Many cider drinkers wonder which apples are used in cider making to make their favourite delicious cider drink. The great thing about making cider is that just about any apple variety can be used, but ultimately it is down to the knowledge and skill of expert cider makers, such as the team at Brothers Cider, to choose the right combination of apples to deliver the best results.
At Brothers Cider, we chose apple varieties that will give us a great balance of tannins and acidity to make our exceptional cider. Such apple varieties you will find in the orchards we source from include Dabinett, Yarlington Mill, Harry Masters, Somerset Redstreak and Browns Apple, which are all well respected cider-making apples.
There are other popular apple varieties used for cider making, including the Foxwhelp and Kingston Black, but what makes all the difference to the finished taste of the cider is the level of tannin found within them.
All apples contain a level of tannin, these bitter tasting flavour some compounds are naturally produced by the apple and give its juice a distinctive flavour. But some apple varieties contain more tannins than others and therefore the apples that have higher levels of tannins will make excellent tasting cider with a distinctive bitter edge that contrasts nicely with the natural sugars and acidity from the apples. Dependant on the levels of tannins and acidity in the apple variety Cidermakers classify them as Bittersharps and Bittersweets.
What's the difference between cider apples and garden apples?
The apple varieties that most people grow in their gardens or allotments are usually chosen for their sweet flavours. Home-grown apples tend to have much lower levels of tannin than apples grown for cider making.
However, this doesn't mean that they cannot be mixed with cider apples or crab apples in the cider-making process and many home-brew enthusiasts will usually have a go at making their own. The magic is finding the right combination of varieties to give a good balance of bitter and sweet flavours.
Using different combinations of apple varieties will create different flavoured cider, and there is no way of knowing or guaranteeing the results. This is why expert cider makers, such as Brothers Cider, rely on age-old, tried and tested cider apple varieties to produce our tasty and refreshing cider.
The art of expert cider making
Because we use our years of knowledge and experience in making top-quality fruit cider, we know exactly what to do and what not to do in order to create our amazing cider. We source our cider apples from long-established West Country Somerset orchards and quality check all of the apples before we start the cider-making process.
Many people believe that to make cider you need to peel and core the apples, but this isn't a necessary step at all, in fact some of the best tannins come from the skins. We have a rigorous quality control process to make sure that any rotten or damaged apples are removed as they can negatively affect the taste of the cider. We then simply wash the apples in clean water before they are pressed for their juice.
Our favourite five apple varieties are Dabinett, Yarlington Mill, Harry Masters, Somerset Redstreak and Browns Apple. The best thing about Brothers Cider is that we use only the best variety of apples to make a cider that is perfectly balanced and very refreshing.
So, why not give our expertly crafted fruit cider a try?
