The birds and the bees

💮🐝 well, mostly just the bees

Greetings, Ciderling!

Our first tap night of the year is coming up - Friday 3rd May!

We had a lovely comment about this lil ol’ newsletter the other week. Someone said they think it’s great, and they always read to the end. Made us feel all warm and fuzzy. But the dopamine hit wore off pretty quickly, so if you enjoy this newsletter please reply and let us know. Keeps our happy chemicals topped up. 

Anyway, enough fishing. Last time we spoke, we shared the rather concerning (but pretty badass) info that Beardy (aka Steve) is allergic to both apples AND bees. Unfortunate for a cidermaker 😔

He soldiers on though, epi pen ever at the ready.

Because a great apple crop relies on two things…

🌞🌧️ Good weather
🪰🐝 Lotsa pollinators (aghhhhhhhh! ⚠️💉)

Psst..there’s a mysterious third thing, the apple tree spirits…which is why we wassail.

This time of year is incredibly important. We’re crossing our fingers and toes we don’t have a late frost now the blossom’s starting to come out. It happened a few years ago and the crop was absolute pony as a result.

If you want to go even deeper and weirder into the love lives of apple trees (and why wouldn’t you; this time of year they get a lil…fruity) did you know it’s probably not worth planting a seed from your favourite apple? Apple trees have to be pollinated by pollen from another tree. 

So the seeds inside the apples will contain a blend of the parent tree’s genes AND the genetic makeup of whichever apple tree pollinated that specific blossom. Crab apples, cooking apples and eating apples can all pollinate one another. On one tree, each individual apple may have different parents!

So apple seeds can end up being a right random mix of DNA. That’s why orchard tree reproduction is via a cut and paste Frankensteiny* method, where a limb gets grafted onto another body. You can even get trees with two types of apple in one, or apples and pears freakishly coexisting on one tree. Just search “duo fruit trees” for more crimes against nature (just don’t have nightmares).

(image credit: J. Parker’s)

It is pretty cool though. 

All this talk of mongrel crossbreedy mad science mixups brings us nicely to some other in-cider news…

We’re unveiling three new cider batches at our tap nights. 

First up is “Ugly Dog”. We were slightly short for this batch so Phil said “well, I had to take a little bit from each other batch to top it up”. So it’s a bit of a mongrel. Sometimes the batch names just write themselves. 

Our tap nights are just £5 entry, you can make a night of it because we’ll have local food vendors on site to feed you. First up is Pioppi Pizza on May 3rd.

📅 3rd May
📅 31st May
📅 28th June
📅 19th July
📅 6th September

And if you book onto a Cidery Tour & Tasting on the same day, you can come along to the tap night free of charge. 

Cheers!

BN&B

*the “Frankenstein” being the orchardist creating the monster tree, of course. Not the monster tree itself. Common mistake to make.