Cottage industry is apple of his eye

SHIPPED off to the high seas as a warfare officer with the Navy, Tom Dunn got more than his fill of thrills - and tribulations. But never more so than when he retired from the ocean waves to venture into the choppy waters of the elusive craft cider world and resurrect a dwindling tradition.

Less than two years after he waved off HMS Northumberland to launch Cirencester-based Beard & Sabre Cider Company, with only his right-hand man Angus Sales, a traditional rack and cloth press and thumping 35 tonnes of apples, the 24-year-old is slowly but surely laying the groundwork for a cider revolution in our parts.

“We really believe in this,” booms Tom, punching the air. “We believe we’re on the cutting edge of it. But we shouldn’t be. Why is no one else doing it? That’s the way it should be done, the way it was done before. It’s 100 per cent pressed apples, we don’t rehydrate apple concentrate and we don’t water it down. We just do something funky with it in terms of ingredients and flavours,” continues the managing director.

A simple enough concept, surely? Well not exactly.

It seemed easy enough when Tom dreamt up the cottage industry from the comfort of his makeshift office in a disused missile tracking radar room aboard his ship.

He drafted his friend Angus as director, secured a start-up loan for service leavers and was all ready to go but for one rather big hurdle. He had not counted on the dearth of information, ‘how-to’ manuals or basic A to Zs on the art of craft cidermaking. Seeking help from the last remaining “traditionalists” was futile: they would sooner die by the sword than divulge their fiercely-guarded trade secrets.

“I really enjoyed my time in the Navy; it was mental, fun and exciting and I’m glad I did it.

“But it didn’t click for me. I’m quite creative and I always wanted my own business. I knew this was the right idea. There was no craft cider, no one was doing it — it was our chance.

“We thought why don’t we set the definition, the standard for craft cider?

“The traditionalists didn’t want to add anything to their cider, but people doing craft beer were adding real cool things to their beers like chocolate. But do that with cider and people thought it was weird.”

After searching high and low for snippets of advice, they finally found some answers from the most unlikely source: the United States.

While there was a clear gap in the UK market for 100 per cent pressed cider with a difference, the US, they discovered to their surprise, was a hotbed of craft cider entrepreneurs, happy to share their basic process and give fledgling producers a leg up.

“The Americans are way ahead of us for craft cider production for some reason. It’s sad actually, cider is our thing. But we took our inspiration from them.

“We think the knowledge here is really dying out. There are old-timers doing it but they are stuck in their ways and they don’t pass on that knowledge. It’s hard to find information, it’s not really documented online.”

On track at last, Tom and Angus, hotfooted it to Tesco, bought bags of apples and began experimenting with flavour blends. Eager to start in earnest they secured a unit at Norcote Workshops, a stone’s throw from Cirencester, registered the business in July 2015 and impulsively bulk-ordered 35 tonnes of apples.

When the trucks dumped the towering mound of fruit outside their cramped warehouse, the true scale of the enterprise hit home, Tom recalls.

“We just went for it and did things on a huge scale,” he chuckles.

“But when the lorry turned up and the apples starting rolling down I thought, ‘we’ve bitten more than we can chew’. The quickest way to get rid of the apples and make room was to press them.”

“We slept two hours a night, the press never stopped,” he adds, warming up to his theme. “We thought it would take a week. We laugh now but it was terrible: it took a month in the end. We had to go cold-calling round pubs to convince them that they should have us on tap, just to survive until summer. It was the middle of winter, people were doing dry January or had spent all their money at Christmas. We thought, ‘why are we doing this to ourselves?’”

The main difference between “proper cider” and the market-flooding offerings churned out by multi-nationals is the high juice content, explains Tom.

While craft cider is traditionally made from the juice of crushed apples which is then fermented, adding layers of depth, most commercial varieties contain between 35 and 40 per cent of apple juice. It is then pumped with water, sugar and preservatives to make a greater volume of a more uniform drink, producing reliable yields all year round.

While bold entrepreneurs are slowly waking up to the potential of craft cider following the resurgence of the craft beer movement, it is still a virtually untapped market, Tom insists.

Beard & Sabre was intended as a bridge between the old “beards” — the sticklers for tradition — and the new large producers or “faceless sabres” shaking the mould with their novel fruit blends but cutting corners with concentrate, he adds.

“We wanted to respect the history of cidermaking but we added our own twists to make cider that people want to drink and that we want to drink ourselves,” he goes on without skipping a beat.

Beard & Sabre’s first drink was Apple Smuggler, an old-world extra dry cider with a bite.

It proved a hard sell for the new generation of adventurous drinkers. They preferred sweeter, smoother tipples and when it came to whipping up their next batch, Tom and Angus focused on creating softer and more intriguing flavours with broader appeal.

Their core range now counts five ciders: the original Apple Smuggler for the old-school connoisseur, redcurrant-flavoured Berrymaster, Yardarm, blackcurrant-infused Blackbeard and Dark Raven.

After a few months selling exclusively in bag boxes to local pubs, every variety is now available in bottles. They also recently introduced cans. As well as the signature drinks, they have launched a seasonal limited edition spiced pumpkin recipe.

The company now produces up to 3,000 litres a month.

Having one foot in the past and the other in the present is a tricky juggling act, especially when it comes to the future of the business. Mass production and volumes are the reason companies cannot sustain making cider in the traditional labour-intensive way and rely on concentrate.

But Tom is confident it can be achieved, to an extent, without compromising on taste or quality.

“None of this existed before we made it,” he says motioning to the rows of bottles behind him. “It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. But we’ve come so far in one year. I look around and I’m glad I’ve done it.”

To find out more about Beard & Sabre or to place an order to have your cider delievered direct to your door, go to www.beardandsabre.co.uk. The business also runs a stall every Sunday at the Swindon Farmers’ Market at the Designer Outlet.