Fresh young thing...

2 Bees has landed

We were offered quite a few Jonagold apples last year and as these are dessert apples, I was not sure what to do with them. Jonagolds are an American-bred apple from the 1940's, produced by cross-pollinating Jonathan apples with Golden Delicious... hence the name. The fact that Golden Delicious apples were part of the Jonagold parenthood, did not endear them to me! However, after consulting with the good and  knowledgeable folks on The Cider Workshop the news came from some folks "across the pond" in the US of A that Jonagolds make a perfectly good cider. So the idea of fermenting them separately and seeing if they were suitable as a single-variety cider germinated.

After careful racking and blending of the various containers of Jonagold cider, I was very pleasantly surprised by the results and so we decided that it was worth the gamble in offering this cider as a Single Variety. Now we are not claiming that this is a "vintage" cider - but it is light, refreshing and crisp. Dessert apples are often higher in acidity than the traditional cider-apples like bittersweets such as Dabinett or Yarlington Mill, but the Jonagolds seem just fine: slightly sharp, but no more than many a West Country cider I have tasted. It is also much hazier than I am used to, with a fine pale burnt-orange colour; whether the haze and colour will last as it matures, I'm not sure. However, after years of making clear ciders without trying, we are quite amused to have produced a hazy one. Hopefully this will also please the die-hards who claim that it can't be a "proper" cider unless it is cloudy... Hmmm - I'll pass on that one! At present it is slightly sweet, sort of off-dry rather than dry, and has an ABV of about 8.4% - this is a reflection of the naturally high sugar-levels of Jonagold apples, as we do not add any sugars to our ciders, they are fermented from pure fresh-pressed apple juice. At the moment it looks as if "2 Bees" first public appearance will be at the 15th Newark CAMRA Beer Festival 28th-30th May, 2010 - a Nottinghamshire debut for a Nottinghamshire cider: very apt.

By the way, the name for this cider came before the cider... I wanted to name one of our ciders in celebration of the fact that Gail and I got married in 2009, and as we both now have the same surname beginning with "B" so calling it "Two B's" - or "2 Bees" - seemed natural. I've always had a fondness for Bumble Bees so the image for the label popped into my head almost instantaneously - with a little artistic licence of course.

In praise of Sol (Part II: The Sequel)

Humph - everyone's a critic...

After spending the last 12 days or so exploring the cider-makers, real-ale brewers and watering holes of Norfolk, it is pleasing to be able to report that there are other cider-makers with vision out there who are also fans of solar panels...

Jim and Pete at Whin Hill Cider, Wells-next-the-Sea, are waiting for final planning approval for their array of Photovoltaic solar panels to be fitted onto the roof of one of their cider shed roofs: much better looking than sheets of corrugated iron... This will not only supply all their electrical power needs, but will also make them a tidy profit by selling the surplus electricity to the National Grid. Plus the fact that grants are available for installing Photovoltaic panels makes this a no-brainer for Jim and Pete.

I hope that a certain Middleton-based cider-maker will (*cough*) remember the six bottles of Whin Hill's best SV cider (3 Brown's and 3 Major)  that we have brought all the way back for him - at great personal sacrifice, may I add - when he next compiles his Top Ten Cider Blogs... Otherwise they may meet an "accident" before being delivered...

More on our travels later.

In praise of Khepri, Ra and Atum...

A few words about Solar Power - or in this instance, Solar Water Heating.

We've had a Photovoltaic solar panel for some years now to provide electrical power for the 12v systems on the caravan - its a large 50 watt panel, so produces loads of useful power and drives the numerous 12v systems in our van even on a cloudy day. The concept of "free" energy is a non-starter of course as manufacturing these systems and buying them are quite costly on many levels. However, the photovoltaic panel does give us the freedom to stay at many small caravan sites for long periods of time without having to worry about the battery going 'dead' and leaving us without light and water pumps. We are not keen on sites that have mains electric hook-ups because they tend to attract those with massive vans who spend 90% of their time sat in their vans in front of the telly... Why bother going away?

