June Drop - TWO MEDALS! - Batch Tasting

With regular downpours of rain and occasional bursts of hot sun, the apples in the orchard have ‘set’ (the base of the blossom bud swells and becomes the apple) and are filling out nicely.

We are also saw a percentage of the early fruit fall from the tree – the ‘June drop’ enabling the tree to thin out the small apples keeping only what it can cope with to take through to maturity – this is normal and its interesting to see how nature deals with changing weather patterns and behaviours alter to ensure continuation of fruit.

We had a tasting session last week of all remaining batches of our 2022 ciders – only a month or two ago, a number of these were still gently fermenting - not now, all have finished and are maturing nicely. Two of these tanks will be ‘racked’ into the barn over the coming weeks to become our next ciders for bottling – these should be in your club boxes for early autumn.

We’ve also had a bit of an experiment with producing fruit flavoured cider – one with blackcurrant and another with elderflower. A bit more work to do on those before we decide if Bignose & Beardy ‘gets fruity’!! watch this space. 

There are two remaining dates for Tap Nights at the cidery, 21st July and 1st September – bookings can be made through the website – we would love to see you.

Oh – we forgot to tell you in last months letter – we won two Silver Medals at the International Cider Competition – one for Walk Like a Stag and another for Oaky Pokey – very proud!