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Learmonth Cider branches out


Images by Café Sidra & 321 Cider

With this year’s bumper harvest, it’s all happening for Learmonth Cider. Maybe it was something to do with Covid-19’s enforced dormancy but this year is already bearing plenty of fruit.

You’d think they’d be busy enough with this season’s cider production. Well, they’re also about to launch classes in orchard management and cider-making. Sign me up!

Kingston Black, Michelin and Yarlington Mill are only some of the genuine cider apple cultivars grown at the nearby picturesque Spring Vale Farm. These apples are then picked, juiced and processed into three different cider styles. It is these UK and European traditional varieties, as opposed to reconstituted apple concentrate used in some ciders, that gives the finished cider its complex flavour profile.

‘The fruit will now go through processing, that is juicing and cider-making, to produce our Cuvée, Traditional and Heritage products,’ explains Philip Comrie of Learmonth Foundation, the organisation that governs Learmonth Cider. ‘The other thing that’s happening is we’re also doing community cider.’

Local residents can also bring in their own homegrown apples to receive the cider treatment and raise funds for local projects along the way. This ‘community cider’ is only part of Learmonth Cider’s commitment to the region.

Words like innovation get thrown around too easily but this is one time it sticks. Plans are afoot to transform the old primary school and surrounds into a multi-use destination featuring an education, research and training centre, brewing facility, plantings of experimental varieties of apples and pears as well as an upgrade of buildings and gardens.

Pretty soon you’ll be able to visit their cider hall for a tasting, a slice of pizza and a game of pétanque. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

THE DETAILS

WHAT: Learmonth Cider
WHERE: 322 High St, Learmonth
WHEN: Tuesday to  Saturday 8:30am – 2pm
MORE INFO: Learmonth Cider