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Herald Sun (Australia), Sec. CITYSTYLE, p S03 (05-29-2007)
By GREG THOM
Cider is experiencing arenaissance with the young and hip, writes GREG THOM
MORRIS dancing, a ploughman's lunch and buckets of freshly made apple cider are about as good as it gets for Yarra Valley winemaker Phil Kelly.
All three were in abundance at the annual cider festival held recently at Kelly's family-owned winery, Kellybrook.
That hundreds of people were on hand to enjoy the delights that cider has to offer in such a picturesque setting is music to Kelly's ears. His family has been making the stuff there for more than 40 years.
Not just any old cider, mind you. Kelly's father, Darren, is considered one of the doyens of Australian cider making. He began a family tradition that has produced many award-winning, handcrafted, premium ciders.
The downside has been their limited availability. Made with time-honoured, traditional methods, each bottle of the Kelly's French and English-style cider costs as much as $25 and is available only by mail order or at the cellar door.
But Kelly says there is renewed interest in all things cider, which means the timing couldn't be better to start making an affordable, good-quality drop.
That's the theory behind a new easy-drinking draught cider the Kellys are producing under licence for the new Coldstream Brewery.
The brewery doesn't open until next month, but the Coldstream Draught Cider was well received during an on-tap trial at Federation Square bar Transport.
"We had a deal with Transport for five weeks," Kelly says. "They sold 40 kegs in that time. They absolutely hammered through it. It was a terrific success."
The cider is also on tap at the Sherlock Holmes Hotel in Collins St, and will be available at the brewery when it opens.
Kelly says there's definitely a change in the landscape for cider.
"There's far more interest in it and far more people wanting to have a go at it."
Unlike some mainstream ciders, which Kelly says often use imported apple concentrate and can be a bit sickly and cloying, he describes Coldstream Draught Cider as dry, crisp and bursting with fruit flavours.
"We are using fresh apples straight from the Yarra Valley, so it's all local fruit. Hopefully we're in at the beginning of a really exciting period for cider production in this country."
Much maligned over the years, alcoholic cider is undergoing an image make-over.
It's not just the home-grown variety that is gaining attention.
Clever marketing in the UK has seen a growing legion of hip young things embracing cider, giving it a cachet at odds with its cheap and cheerful image.
The key to this renaissance has been the "cider over ice" phenomenon, kicked off by Irish cider-maker Magners.
Now the trend is hitting Australia, helped in no small way by the arrival last year of the cider-swilling Barmy Army for the Ashes Test cricket series.
Foster's-owned Strongbow has ditched the traditional armoured knight on its 375ml bottle of apple cider for a fresh streamlined look as part of its "strong on ice" marketing campaign.
Tammy Richardson, from Foster's, says cider had become a tired category.
"People didn't know how to drink it. We needed to create a new 'occasion' to encourage people to consume cider and that's what they have done very successfully in the UK and is now starting to happen here," she says.
Australians undoubtedly love beer, but cider sales increased by 10 per cent in the past year, according to ACNielsen figures. The two drinks may seem like strange bed-fellows, but even local brewers are on board the cider express.
West Australian craft brewery Little Creatures has struck an alliance with UK boutique cider-maker Aspall to import their 5.5 per cent Draught Suffolk Cyder into Australia.
It's a beverage particularly close to the heart of Aspall's Henry Chevallier. His family's passion for making cider stretches back eight generations to 1728.
Suffolk-based Aspall uses only fresh local produce and traditional methods to produce a premium product aimed at discerning drinkers rather than quaffers.
Chevallier confirms during a recent visit to Melbourne the "over ice" phenomenon has dramatically raised the profile of cider in the UK.
Though tipping his hat to the marketers, he can't help but smile at the origins of the traditional practice resurrected by Magners and copied by rivals.
"If you go back historically to the'60s, the reason you put ice in the cider was because it was bloody horrible."
Little Creatures business development manager Richard Sweet says he has seen the rebirth of cider in the UK and believes it is set to take off in Australia in the same way.
"It's just started. It's very new, but it's starting to gain a foothold," he says.
"We are going to do tastings, put it in the right venues, make sure it's seen in the right places. It's a slow burn, but it's a start," Sweet says.
When it comes to apple cider, more than one type of fruit falls from the tree
French
Bottle-fermented, high-end cider made using the traditional Methode Champenoise technique pioneered centuries ago to make champagne. Clean and light with 9 per cent alcohol content, it is considered the purest form of cider. But its labour-intensive production makes it less common today.
English style
Non-sparkling "table cider" originating in the West Country of England. More full-bodied and slightly darker than its French counterpart, it's made from a variety of apples that can give it a complexity reminiscent of cinnamon, cloves and honey. Has an alcohol content from 7-10 per cent.
Draught
Clean, fresh, 6.5 per cent, carbonated sparkling cider with a strong apple taste.
Scrumpy
Considered the "roughest" of the ciders, it is a cloudy, non-sparkling variety that's drunk while still fermenting. Packed with a natural apple sweetness, its name is derived from the practice of "scrumping", which traditionally involved picking up ripe, rotting apples blown down by the wind and making use of their high-sugar content to produce a cider of up to 12 per cent alcohol.
