Salt Hill Cider - Nothing But The Juice

2011 in review

salthillcider — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:54:49 +0000

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,400 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 40 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Pressing matters

salthillcider — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 15:20:39 +0000

Well we have finally finished cidermaking for 2011!

Myself and my trusty assistant Keith Smith have been picking and pressing since September and finished in mid-November. It has been a real challenge to make enough cider to meet expected demand for 2012 and to avoid the situation this year where I was sold out by late summer and have not been able to supply any through the autumn and winter. In the end we managed to increase production by about 50% on last year so hopefully next year Salt Hill Cider will be available at more pubs and festivals throughout the entire year. This year’s cidermaking was quite hard as there were a lot of apples on the trees but due to the relatively dry summer and autumn the fruits were quite small so we needed to pick a great number to get enough juice. This year the apples came from a wide range of varities and locations across Berkshire including Slough, Maidenhead, Cookham, Littlewick Green and Burchetts Green. With all the juice now quietly fermenting away we have a most welcome rest until the new season cider is ready for sale from around Eastertime. From that time until around September Salt Hill Cider will be available as naturally dry and as medium both will be around 6.5% abv. From September until it runs out the cider will be available as “Autumn Gold” which has proved to be very popular with drinkers and is a medium sweet cider made using the last of the season’s dry cider blended with the new season’s sweet juice which is 5% abv. As ever all the ciders on offer will be made entirely from fresh pressed juice from local re-cycled apples! I hope that during 2012 Salt Hill Cider be enjoyed by even more people at even more outlets around Berkshire and Buckinghamshire and I will try to add details of places to find it throughout the year. On January 14th we are off down to Sussex to attend a Wassail event to bless the orchards and give thanks for this year’s apple harvest and hoping for a good crop for 2012. We will also be having a fair few top quality ciders on the night as supplied by Middle Farm National Cider Collection, it would be rude not to really! Wassail Greg Davies

Summer madness !

salthillcider — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 17:40:00 +0000

I’ve not been able to update this site lately as I have been so busy delivering cider to pubs and festivals. Despite the inconsistant weather of June and July the demand for Salt Hill Cider has been brisk and the addition of a medium cider has particularly gone down very well with drinkers less used to drinking dry stuff. I am now almost sold out again for the year and have had to hold back enough for the last few orders I have promised to customers.

The Rising Sun in Slough is my latest stockist and the cider has been going down a storm there and I am hoping to have it sale there all year round if possible. This weekend my dry and medium cider will be available at The Palmers Arms beer festival in Dorney alongside Wilkins Somerset cider so it should be worth a visit for any cider fans.

Before too long we will have to start picking and pressing again ready for next year so a couple more weeks of enjoying the sunshine and then it’s back to the graft!

I hope you all enjoy the last of the year’s cider and I will try to update the blog when I have any news.

Wassail Greg

Summertime booze

salthillcider — Mon, 30 May 2011 10:42:17 +0000

May is a very busy time for cider makers as this is when sales really take off. As the warmer sunnier times come so people’s thirst for cider increases! With the Easter holiday and two other bank holidays all falling in May this year I have been flat out supplying all the pubs and beer festivals throughout the month around Berkshire and Buckinghamshire.

Salt Hill Cider has made appearances at places such as The Bell at Waltham St Lawrence, The Royal Standard at Wooburn Common, The Jolly Farmer at Cookham Dean, Cookham Social Club, Egham Services Club aswell as making a début at Chesterfield CAMRA beer festival and at The Southampton Arms which is a wonderful cider pub in Kentish Town, London.

All of these outlets are well worth a visit if you are looking for a decent pint of real cider in a real pub. This last bank holiday weekend of May my cider is also available at The White Horse in Hedgerley and at The Retreat in Reading both of which have festivals on. Hopefully we will have a good long summer and Salt Hill Cider will be on sale at all these places and at a few new ones. I will post details soon for events coming up in June and July.

Wassail Greg

New Season New Cider

salthillcider — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 18:04:35 +0000

Another long cold winter has led to a long slow fermentation for this year’s cider. This slow process will give a good flavour and the maturing cider should be ready to drink by April so I intend making Salt Hill Cider available for sale on the first of that month, April Fools Day!

This year’s cider was as usual made entirely from local fruit that would otherwise have gone to waste and to complete the “green” process I now have a local pig farmer who is taking all the waste apple pulp to feed his swine so every bit of the apples is being used with no waste.

