Britain is one of the world’s leading producers of cider, with fifty-six percent of all the apples grown in the UK used to create it – so it’s no surprise that we also produce the most diverse range of styles. Cider has refreshed the palates of countless Britons for millennia, but if you asked a person in the street how cider is made they would invariably say that it was brewed. It’s not – cider is made by pressing apples and fermenting the juice, more akin to wine than beer.
Cider can be made in dozens of different styles. ‘Real’ cider contains 100% (or almost 100%) freshly pressed apple juice, but the British market is dominated by apple-flavoured alcopops made by diluting juice concentrate from apples (that may not even have been grown in the UK). Legally cider in Britain only has to contain thirty-five percent juice, meaning that the remaining sixty-five percent is water, sugar, preservatives, caramel, colourings and other additives. Rather than taking months (if not years) to make, the majority of cider consumed in this country is an industrial product made in around three weeks. Imagine the indignation of winemakers around the world if producers of grape-flavoured alcoholic drinks were allowed to market them as wine!