SO WHAT’S REAL CIDER ALL ABOUT THEN….
Some of you right now may be thinking "Well If it's not real, then what is it Fake?! Are we talking a Trumpian conspiracy Of Fake Cider infiltrating or society!
Okay, well The Donald has nothing to with this thankfully, but it is something all you cider fans should now about.
In a nutshell, you only need about 30% cider content in your cider to legally call it a cider! The rest can come from a list of archaic ingredients, but it is normally made up of water and sugar. This of course is a much cheeper way of making a an alcoholic drink and calling it cider, when really is it cider? Or is this Fake cider?
The term Real Cider was penned by CAMRA in their effort to promote, the more traditional and artisan ciders, CAMRA defines "Real Cider or Perry as being fermented from the whole juice of fresh pressed apples or pears, without the use of concentrated or chaptalised juices, or either being carbonated or pasteurized." Simply fruit fermented with little or no intervention before or after.
Much better for cider drinkers right? More fruit, less sugar. Well yes, but does the criteria thats been put in place restrict innovation in cider making and again leave cider drinkers with less choice, having only two polar opposites to choose from?
So, what about Craft Cider, can it cut it?............ Is this where cider drinkers will find their Babylon? A space where artisan cider makers can create high percentage fruit ciders with lower sugar content than commercial ciders, but still with the appeal of a nice cold fizzy refreshing pint. Where innovation is encouraged and not stifled and experimentation with other additional ingredients is encouraged. Well that all sounds pretty good doesn't it? Almost too good to be true, well it is!! but it does come with a cost!
Commercial ciders are made at such a huge volume, and with cost cutting ingredients they can be sold at very low prices, but still with large profits. Real ciders are often made in the very opposite, in much lower volumes in very small batches, with very little overheads, and often so small there is no Duty or VAT. So profit can be good.
Though if you take the best innovation in techniques, and the best ingredients, but at a much less than commercial volumes but higher than Real Cider Artisans costs will be higher. So quite simply for us cider lovers, dreamers, makers and drinkers. for us to get the best of cider, and have more choice we have to be prepared to pay that little bit more.