Last chance, people!

So, are you coming to the farm?

Greetings, Ciderling

🎟️ Last tap night of the year this Friday 2nd October 6pm - 11.30pm

This Friday, it’s our last tap night of the year. Enjoy our range of Sussex ciders, pizzas from Pioppi’s, and of course, some live music this time from Emma Furlong - acoustic covers and soft rock. Tickets are a fiver and include your first drink. Get yours here. 

👌 Something delicious this way comes

We’ve been brewing up something new. You know how we like to experiment. This time, we’re perfecting our first ever Fine Cider. It’s frizzante. It’s sparkling. It’s “a bit bubbly”, you might say. We’re not sure when it’ll be available yet. Because cidermarking is more art (and sometimes accident) than science. But we hope it’ll be ready in time for you to toast Christmas and the New Year. Maybe even ready in time for you to toast Halloween. But maybe not. We’ll let you know as soon as it’s ready. 

🚜 Come and see us!

You’ve only got THREE more chances to visit the cidery in 2026. We’re not just saying that to sound all exclusive and make you feel FOMO-y. It’s because it’s getting colder, darker, and muddier. That said, this weekend is looking pretty lovely at 19-21 degrees. We hope you can join us!

Friday 2nd October - tour & tasting
Friday 2nd October - tap night (come to the tour and you get in free)
Saturday 3rd October - tour & tasting
Saturday 17th October - From Branch to Bottle cidermaking course

The tours and tasting days are exactly what they sound like. We show you around the cidery, let you have a go on the apple press, and give you tasters of our wild-fermented, traditionally brewed Sussex ciders. We’ll talk tannins and mouse, and you’ll leave feeling all smug and experty. The tap night is a pop-up bar in the orchard with live music and food and drink. We hope you can make it.  

You can learn all the ins and outs of how we wild ferment our cider on From Branch To Bottle on Saturday October 17th, 10am - 4pm. We’ll teach you everything you need to know about how to make cider and we’ll send you away with 20L of juice to take home and turn into the good stuff. Tickets are £175 - book your place today [Button - book your place]

🍏 What do we do with all the apples?

We’ve been wanging on about apples a lot lately (the apple appeal’s still open!) So let's take a look at how they go from branch to bottle. We go into much more detail on our course, but here’s the basics!

In Spring, the blossom gets pollinated (we’ve got our own army of bees to help with that) and the apples start to grow. How big they get depends on the weather (*shakes fist at climate-change-induced heatwaves*) - small apples have less juice, which means less cider. But they also have more sugar, which means more alcohol. Big juicy apples mean more juice, as you’d imagine. We like the big juicy ones the most. We use apples that would otherwise go to waste. So by buying our cider you’re a bit of an eco warrior. Well done you. 

There’s natural yeast on the apple skins and when we press the fruit some of that yeast gets into the juice. Then we add the magic ingredient - TIME. Yeasty juice (sounds gross but isn’t) plus time equals cider. We literally just leave the juice alone for a year or two. Then it’s time for tasting, adjusting the flavour, and bottling. And one of our favourite jobs - thinking up a name. 

🍻 Waking the Cider - Saturday 26th June 2027

Waking the Cider is our big summer shindig. We hope you can make it - it’s on Saturday 26th June 2027 and earlybird adult tickets are £30. Cider, food, crafts, and even camping if you like. Get your tickets here. 

🌳 Orchard picking days

Our next picking day is already booked up! Massive thanks to everyone who lent a helping hand with the harvest. So far, we’ve got about a third of what we’d normally have from the apple appeal at this point in the year, so we’re going to look at where else we can get apples from. In the past, we’ve bought wonky fruit rejected by supermarkets. We’ll keep you updated!

For wholesome content on your feed, do please follow us on instagram for more updates and farm life @bignosebeardy 

Cheers,

BN&B