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CUMBRIA'S ONLY COMMERCIAL CIDER PRODUCER Making cider in the village of Abbeytown in Cumbria was probably last conducted by Monks in the large Cistercian Abbey of Holme Cultram some time after 1150 AD. We are blessed here by having some 18 micro-breweries !....... a real cider to complements these is needed. As an experiment spurred on by the vast amounts of fruit in 2004, I made a small press and mill enlisted a few helpers and got to work on our first batch. Oak aged and bottle conditioned Ciders were consumed quickly. Following on from the success of our first pressing in Autumn 2004 using a combination of local desert and cider fruit, and heirloom cider fruit from Hereford. We decided to increase our capacity so we could offer customers a taste of a real natural product with no additives what so ever. Late in the Autumn of 2005 we found the heart of our enterprise in Germany, a stainless steel belt press. This machine enables us to press all types of fruit quickly producing exceptionally high quality juice. We went to great lengths to find the right kind of unsprayed cider fruit from old large standard trees in Hereford. Rich in tannin, bitter sweet flavours, and character they make a more rounded and mellow juice, they are then shipped up to Cumbria for selecting and pressing. The fresh juice from the press is then analysed ( tasted ), blended and left to ferment in open vats depending on the weather it is then blended again, racked in to oak puncheons or ageing vats. Our used pumice goes directly to our local farmer for cattle feed, Craft cider production requires no heating or boiling and is there for environmentally sound. Our cider and perry has undergone at least 6 months maturation before packaging on site for sale. We do not pasteurise or artificially carbonate any of our alcoholic products.
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