Last year I produced 1000 litres and this was all sold before the autumn of 2010 and I still had enquiries for orders that I had to turn down. Because of the growing interest and demand I decided to try to increase production for this year and have managed to make 1500 litres for this year thanks to my new assistant Keith Smith who generously offered to help me reach my new target.

We started collecting and pressing apples on the first of October and finished the last batch on the first of December in sub-zero temperatures in snow covered orchards.

This year will also see my new labels with the latest Salt Hill Cider logo in use, many thanks to Simon Smith for designing these for me.

All being well I hope to be able to offer a new cider “Cookham Orchard” this year to supplement my standard cider; Cookham Orchard was made from an un-identified variety of apple from a single orchard in Cookham Dean and hopefully will produce an interesting addition to my range.

This year’s increased production will mean that I should be able to increase the number of pubs and beer festivals that I can supply and I have a few new outlets that I expect to get my cider into in addition to my present customer base. If you know of any pubs that might be interested in stocking some Salt Hill Cider please pass on my details.

I am hoping to continue to build up a wide range of local pubs stocking their local cider and again hope to provide cider for for the following pubs and events;
The Bell in Waltham St Lawrence, The Bird In Hand in Knowl Hill, The Royal Standard in Wooburn Common,The Wheatsheaf in Slough, more to follow.

Local CAMRA beer festivals that I hope to supply again this year are; Reading, Ealing, Windsor, Ascot, Woking and I will also be at the Windsor Racecourse Cider Festival which will be a great evening of quality ciders and racing on Monday June 27th.

I am looking forward to another exciting year for Salt Hill Cider and meeting old nd new cider fans throughout the coming year.

Wassail!
Greg Davies

Harvest Time

salthillcider — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 11:57:36 +0000

Well here we are again! After a long and very un-English hot summer autumn has arrived. Now the whole cycle of cider making begins again with the gathering of the apples needed for next year’s cider. The long cold winter we experienced at the start of the year meant that fermentation of last year’s cider was slow and took longer than usual to complete. A long slow fermentation is good to develop a nice smooth flavour so it was worth the wait. This summer has seen good crops of apples on the trees but the drought has meant that the fruits are quite small and will have less juice due to the lack of rain available to the trees. After a very successful year in 2009 I decided to double my production of Salt Hill Cider for 2010 to 1000 litres in order to meet demand supplying local pubs and beer festivals. This year has been another successful one helped by the sunny weather and growing interest in real cider and I have now almost sold out for another year. It has been a good year for the local CAMRA beer festivals with large quantities of cider and perry being supped at Windsor, Reading , Ealing and Egham festivals and also at the first ever cider festival at Windsor Racecourse on 23rd August 2010 which will hopefully become an annual event. Also still to come is the Ascot Racecourse beer festival on the 24th and 25th September which is growing every year and has a great selection of ciders and perry on offer and benefits from good public transport links making it easy to leave the car at home and make the most of the day. Salt Hill Cider was or will be at all of these as well as appearing at a few local pubs of distinction throughout the year. I am planning to increase production again this year to 1200 litres to make sure I can meet orders and have a bit left for my own consumption! A few months of hard work lay ahead of me now throughout the autumn I will be gathering apples and pressing the juice out every week until all of my barrels are full of delicious sweet golden nectar which will then be left in peace for several months to let nature do it’s miraculous work turning the juice into cider. Nothing will be added or taken away because everything that is needed is already in the fruit, the natural yeast will slowly convert the natural sugars of the juice into alcohol and at the end I should be left with naturally dry cider which improves and matures other the spring months. This is why there are less ciders available during the winter months , unlike the breweries we only get one chance to make our year’s supply while the fruit is around during autumn. The larger commercial cider producers that can keep a uniform year round supply going to pubs, they do this by using either frozen juice or in most cases they use apple concentrate which they store in huge amounts and can add water to their pasteurised product so avoiding the seasonality and better flavour of real ciders. The proposed huge rise in cider duty caused great alarm in the cider makers this year, however this has been put on hold by the new government who have promised to consider the case for making a distinction between craft cider makers and industrial makers of white ciders and other high strength low quality drinks. Unfortunately it looks like the limit for being described as cider is going to be set at 35% apple juice, hardly a high standard considering your pint could contain 65% water, sugar and any other ingredients! If the standard was set at around 80% fresh pressed juice we could have improved standards and exclude the majority of of the large producers of poor quality fruit based drinks.
Good quality cider is available sporadically at quite a few pubs across our part of Berkshire and Buckinghamshire and I am sure more pubs will join in as demand grows especially if people ask for real cider when they visit their local. The pubs that currently can be relied on throughout the year are The White Horse in Hedgerley, The Bell in Waltham St Lawrence and The Bird in Hand in Knowle Hill. It is usually the case that the best pubs with the best range of beers and cider are in country areas and are hard to reach without a car, this is why I am especially pleased to reveal that the latest pub to stock Salt Hill Cider is The Moon & Spoon in Slough High Street who are keen to support their local cider maker. I hope this will be a chance to reach out to a whole new audience and and convert a few drinkers who are new to the delights of real cider and I will continue to enjoy producing Berkshire cider made from local fruit for you to enjoy.
Greg Davies

