The Garden Cider Company makes its ciders from fruit donated by gardeners and has made the new 6% ABV 2013 Vintage Cider entirely from apples harvested this year.
It is described as a “clean, fresh” cider and is dry, but can be made medium if requested.
The cider comes in a bag-in-box format, has a six month shelf life and will last for four weeks once opened, said Ben Filby, co-founder of the Surrey based company.
“We’ve noticed the rise in popularity of the bag-in-box market in pubs all around Surrey recently.
“This Vintage Cider has been made specifically for the pub market, it is cleaner, stronger and truly authentic.”
Filby is expecting a ten-fold increase in the number of apples to be donated this year, after the warmer weather this summer created a bumper crop.
He set up the company in 2012 with his brother.
“We’ve always been interested in the idea of a co-operative so there was one very obvious solution - ask the local community to give us their spare garden apples that would otherwise be compost or go to waste,” he explained.
“In return, we would provide them with an allocation of cider based on the weight of their donation. It was the fairest idea we could come up with at the time as we had no money to pay for the amount of apples we needed.”
“It’s about using a natural, abundant and largely wasted resource and turning it into a crafted and sustainable product. We also donate the apple pulp produced from the cider to the local pig farmer for feed so they benefit from this community based project too.”
Next week (14 October) the PMA will hold its inaugural Cider Trends Summit in Bristol. For more information and to buy tickets for the last few remaining places, please click here.