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Step into the Olde Cyder Barn in Newton Abbot, Devon and it's like going back in time. This is the pub fashion forgot: the furniture is off-the-peg fittings from the 1960s; the stone floor is edged with wooden tiles; unfashionable creams and browns dominate the colour scheme; jugs and tankards hang over the bar - in the winter a cosy glowing fire warms drinkers. Naturally everyone smokes. But it's not just the preserved nature of the pub which strikes the eye, it's the fact that it doesn't sell ale.
As its name suggests the Olde Cyder Barn is a cider and perry only establishment. Four big wooden barrels dispense Thatcher's and Inch's from behind the bar while perry, fruit wines and the usual array of fizzy keg ciders are also on sale. This is an unique establishment, even in the West Country where cider is what claret is to Bordeaux. But mention cider to most people nowadays and they think of Strongbow or Blackthorn Dry. These market leaders are on sale in the Olde Cyder Barn but its main selling point is real cider: the fermented juice of the apple with nothing added in and nothing taken away.
Cider has a long history in this country. The Celts were apparently the first to realise that the juice of fermented apples provided the basis for a damn good booze-up. Until recently traditional cider was the preferred drink in the West Country. Farmers used to attract workers by the quality of their cider. Many still remember the days when men on the harvest used to drink a gallon of cider every day. Each. Stone jugs were placed at each end of the field to encourage them to work faster. 'Whenever you called at someone's farm,' recalls retired Somerset farmer Alan Frampton, 'the first thing they would ask is whether you wanted some cider. And of course the quality was important. Farmworkers would move onto other places if the quality wasn't any good.'
Times have changed. Today most of the cider drunk is fizzy, pasteurised and kept and served under gas pressure. Sometimes, at the cheaper end of the market, apple concentrate is used instead of apples, while keg cider is filtered to clarify the murkiness which some people (wrongly) associate with traditional cider; artificial flavourings and colourings are added in some cases. It is also weaker than its traditional cousin.
On the other hand real cider, or farm cider, is a totally natural product - the wine of the West Country say its champions. Golden in colour and with a good clean taste of apples, it's the flavour of summer and of the countryside. A long, refreshing draught conjures up a picture of apple orchards in full blossom and dark, dusty barns with massive wooden barrels full of the nectar. It's the ideal drink for our times in which city folk sentimentalise about rural life, while everything we eat or drink has to have a healthy context.
The production of traditional cider is simple. Cider apples - from such varieties as Sweet Alford, Tremlett's bitter, the famous Kingston Black and Somerset Red Streak - are poured into a mill to be crushed into pulp, or pomace. This is then crushed in a cider press to extract the juice. The pulp is layered in what is called a 'cheese', in between sheets of Hessian, and the press is brought down several times to produce the pure apple juice. This runs off into a wooden barrel and is left to ferment. No yeast or sugar is added: natural yeast from the apples do the work. Quality and taste depends on the apple variety and blend of apples used. Several months later you've got a delicious cider boasting a strength going from 6% to 8% and sometimes beyond.
There are small, traditional cider-makers in most counties in Southern England (especially the Severn Valley), but it's the West Country with which it is most associated. Tourists travelling to the region in the summer cannot fail to notice the abundance of signs outside farm entrances marked 'Cider For Sale'. Some of the makers are farmers whose families have been making cider for generations and decided to make a bit of money catering to the holiday trade. Others, like Sheppey's just outside Taunton, are more commercial, but still traditional, concerns which offer the visitor tastings, teashops, local gifts, a museum and children's facilities. Traditional cider is surviving and some would say thriving. Visit a CAMRA beer festival and there'll be at least a couple of ciders alongside the real ales. There's even a CAMRA-style campaign group, APPLE, which aims to promote cider and perry.
'Good cider should be treated as a wine,' says Julian Temperley of Burrow Hill Cider, near Langport in Somerset, who also produces cider brandy and a bottle-fermented sparkling dry cider. 'If you taste a genuine farmhouse cider it should not be sweet and sticky. Cider-making is far closer to the aesthetics of wine-making than brewing.'
But what of the future? Can traditional cider be more than a tourist novelty or a hidden local delicacy? Chris Coles of Green Valley Cider: 'Cider is robust and surviving quite well out here. If you look in the Yellow Pages you will see a number of cider-makers listed there but I reckon there's about ten times that much quietly getting on with it.'
Last word goes to Julian Temperley as he sips his delicious cider in the ancient cider-house which overlooks orchards and fields. 'The positive aspect about our sort of cider is that the public are much more aware of what they buy these days. They expect choice, they expect a story behind their products, and expect integrity in the apples. Somerset cider at its best has a superb story and we need to live by that.'
fact box
Traditional cider can usually be bought in bottles or glass jars; you can also take your own container along to most farm cider-makers who'll fill it up; local off-licences and grocers sell their area's cider. The bigger manufacturers such as Westons are available in supermarkets and Oddbins, while Dunkerton's seems to have made an inroad into some of the smarter eating houses in London. Also visit CAMRA beer festivals. APPLE produce a Good Cider Guide along the lines of the Good Beer Guide.
Sheppy's Cider Farm Centre, Bradford-on-Tone, Taunton Somerset. 01823 461233.
The award-winning Gold Medal and Bullfinch are especially recommended; there's also a museum of rural life, guided tours, nature walks and plenty of tastings.
Rich's, Watchfield, Highbridge, Somerset 01278 783651.
Traditional farmhouse cider matured in oak vats. Very highly regarded by Julian Temperley who says: 'Gordon Rich knows more about orchards than anyone else.'
Burrow Hill Cider, Pass Vale Farm, Burrow Hill, Kingsbury Episcopi, Somerset. 01460 240782.
Excellent ciders plus renowned cider brandy, apple liquor and bottle fermented sparkling cider. Marvelously evocative spot with a display of copper stills, barrels and oak vats.
Thatcher's Cider, Myrtle Farm, Sandford Bristol. 01934 822862.
Ciders include Cheddar Valley and Mendip Magic. Farm shop and tours by arrangement.
Green Valley Cyder, Marsh Barton Farm, Clyst St George, Exeter Devon. 01392 876658.
Traditionally made Devon cider. They also produce a winter cider called Rumtiddlyumtum.
Other recommended ciders: Wilkins (01934 712385), Hecks (01458 442367), Coombes (01278 641265) and Perry's (01460 52681)- all in Somerset. Further afield in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire try Minchew's Real Cyder and Perry (01684 773427), Weston's (01531 660233) and Dunkerton's (01544 388653).
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