Orchard blossoms are turning into apples

salthillcider — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 11:54:27 +0000

With summer well and truly underway this year’s cider has been proving popular and has been enjoyed at pubs and beer & cider festivals around the local area . So far this year Salt Hill Cider has appeared at events at CAMRA’s festival at Reading in May and will be at all the other local festivals including Ealing in July , Windsor in August and Ascot in September . Also this year a new cider festival is being launched by Windsor Race Course which will be on August 23rd at which Salt Hill Cider will have a trade stand and I will be able to supply direct to the thirsty punters ! Pubs around the local area have been more difficult to gain a regular place for my cider as many of them are tied to breweries who refuse to give their pubs any freedom of choice or insist that they must stock lower price lower quality products from the bigger players such as Westons or Thatchers . As with most things in life , you get what you pay for ! A couple of pubs who are more discerning and do regularly stock Salt Hill Cider are The Bird In Hand at Knowle Hill and also The Bell at Waltham St Lawrence both are great pubs in Berkshire and both are within a couple of miles of where the apples used to make the cider come from so pretty good on the food miles front ! I will be continuing to try to get the cider into pubs and festivals within roughly a 15 mile radius of my Slough base . If you would like to see Salt Hill Cider in your local do please ask them if it might be possible to get some in . The apples are forming and developing on the trees now and within a couple of months the whole process will begin again . I will spend the autumn picking fruit and pressing out the juice ready for next year’s cider , hopefully this year will bring a good crop of apples . Whatever the Autumn brings I can guarantee one thing , this year and every year to come there will be no compromise on the quality of Salt Hill Cider . The cider will remain 100% fresh pressed juice with no additives of any kind ! Wassail .

Spring has sprung !

salthillcider — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 16:23:50 +0000

After a long and slow winter fermentation showtime is now upon us ; After months of very low temperatures which caused fermentation to slow and almost stop Salt Hill Cider is now almost ready to release to the public . This Easter weekend will see the first of the year’s cider go for scrutiny by the local cider lovers ! The first batch will be delivered to The Royal Standard in Wooburn Green , Bucks in time for their Beer and cider festival . Over the coming months all of the cider will be be made available all over the local area at the best pubs and beer festivals including Reading Beer Festival which takes place over the Mayday bank holiday and has more than 100 top class real ciders on offer . I hope that everone enjoys this years vintage Salt Hill Cider as much as I have producing it . Cheers

All quiet on the cider front !

salthillcider — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:30:30 +0000

After all the frenzied work during the autumn the new year brings a bit of respite with little to do other than wait for nature to do it’s part in my cider production . The only job that has had to be done is racking off which was done in early January . The fermentation process which has been going on since the autumn means that as the natural yeast in the juice turns the natural sugars to alchohol and produces a waste product which settles to the bottom . If left in with this silt the cider can pick up off flavours which can spoil the cider so the cider is racked off into clean vessels without disturbing the sediment . The cider can now be left to finnish fermentation and to mature until it should be ready to drink in early spring . During the severe cold weather that we have had recently some of the barrels of cider have “stuck” , which means that fermentation has stopped as the yeast cells have got too cold . As the temperature rises the fermentation should continue as before , hopefully ! Wassail Greg

New Year, New Logo & Labels

salthillcider — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 11:58:14 +0000

Happy New Year.

We kick off this year with a great new image including new labels for our kegs (the brown colour represents the keg!).
Hope you like it and remember to look out for Salt Hill Cider during the coming year.

Our great new label for kegs.