Welsh Mountain Cider

Cider made over a thousand feet above sea level in the Cambrian Mountains already sounds like it might have strong opinions about industrial cider.

Welsh Mountain Cider is a family-run ciderworks, orchard and nursery based in Mid Wales, producing natural ciders from fresh juice, wild fermentation and traditional cellar ageing. Everything is unpasteurised, bottle conditioned and made without added sulphites, which places the project firmly in the more orchard-driven end of British cider making.

The ciders vary considerably from vintage to vintage depending on fruit and harvest conditions. Heritage apple varieties, bittersweets, perry pears and old orchard fruit all play important roles. The resulting ciders often show tannin, freshness, texture and the sort of agricultural character that mass-produced cider spends most of its life trying to remove.

One of the most remarkable parts of the project is the orchard itself, which contains hundreds of apple and pear varieties. It functions almost as a living archive of traditional fruit growing alongside cider production.

Welsh cider rarely receives the same attention as Somerset or Herefordshire. Welsh Mountain Cider makes a fairly convincing case that perhaps it should.