So with some real-world experience and a lot of background research, I was quite struck on the idea of using some form of solar power to heat or pre-heat the water for our home. I'd been to the Centre for Alternative Technology at Machynlleth in Powys, Wales in the early '90's and had been impressed with much of the stuff I saw - and I vividly remember seeing the amount of hot water they were getting by painting old steel flat-panel radiators matt-black, placing them in a sunny position, and pumping water through them... Hmmm.

The recent BBC TV series "It's Not Easy Being Green", with moustachioed Dick Strawbridge as the driving force, rekindled my interest, particularly with the advancements in solar technologies. I was captivated by the episode where they installed the solar water heaters at Newhouse Farm. I was also well impressed by the water-wheel providing electricity, but that's another story...

During our stint working the Cider & Perry Bar at the Moorgreen Show at Watnall in August '09, I had chance for a break and a wander round the site. During this amble, I came across a stall run by a local company who specialised in sustainable, renewable and solar heating applications, so I picked up a leaflet. Time to do some more research. Fortunately, the rear of our house faces SSW, so gets sunshine from about 9.00am until the sun sets, and the pitch of the roof is quite steep - ideal for a solar collector in these latitudes. The second photo here was taken at about 9.30am in late March. By December 2009, I felt informed enough to go for it, so started getting an idea of costs and quotes.

We decided on a local company called Solar-Heat UK, mainly due to Chris, the boss and technical wizard, being straightforward and open about the job and quote. No sucking in of air through teeth or loads of glossy brochures, nor did he turn up in a flash car and wearing a suit... With clipboard in hand, it only took him 10 minutes to survey the house, airing cupboard and loft. He said the job would be quite simple and it was, all done and dusted in two days. Apart from the solar collector array of evacuated tubes on the roof, the only other obvious signs of the conversion are a larger hot water storage tank and a few extra bits of pipe in the airing cupboard. There is a little bit more in the attic space with additional pumps, a pressure vessel and a small radiator to shed excess heat during hot sunny days.

As mentioned previously, the interesting bit for me is the animated information screen on the control panel; this shows the activity of the two pumps and the temperature displayed from the three sensors in the system: one at the solar collector, one at the top of the hot water storage tank, and one at the bottom of the tank. Over the past fortnight at the end of March 2010, with showers of rain and sleet, cold winds, the odd sunny spell and an ambient outside day-time temperature of 10C to 14C maximum, the hot water boiler hasn't even fired up for four days, the solar collector easily raising the water temperature at the bottom of the tank to 51C... And this is with the cold feed coming into the bottom of the tank at about 10C - 12C! Even on the grim and cloudy days of this early spring, the solar collector has managed to pre-heat the water at the bottom of the tank to between 25C - 30C, so reducing the amount of energy needed by the boiler to heat the water. So looking good so far. I'll be very interested to monitor the meter readings and energy bills though over the long term.    

So would I recommend solar water heating? Definitely, but with some provisos. Financially: If you have an electric shower and don't use the bath much, it will take many years to pay for itself. We have a gravity-fed shower from the hot water tank, so are already reaping the benefits. Some sources quote savings on heating water of only £50 per year; I think this is pessimistic - and is also based on recent fuel prices. If we do only save £50 per year, it could take us over 60 years to recoup our costs - strewth! However, as we currently pay over £700 a year for our energy (so little you cry?), I am convinced that the savings for us will be much more than this. Does anyone believe fuel prices (Gas / Electric) will fall though? From a long-term viewpoint, I think we have made the right choice from both an environmental and financial stance. Better still for those thinking about it, grants for renewable and sustainable energy resources - including solar hot water systems - come on-line in 2011. We decided not to wait...  

Oh and for those who didn't know, Khepri was the ancient Egyptian God of the rising or morning sun and Atum was the ancient Egyptian God of the evening or setting sun. Ra was of course the God of the noon-day sun.  

