the flavour or if it's to facilitate the uptake of alcohol into the bloodstream).

Consequently, the pouring process is somewhat theatrical with the glass held as close to the ground as possible in the hand of one outstretched arm and the bottle in the hand of the other arm which is extended vertically such that distance between bottle and glass is maximised.

Lord knows how they ever reach the target without spilling a drop.

Of course, as ever modern technology had its part to play these days. I went into one bar in which you buy a bottle of cider and gather enough glasses for your party and you retire to a table where there is a table top device into which you pour the contents of your bottle and it dispenses air infused shots of cider until you've either run out of cider or you fall over!

The Spanish are so civilised....

[NigelJK]

I'm sure there was a gag about the similarity to making love in a rowing boat and <fill in with name of crap drink>.

Have made plenty of Elderberry (with or withour blackberries) Wine/Port, and very good it is too <hic>.

[d000hg]

I'm sure cider is full of bits of flora and fauna since if you pick wild fruit it's amazing how many bugs there are and bits of mould here and there. I doubt industrial brewing allows time to inspect each fruit so there'll be wasps, spiders, bird crap, etc... it's like when you forage blackberries for a pie you shouldn't look too closely before cooking You can wash and soak them but it doesn't get everything.

I doubt a cider press releases the cyanide in the pips (about which you are totally correct) and since cider isn't concentrated it's probably fine. If you blitzed the whole fruit rather than juicing/pressing and then decided to make applejack/scumble out of it I wonder what level you might reach though... there is at least one story of someone killing themself eating a cup-full of apple pips because they liked the taste.

[Pip in a Poke]

Are those all farmyard scrumpy styles, served warm and flat?

Always flat, never warm.

Other characteristics (which you may wish to take with a pinch of salt) include a liberal sprinkling of rats hairs and more than your daily dose of cyanide courtesy of the pips which contain concentrations of this compound.

[d000hg]

I wish I was, but I'm not a scrumpy fan. I always get excited seeing cider at a beer festival or what have you, but have come to the conclusion the cider I like is more of the French style, medium-sweet. Maybe if I invested some more time drinking it...

[shaunbhoy]

Are those all farmyard scrumpy styles, served warm and flat?

Pretty much. Not especially warm to be fair.

[d000hg]

Are those all farmyard scrumpy styles, served warm and flat?

[shaunbhoy]

This is our local Cider Bar in Newton Abbot. Nothing under 6% as far as I recall and they pretty much only sell Ciders or homemade wines.

Shlurp!!

[Paddy]

you can make it with just apple juice from a carton, its not bad.

http://www.homebrewcentregy.com/medi...urbo_cider.pdf

Though having planted 4 apple trees I'm hoping to try it for real soon.

I hope you have applied for you £300 per year per tree EU subsidy

[d000hg]

It's not snobbery to think something is crap.

Nobody made that assertion, or claimed the offending products were not crap Go read the thread properly. If you're still stuck ask for help.

[LondonManc]

Yes, fosters is a cheap LAGER, Strongbow is a cheap CIDER. It is snobbery because these are simple facts. I don't think there is a way to explain this any more simply so you just go on thinking it if that makes you happy.

It's not snobbery to think something is crap.

[RSoles]

Quite partial to an Apfelkorn myself.

[d000hg]

you can make it with just apple juice from a carton, its not bad.

http://www.homebrewcentregy.com/medi...urbo_cider.pdf

Though having planted 4 apple trees I'm hoping to try it for real soon.

Yeah it's apparently just as good using cheap concentrate rather than non-concentrate premium juice too, you just have to leave it a year to mature and lose the rough edges. Very very easy and cheap to make a nice 8% cider that way.

What apple varieties have you gone for? Unless you have a cider variety, you're supposed to use a mix of cooking apples (malic acid), eating apples (sugar) and crab apples (tannin) to get a nice balance.

The one I'm doing is a single-tree cooking apple cider which has enough sugar as it'sa particularly sweet cooking strain, but is very tart. I added tannin by simply brewing a strong jug of tea, but I think I need to treat it to reduce the acidity.

[d000hg]

There's nothing snobbish about failing to recognise Skol as a lager.

Strongbow is to cider what Fosters and Carlsberg are to lager - the cheap alternatives. It's not snobbery to dismiss it, it's simply a matter of taste and principles.

Yes, fosters is a cheap LAGER, Strongbow is a cheap CIDER. It is snobbery because these are simple facts. I don't think there is a way to explain this any more simply so you just go on thinking it if that makes you happy.