Cider: CAMRA's cider month

SOME PEOPLE are never happy. While the Magners boom brought cider back to the forefront of the minds of the masses, there are cider connoisseurs out there who claim there is more work to be done.

The Campaign for Real Ale's (CAMRA's) National Cider and Perry Month, has been running throughout October, featuring several elements designed specifically to raise the profile of cask cider among consumers, and persuade more pubs that serving it is profitable.

Many licensees have already latched on to this. A pub finder function on CAMRA's website lists close to 100 of them, and four pubs were shortlisted in a hunt for a National Cider Pub of the Year 2008.

They were the Coopers Tavern in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire; the Odd One Out in Colchester, Essex; the Square & Compass in Swanage, Dorset; and the Valley Bar in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. The Dorset pub eventually squeezed its way to the title, singled out for its local sourcing policies and a continual commitment to diversity.

However, all those featured on the shortlist and in CAMRA's pub finder have been recognised for dedication to the cider cause.

The Coopers Tavern sells at least two cask ciders and at least two cask perries.

For licensee Mary Bagley, the decision to increase from selling just two cask ciders a year ago was "a gamble that seems to be paying off". When she took over the pub a year prior to that, the Coopers Tavern did not sell cask cider, but Mary believed in the product's profitability within the ale-led site. "Demand is on the increase," she says.

Cider festivals​

She sources the ciders from Three Cats, a Derbyshire cider-maker and supplier set up by a couple of CAMRA members. Three Cats keeps the Coopers Tavern supplied with brands including Broadoak, Janet's Jungle Juice, and Hecks. Mary chooses ciders on the basis that they are not at the extreme ends of sweetness of dryness.

The number of taps for cask cider are doubled twice a year for the Coopers Tavern's beer and cider festivals, which Mary says are the main method of promoting the range.

The Star, in Godalming, Surrey is the local CAMRA branch's Cider Pub of the Year 2008, and it's easy to see why it's so popular among the group.

Licensee Ian Thompson persevered with cider after it initially failed to take off, and has now proved nay-saying landlords wrong. He has been tenant of the Star for 18 years, and for 17 of those cider sales struggled, he says. "However, last October, I looked at another way of skinning a cat, and thought 'let's have another real attempt at it,' " he says.

He paid for bigger adverts in specialist magazines, got his staff "to give it a real push", chose cider brands with enigmatic names such as Black Rat as a tactic to interest consumers, and with flavours and ABVs that weren't so extreme as to put people off. The Star now has enough throughput to justify six to eight cask ciders being on at any one time.

The success has proved a point to pub companies that Ian says told him cider would never be profitable. After a succession of owners, Greene King took over the Star and reluctantly allowed him to offer cask ciders.

He says that offering tasters has proved crucial in tempting drinkers into cider.

Ian explains: "I found with cider - like real ale - that once you have given people a way into something, they will give it a go, then move on to try something else.

"There's always got to be some way of growing your business - because the bills are never going to stop increasing - and cider was just one of them."

Another cider enthusiast is Kevin Machin, licensee of the Engineeers Arms, in Henlow, Bedfordshire. "We are the furthest point from anywhere where cider is made," he jokes.

"We prove more than anyone that there is a market for cider. But you have got to actively find people who are prepared to give it a try. I think it goes cap in hand if you are already a pub that sells real ale."

Cider brands commonly found on the bar at the Engineers Arms include Westons, Thatchers, Moles Black Rat and Biddenhams.

Kevin has found that there is a big difference between products that come in drums and the bag-in-box format. Bag-in-box brands have a much longer shelf life, he says.

"Cider sales have grown based on the fact that the Bulmers craze kicked off," says Kevin. "But I didn't go down that route, though I do stock some of it. What it has done is open people's eyes. The very fact that Bulmers and Magners exist has made them see that cider is about more on draught than just Strongbow."

CAMRA's National Cider and Perry Month

If you want more inspiration from your local area on how to succeed in cider, check out the pub finder function at www.camra.org.uk/cider

The project involved CAMRA's Cider and Perry Committee collaborating on a national scale to provide a list of the UK's best cider pubs.

Roger Wilkins, of Wilkins Cider at Lands End Farm in Mudgley, Somerset, scooped the Cider Month's Pomona Award for his lifelong devotion to producing cider.

Named after the Roman goddess of apples, the award is presented by CAMRA to the person or group that has done the most to promote real cider or perry.

Customers have been buying from Wilkins and the farm for more than 30 years.