We are a family run cider making business producing small one off batch ciders based in Lincolnshire. It all started as a hobby producing small amounts of cider for ourselves in demijohns, using our own garden fruit in 2016. After a few successful batches and an opportunity to plant our own orchard we started our proper cider making journey in 2019.
Our name: Chapel Sider is not an attempt to change the spelling of Cider, just a play on words based on the name of our family home Chapel Side, where we made our first ciders and planted our first cider apple tree; a Dabinett. The name was suggested by our Grandfather Franko, whom we have named a cider after in his honour. Our logo is based partly on the stained glass window of the old chapel that we can see from our property.
Our Paddock Orchard is just across the Nottinghamshire border on family land and now holds over 50 trees of well-known cider varieties, including; Dabinett, Kingston Black, Harry Master Jersey, Michelin, Somerset Redstreak, Major, Tremletts Bitter and Yarlington Mill. Over half of the trees are now 6 years old, the others 4 years old.
Our orchard productivity is slowly increasing. In 2020 we had enough juice just to make 1 litre, but in 2022 that had increased to 15 litres. We are hopeful that 2023 will be our best year yet and we may be able to start selling ciders produced from our own orchard soon. These will be one off expressions of the vintage, containing a blend of the fruits provided each year.
In the meantime, our first releases are a mix of juice we bought in from Devon and Herefordshire in 2019 to get us started, which have been blended with eating and culinary varieties from our own gardens as well as local donators picked in 2020 and 2021. They have been fermented and matured slowly to allow the flavours to develop and the acidity from local fruit to integrate with the tannins from the cider apples of the West. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.
chapelsider.co.uk 