About Nailsea Cider
Reinventing the Legend – Making cider in Nailsea as it once was
Nailsea has a rich history. Coal and Glass are well known as being a part of Nailsea’s history. Less well known though is Nailsea’s history of Cidermaking. The famous Coate’s Cider was made in Nailsea, and before this nearly all the local farms made cider because they could pay their staff a proportion of their wages with the stuff. Good times!
We’re a small group of friends that got together to rekindle Nailsea’s cidermaking past. There are just a few of us. We work with a large number of single trees in gardens around Nailsea where the apples would otherwise fall and rot. We also work with a couple of small orchards. We have access to a good blend of local cider apples, and dessert apples and we have an exemption to be able to make 7000 litres per year, which we won’t get close to for a while yet.
There are a lot of trees around that are a hang-over from the orchards that used to be about Nailsea, whose fruit otherwise just falls and rots. These apples are fermented in small batches, from 30 litres up to 200 litres, so that we have complete control when we blend. We know which apples from which garden, orchard or even individual tree went into each of our varieties.
