A Visit to Small Acres Cyder - Borenore, NSW

You have read about me proclaiming about the appley goodness that comes from Orange, NSW and well, here is some more of it. This is a post about the best kind of applely goodness, the kind that comes in the form of apple cider. Oh, and its not the kind of cider- pop that you would have grossly overindulged in your *cough*, late teens, waking up with a stonking hangover that lasted for a couple of days. This is the stuff that now you are at a more *cough* mature age, you want to savour the flavours, know the history and process of how it is made, and share it with your friends at a dinner party...now that you are more civilised.

Over the recent long weekend i had the pleasure of meeting with James Kendell from Small Acres Cyder in Borenore (near Orange), NSW. This premium cider is locally made from locally grown heirloom cider apples and made on site at Small Acres. I have had the pleasure of enjoying this cider many many times and have wanted to find out what goes into making one of my favourite drinks ever since I started thinking about blogging about food. James was kind enough to meet with me before the start of a very busy day to answer some of my questions.

TLA - Small Acres Cyder opened for business in 2007, how did you get to that place?


JK- I actually grew up on a farm west of Wagga Wagga, but my background is in science. When I was older, I went to the UK for a holiday and ended up staying there for 8 years! This is where I became exposed to cider. In the UK I worked in the beer industry for one of the large brewery's there and on  returning to Australia I got into the wine industry, so it was really a logical step to go from there into cider. Having said that, in actual fact, the inspiration for Small Acres comes from my wife. Gail is English from Bristol and when we moved back to Australia she was always saying that she couldn't get hold of a true, authentic cider in Australia. Having worked in both the beer and the wine industry I saw real opportunity and we started investigating how to make a good traditional cider. That was back in 2002, it took us 3 or 4 years to really learn and understand how to make cider and we made many small batches which we shared amongst friends and by 2006 we had our blends to the stage where we were really happy with them and were able to open the cellar door in 2007.


TLA - Fantastic! So what goes in to making a great cider?

JK - To get that really good traditional, what I call balance and structure in a cider,just a like wine maker would get balance and structure in a wine, you really need the traditional cider variety apples. They are quite a different variety to the eating apple, just like the eating grape is very different to the wine making grape.The cider variety apple, depending on variety can be quite tannic which helps to build some structure and give texture and mouth feel. The apples can be quite high in acid and you need to make sure you have a good balance of acid in your cider. You need to make sure you have a good balance of acids, tannins and sugar.

TLA - So a different variety of apple would go into your Appscato as opposed to your Norfolk Still or is more the actual process of extraction that determines the flavour?

 JK - Well it is a combination of both, we have about 20 different varieties of cider apples growing here at Small Acres , for example in the Somerset Still there is a combination of about 13 different apple varieties. The Norfolk Still has a different combination apples and the Appscato is again a different combination. That is how as a cider maker you determine what the style of cider is going to be.  The style is determined by how you blend your apples.
Equally what is important, is the process that goes into making the cider. For instance, our Appscato has quite a different process to our Somerset Still and our Norfolk Still, whereby it is has undergone a very similar process to the way a Moscato wine would be made. The Pomona Ice (dessert cider) again has a different process to the others where we use a freeze technology to concentrate the juice which gives us a rich and viscous mouth feel that you look for in a dessert cider. The sparkling which is the Cidre Rouge and the Perry (a pear cider) are made using the méthode champenoise which is essentially the same process that the French use to make Champagne.

TLA - What is the difference between Small Acres and other mass produced ciders?

JK - One difference is starting with the right cider variety apples. We only make our ciders once a year. It is a vintage product and we only use the freshest ingredients so in making it once a year we only make it when the apples are in season in Orange.In doing that, we are only using the freshest fruit. They are picked off the tree and juiced and that is what we use in our cider. Out of season, in December-January when there are no apples in Orange, we don't make cider.
The other difference is we only use the juice from fresh picked whole apples. Which may sound strange because you would think all cider is made from whole apples but in actual fact it is not. There are different ways to make a cider.There is the traditional way, the way it is done at Small Acres and there is a more mass produced way using apple concentrate, water, added sugar etc. Doing it that way is obviously cheaper but the quality and the taste difference is really quite extreme. You take a mass produced cider and compare it to a traditional and you can really taste the water.

TLA - So I noticed that along with your cider range, you have pork and cider sausages for sale. Can you tell me a little more about this?

JK - We do a lunch once a month, on the 3rd Sunday of the month and we originally set out to this as an educational process to show people how to match food with our different ciders. The first winter for this lunch we made the pork and cider sausages and they were so successful people started asking for them all the time! So we ended up finding a butcher in town who has our recipe and makes the sausages up for us.

TLA- Well they look amazing, I know I will be buying some!

JK - Well, this is another example of if you are going to make something, you need to make it perfectly. These sausages have no fillers whatsoever. It is 100% local pork from Cowra, the butcher has our recipe of herbs and spices and he soaks the mince in one of our ciders overnight and makes the sausages the next day. They are a proper, chunky English sausage with actual meat in there!

TLA - What is your favourite thing about what you do?

JK - Before Small Acres, Gail and I were both in corporate jobs and I had been working for large corporations ever since I left uni really, but I always had an idea about getting back to the land and with Gail's idea to make cider it was easy to move here from Sydney. I really love getting up in the mornings and have a view like this. We have 2  girls and being able to take them to school as well as being  able to work my day around the kids activities is a bonus. However, having a flexible work day comes at a price; everyday is a work day when you run a small business so it is a trade off. But it is a good trade off. Another great thing is that every year is different, when the apples come into season, you approach every vintage differently because every year the apples taste and behave differently to the previous vintage.

TLA - What are your future plans for Small Acres?

JK - We opened with one product, the Somerset Still which is a very traditional blend. We found that we needed to appeal to a wider audience so we started to make ciders with a sweeter taste to them such as our Norfolk Still and Apscato. The next year we developed our Pomona Ice which is our dessert cider and as far as i know, the only dessert cider in Australia and off the back of that we developed the Cidre Rouge which is our rosé style cider and last year we produced our first Perry (pear cider), so at this point we have quite a full plate! We will always look at opportunities but we are quite happy for now with our 7 products.

TLA - Well, thank you very much for your time, good luck with the future of Small Acres and I look forward to cooking these pork sausages.

For more information about Small Acres Cyder and bookings for their monthly lunch, visit http://www.smallacrescyder.com.au/
Phone: 02 6365 2286
12 Akhurst Road, Borenore, NSW 2800