Flying out the door...

It is turning out to be a busy Easter for us.

Last Thursday evening we delivered a 20 litre box of our Sheep Wash cider to the The Hand & Heart on Derby Road in Nottingham NG1 5BA, on more of a trial basis than anything, to see how it would go down. Yesterday afternoon (Tuesday), the pub manager Austen phoned me to ask if he could have another two boxes as it had sold out already... Selling 20 litres of draught local cider in about four days is quite a result and we are well chuffed. All being well, Torkard Ciders will become a regular feature of the fare available at The Hand & Heart.

We delivered another box of Sheep Wash to the Talbot Taphouse on Butterly Hill in Ripley DE5 3LT this afternoon for their Easter 1st Taphouse Beer & Cider "Best in Cask" Festival, starting this Friday at 12 noon. Afterwards, Yarly (the mutt) and I went on a long circular walk around Felley Mill, over the fields and through the woods. While strolling along in the biting wind and sleet, I amused myself by trying to work out how we could all get to the Talbot Taphouse for their festival (they are a dog-friendly pub), as they also have on some of our favourite ales too: Thornbridge "Jaipur" and Whim "Hartington IPA" to name but two. The festival is also to celebrate "National Cask Ale Week" which is a good excuse (as if you need one...) for a pint of real ale.

Tomorrow I will be boxing-up two ciders for The Victoria Hotel, Dovecote Lane, Beeston NG9 1JG. The Victoria are also having a festival over Easter and have decided to try out our cider to see how it goes down with the festival goers and locals: fingers crossed... Landlord Graham has asked for two versions of Sheep Wash so I think it will be something dry-ish and something medium-ish - or maybe medium-sweet-ish.

Torkard Cider on the media trail...

The last couple of weeks have been very busy for us from a local media point of view.

Budget day was the day when we were contacted twice by BBC Radio Nottingham for comments about the 10% plus inflation hike in cider duty. Typically, with it being a nice day and Gail having the day off, we had gone to Burnt Stump Country Park for a wander round, and to exercise and train the dog. So when my phone rang and the nice lady from BBC Radio Nottingham asked if they could interview me, and get some sound bites about the cider duty proposals in the Budget, I had no idea what she was on about as the Budget had not even been unveiled before we left home. Caught out there! However, by the time they phoned again for a live on-air interview around 6.00pm, I was genned-up and ready.

One question though: why, Why, WHY do radio interviewers insist on playing the Wurzel's song "I am a cider-drinker" and talking in a faux West-Country-yokel accent when interviewing people about cider? Grrrr! I find it really irritating and condescending - but of course, you laugh and smile politely and carry on through gritted teeth. Please try to find something else to play next time - and I am a Nottinghamshire cider-maker which is way away from the West Country - unless my geography is not what it is cracked up to be!

I'd much prefer a local dialect, like the "Erewash Valley" dialect from the Derby's / Nott's border where I grew up, which is much richer to my ears and brings back memories of my childhood / youth and listening to my dad's workmates from Sandiacre, Long Eaton and I'lson (Ilkeston to the uninitiated). So something like: "Aye up me duck, wot yer reckon t'budget then?" would be far more appealing to my ears!

We were also visited by Spyke Golding, chair of Nottingham CAMRA and editor of their excellent Branch magazine, who wanted to interview us for an article on local cider makers. They have a regular section on "Meet the Brewer", so we became the first subjects of a "Meet the Cider-Maker" article. The April/May 2010 issue containing the article can be found in many pubs around the locality, or you can read the article online at: Nottingham Drinker

Aaaargh! Where has the time gone...?

Here we are at the end of March, spring is almost upon us - chronologically at least - and I haven't added anything to this blog since last December. Shame on me.

