Cider has been popular for centuries – and it’s enjoying a revival today. Celebrate cider in your local SPAR with our spring cider festival and rediscover the sparkling taste that is truly British.
Perhaps the best-known name in cider is Bulmers. The company was founded in 1887 in Hereford, by Percy Bulmer, the 20-year-old son of the local rector at Credenhill, who took his mother's advice to make a career in food or drink, "because neither ever go out of fashion".
Using apples from the orchard at his father's rectory and an old stone press on the farm next door, Bulmer made the first cider, on which the family fortune would be made. grown up on a 75 acres (30.4 ha) site nearby.
Cider making in those early days was a hit or miss affair, the fermentation being achieved by the wild yeast in the apple, and more often than not the cider turned sour. It was a college friend of Percy’s brither, Fred, who, in the 1890s, isolated the wild yeast to create the first pure cider yeast culture, which would ensure that fermentations were consistent. This was the start of commercial cider making.
Bulmers was first granted the Royal Warrant in 1911 and continues today as 'Cider Maker to Her Majesty the Queen'.