How an independent maker is leading a craft cider revolution In 2008, independent cider makers Thistly Cross sold their product for the first time, visiting farmers’ markets in the hope […]

In 2008, independent cider makers Thistly Cross sold their product for the first time, visiting farmers’ markets in the hope that punters would take a chance on something new.

That year, the two-man team produced and sold an impressive 11,000 litres of craft cider.

Just eight years later, their 2016 production will be in excess of one million litres.

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Why craft ciders still lag behind big brands

By now, such a success story should have inspired scores of similarly small cider making outfits to follow in Thistly’s footsteps, but the trend hasn’t taken hold.

While independently owned microbreweries are popping up on what feels like a daily basis around the UK, there is simply no craft cider scene that compares.

As a nation, we love our beer, but we’re also fond of a cider or two on a summer’s day. So why aren’t craft ciders more common?

“We’ve kind of lost out on that fusion between the old ways and the new ways that we’ve seen in craft beer” Peter Stuart

Peter Stuart, head cidermaker at Thistly Cross, thinks that our collective tendency to plump for the big brands is to blame.

“The high profits of the mainstream cider world has enabled big companies to chase the next big thing. Their production methods are so flexible that they’re constantly innovating, because they’re chasing profit.

“The craft cider industry has been more about protection and heritage and preserving older quality standards and older, more authentic production methods.

“We’ve kind of lost out on that fusion between the old ways and the new ways that we’ve seen in craft beer. I think it will come, but – equally – it’s got to be consumer driven. The craft beer world is all consumer driven.”

Spotting the gap in the market

Long before even craft beer was popular, Ian Rennie – Stuart’s business partner – saw the potential in cider.

“I took a year off to go and train properly, and we pressed the first apples in October 2008” Peter Stuart

Rennie rejuvenated his family’s farm in East Lothian (on the outskirts of Edinburgh) to focus on speciality crops, and along the way set up one of the most southerly fruit farms in Scotland.

While Rennie was putting what would eventually turn out to be the foundations of Thistly Cross in place, Stuart was pursuing various creative career threads, from music to glass-blowing.

On paper, it seems unlikely that the two would ever cross paths, let alone join forces. According to Stuart, though, things just seemed to fortuitously fall into place.

“I became friends with a guy who made a bit of cider and beer in the corner of a steading and started to sell that, and Ian was our best customer.

“I knew that I wanted to try and crack the craft of cider making and improve the processes that we had in place, and a partnership enabled us to do that. So I took a year off to go and train properly, and we pressed the first apples in October 2008.”

Taking a similar approach to wine-making

How to make your own cider at home Add a little bit of extra sugar to apple juice and warm to 18°C Add a tiny amount of yeast if apples aren’t fresh Put the mixture in a warm place for three weeks Put the mixture in a very cold place for two weeks Rack off the finished cider into a clean vessel Fill the container completely and seal it Make sure there’s no air in the vessel Leave for a year, and enjoy

According to Stuart, something that everyone from makers to drinkers should bear in mind is that cider is actually a light apple wine.

“What the commercial mainstream produce is made in a matter of hours. Cider should take a similar timescale to wine to make – it should take months.”

Overall, though, cider is easier to make at home than beer, provided you leave it alone long enough. Stuart recommends leaving your sealed container of cider to ferment for a year, and there’s no peeking allowed.

“People get so excited and they want to drink this year’s cider right away, and then they complain that it doesn’t taste very nice. That’s because they’ve not been very patient. Put it to bed and it’ll be fine in about a year’s time.”

There’s room for competition

From its conception on a small fruit farm in Scotland to becoming a common sight in bars, at festivals and on the shelves of both independent and high street retailers around the world, Thistly Cross have set the bar high for any budding UK cidermakers.

The founders’s main objective wasn’t to make the best cider in the world, however, but simply to capture something of their own particular locale in a bottle.

Just as the UK’s many craft breweries have carved out their niche, it’s now up to the cidermakers to make their mark.

The challenge isn’t to copy what other producers have done already, but to venture down unexplored avenues and create something that tells their individual story.

A photo posted by Thistly Cross Cider (@thistlycrosscider) on Mar 2, 2016 at 11:42am PST

Stuart readily admits that, in the beginning, he and Rennie were “very much making it up as [they] went along”, but clearly the pair didn’t let their inexperience put them off – and they don’t think others in their field should either.

“There’s a ton of fruit out there and there are a ton of opportunities. There are increasingly more and more interested people. The more that the independent sector can achieve, the more that the commercial mainstream will have to take notice of that, and the better the world will be for everybody.”

And, in the meantime, Stuart and Rennie have got enough craft cider to go round.

“We’ve always joked that if the apocalypse happens, we’ll be fine at Thistly Cross. We’ve got about 200,000 litres of cider here.”