‘Warmer weather has made my cider stronger’

A cider maker says “back-to-back sunshine” for much of this year has led to more sugar in fruit, meaning his cider will have a higher alcohol content than normal.

Rob Clough, owner of Charnwood Cider in Leicestershire, says the fruit juices “are all tasting good” at the moment, but the stronger cider is “not necessarily a good thing”.

“Because some pubs don’t really want to have 8.5% cider. You can only sell it if it’s up to 8.4% anyway, as a small-scale cider producer. Most pubs really want stuff that’s about 6 or 6.5%,” the 45-year-old said.

Mr Clough said a late frost can affect your crop, but that did not happen this year meaning it was “a good spring” for his apple and pear trees.

“We’ve had back-to-back sunshine all year, which has caused there to be a lot of sugar in the fruit, which means that the cider’s going to be strong as a result,” he said.

“The sunnier it is basically, it means that the fruit can produce more sugars.”

Mr Clough said he typically does not water his produce down and described his cider as “a proper traditional drink”.

“Although I might have to add a little bit of water to some of them if they’re over 8.4% to get them down to a percentage that I can sell,” he added.

Mr Clough was previously a park ranger at Bradgate Park for 14 years, before he got into the cider business 15 years ago.

When asked how he got into cider making, he said: “A few of us started by making a bit of cider out of local fruit, because you can see everywhere there are apple trees where the fruit was just falling to the ground and being wasted.

“It just grew from there, really. And it’s a sustainable business. There’s hardly any power or electric that’s used.”

He has also planted an orchard near Markfield, which he said was “great for biodiversity”.