Herald Sun (Australia), Sec. CITYSTYLE, p S03 (05-29-2007)
By GREG THOM
Cider is experiencing arenaissance with the young and hip, writes GREG THOM
MORRIS dancing, a ploughman's lunch and buckets of freshly made apple cider are about as good as it gets for Yarra Valley winemaker Phil Kelly.
All three were in abundance at the annual cider festival held recently at Kelly's family-owned winery, Kellybrook.
That hundreds of people were on hand to enjoy the delights that cider has to offer in such a picturesque setting is music to Kelly's ears. His family has been making the stuff there for more than 40 years.
Not just any old cider, mind you. Kelly's father, Darren, is considered one of the doyens of Australian cider making. He began a family tradition that has produced many award-winning, handcrafted, premium ciders.
The downside has been their limited availability. Made with time-honoured, traditional methods, each bottle of the Kelly's French and English-style cider costs as much as $25 and is available only by mail order or at the cellar door.
But Kelly says there is renewed interest in all things cider, which means the timing couldn't be better to start making an affordable, good-quality drop.
That's the theory behind a new easy-drinking draught cider the Kellys are producing under licence for the new Coldstream Brewery.
The brewery doesn't open until next month, but the Coldstream Draught Cider was well received during an on-tap trial at Federation Square bar Transport.
"We had a deal with Transport for five weeks," Kelly says. "They sold 40 kegs in that time. They absolutely hammered through it. It was a terrific success."
The cider is also on tap at the Sherlock Holmes Hotel in Collins St, and will be available at the brewery when it opens.
Kelly says there's definitely a change in the landscape for cider.
"There's far more interest in it and far more people wanting to have a go at it."
Unlike some mainstream ciders, which Kelly says often use imported apple concentrate and can be a bit sickly and cloying, he describes Coldstream Draught Cider as dry, crisp and bursting with fruit flavours.
"We are using fresh apples straight from the Yarra Valley, so it's all local fruit. Hopefully we're in at the beginning of a really exciting period for cider production in this country."
Much maligned over the years, alcoholic cider is undergoing an image make-over.
It's not just the home-grown variety that is gaining attention.
Clever marketing in the UK has seen a growing legion of hip young things embracing cider, giving it a cachet at odds with its cheap and cheerful image.
The key to this renaissance has been the "cider over ice" phenomenon, kicked off by Irish cider-maker Magners.
Now the trend is hitting Australia, helped in no small way by the arrival last year of the cider-swilling Barmy Army for the Ashes Test cricket series.
Foster's-owned Strongbow has ditched the traditional armoured knight on its 375ml bottle of apple cider for a fresh streamlined look as part of its "strong on ice" marketing campaign.
Tammy Richardson, from Foster's, says cider had become a tired category.
"People didn't know how to drink it. We needed to create a new 'occasion' to encourage people to consume cider and that's what they have done very successfully in the UK and is now starting to happen here," she says.
Australians undoubtedly love beer, but cider sales increased by 10 per cent in the past year, according to ACNielsen figures. The two drinks may seem like strange bed-fellows, but even local brewers are on board the cider express.
West Australian craft brewery Little Creatures has struck an alliance with UK boutique cider-maker Aspall to import their 5.5 per cent Draught Suffolk Cyder into Australia.
It's a beverage particularly close to the heart of Aspall's Henry Chevallier. His family's passion for making cider stretches back eight generations to 1728.
Suffolk-based Aspall uses only fresh local produce and traditional methods to produce a premium product aimed at discerning drinkers rather than quaffers.
Chevallier confirms during a recent visit to Melbourne the "over ice" phenomenon has dramatically raised the profile of cider in the UK.
Though tipping his hat to the marketers, he can't help but smile at the origins of the traditional practice resurrected by Magners and copied by rivals.
"If you go back historically to the'60s, the reason you put ice in the cider was because it was bloody horrible."
Little Creatures business development manager Richard Sweet says he has seen the rebirth of cider in the UK and believes it is set to take off in Australia in the same way.
"It's just started. It's very new, but it's starting to gain a foothold," he says.
"We are going to do tastings, put it in the right venues, make sure it's seen in the right places. It's a slow burn, but it's a start," Sweet says.
When it comes to apple cider, more than one type of fruit falls from the tree
French
Bottle-fermented, high-end cider made using the traditional Methode Champenoise technique pioneered centuries ago to make champagne. Clean and light with 9 per cent alcohol content, it is considered the purest form of cider. But its labour-intensive production makes it less common today.
English style
Non-sparkling "table cider" originating in the West Country of England. More full-bodied and slightly darker than its French counterpart, it's made from a variety of apples that can give it a complexity reminiscent of cinnamon, cloves and honey. Has an alcohol content from 7-10 per cent.
Draught
Clean, fresh, 6.5 per cent, carbonated sparkling cider with a strong apple taste.
Scrumpy
Considered the "roughest" of the ciders, it is a cloudy, non-sparkling variety that's drunk while still fermenting. Packed with a natural apple sweetness, its name is derived from the practice of "scrumping", which traditionally involved picking up ripe, rotting apples blown down by the wind and making use of their high-sugar content to produce a cider of up to 12 per cent alcohol.
