LINCOLNSHIRE CYDER
IN-CYDER
INFORMATION It’s the autumn tipple that’s as pure as it gets and comes straight from Guy Williams’ hallowed orchards in Skidbrooke near Louth. This month we raise a glass to authentic and refreshing local cider! PURITY is, sadly, becoming a rare trait. Industrialisation, mechanisation and technology have all conspired to make sure that everything we eat and drink has been mucked about with in a factory. Bread is an often-quoted example; just four ingredients – five if you count time – combine to make something really special, but take a peek at the ingredients panel of a mass-produced loaf and you’ll see a bewildering ode to chemistry with added ingredients all designed to facilitate mass production in under an hour and resulting in unholy loaves that go mouldy, not stale. And that mass production extends to drink. Take cyder, for example. When Guy Williams makes his Lincolnshire Farmhouse and Vintage cyders at Skidbrooke near Louth, the ingredients list extends to one – and only one – item. Apples. Simple. Only… it’s not simple at all. First things first… cider, or cyder? The latter is technically from the first pressing of apples. Cider with a ‘I’ is made from a further pressing of the pulp. Over the years, though, the two terms have become interchangeable, and more of a matter of preference. Guy is from Frome in Somerset and is quite the polymath, having trained as a chef and worked in kitchens all over Europe to facilitate his wanderlust. He’s also developed properties both here and abroad, worked in
the insurance industry and latterly he was a financial advisor and mortgage broker before moving to Lincolnshire around the millennium so that he and wife Kate can be closer to family. The country surrounding Skidbrooke has a good few orchards, and a sort of microclimate ideal for growing a good crop of apples. Today, Guy has about five and a half acres of apple trees, although he admits to making the rookie error of planting full-standard trees in the beginning, rather than half-standards which are only about 10ft tall, and as a result, are easier to manage and yield a crop of apple faster than their lofty contemporaries. >>
Words: Rob Davis.
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