So much has happened it is difficult to know where to begin...?
How about snow; frost; snow; more snow; deeper snow; ice; burst pipe in cider shed; colder frost; frozen and cracked airlocks; snow..... I think you get the picture. The weather has really made life difficult in trying to get the trees planted up on the orchard, as we still have a lot of land to clear and trees to heavily prune and pollard. Still, the heeled-in trees look happily snug and smug in their little bed for the time being.

Santa came and brought me lots of goodies in the shape of three varieties of crab apple trees (from my mum) to aid pollination and to give us a range of edible crabs which we can mess about with. More about them later. My brother and sis-in-law brought me a Felco No. 8 pruner which is excellent, along with a Silky Fox 300mm Gomtaro Apple pruning saw - which is a bit frightening at the moment. However, both have already seen use in trying to bring some shape and structure back to our Stoke Red.

We have also invested in a mutt... Namely a "Lollie" which we have called "Yarly". I kid you not. A Lollie is a cross between a Labrador and a Border Collie (a sort of glorified mongrel if you like), and we have named her Yarly after our favourite cider apple, the Yarlington Mill. Yarly has really interesting colouring: her mother is a sleek black Labrador and her father is a chocolate-brown and white Border Collie, so Yarly has turned out silver-grey with black patterning which is the result of Blue Merle patterning from her father's Border Collie genes. 

Yarly - The Movie. Cert: PG

On the home front, we have had a Solar Water Heating Panel installed on our roof which is already proving its worth - much to my surprise and amazement, I have to add. The bare bones of the installation involved a panel full of the evacuated-tube solar collectors, a much larger (and better insulated) hot water storage tank, a couple of pumps and motorsied valves - and a fascinating animated display panel (boys toys). It is amazing to see (and feel!) hot water being pumped from the collectors into the storage tank at over 45C when the outside ambient temp is only 14C... Our hot water boiler never even fired up yesterday - I can't wait until there is some proper spring and summer sunshine...

Our cider has started to go out - earlier than I'd really like, but the customer is (nearly) always right. Our first outing this year was at Chesterfield Beer Festival in February, where we trialled our new blend called "Sheep Wash". It was / is very young, but rather tasty. The cider and perry list was really impressive - as was the beer list - but we stuck to the great ciders and perries available and worked our way through the lot (apart from the couple of sickly-sweet ones and the Broadoak rubbish... ugh!). We were very surprised to find out from Trev, one of the organisers, that our 'Sheep Wash' cider was voted "Cider of the Festival" by the punters - great news! Another framed certificate to add to our "multi-award winning" portfolio of five winners.

We delivered a box of 'Sheep Wash' to the Hand & Heart pub on Derby Rd in Nottingham last night - our first pub outlet in the city. A lovely pub, great atmosphere, good food, good local real ales and two local ciders: ours and one from "Three Cats" across the border in Derbyshire. It is very pleasing to find publicans willing to wholeheartedly embrace local ales and local ciders! Well done.

Next week we are off to Ripley in Derby's to deliver our cider to the Talbot Taphouse, the brewery tap of Amber Ales. They are having a festival over the Easter weekend and have asked for our cider; hopefully it will go down well and they will want more over the coming warmer months.

Darn it to heck...

Or more precisely, damn you Ashridge Trees!

I recieved a phone call yesterday telling me that the six "Sweet Alfords" we'd ordered from Ashridge Trees wouldn't be arriving on Monday after all. No, nothing to do with Santa or the current "heavy snow" (yeah, right. When I was a lad... etc. etc.). Not even Rudolf having a blow-out. No. Apparently "...the packer has made a mistake..."

So even though they'd been on order since June/July with my credit card details, they have disappeared into the ether due to some technical error of the human-counting / not-enough-fingers kind. Maybe they've found a new home somewhere in sunnier climes. Maybe they got a better offer. Maybe my order for six little trees wasn't important enough. Who knows. So now I'm wondering: do I hunt elsewhere for six little Malus Domestica Sweet Alford or just call it quits until next planting season...?