Sarah's Cider - How we make our traditional Herefordshire Ciders

Cider making starts with selecting the varieties that will give a good balance juice. Apples are harvested from both the traditional organic orchard and the commercial orchards.

The varieties used are Dabinett, Yarlington Mill, Browns, Harry Master Jersey, Ashton Bitters, Ellis Bitters & Bulmer Norman. The apples are mechanically harvested and some are handpicked to get a clean sample. The apples are chopped, milled and pressed to extract the pure juice, which is then stored in large vessels in the converted old dairy at The Farm. The cider is made from 100% juice using traditional methods.

The juice starts to ferment turning the natural sugar to alcohol. Once fermentation has finished the juice is then separated from the spent yeast residue, blended and held in clean storage vessels for months to mature.

When matured the cider is sold as draught cider or is taken to a bottling plant to be filtered, pasteurised, bottled and labelled as when needed.