London’s first urban cidery is making waves

Forget stickily warm Kopparberg sloshed down your back at teen music festivals, or the existential hangover-inducing scrumpy of post-exam celebrations — and please, please don’t mention snakebite. Cider is being redeemed, one pint of single variety at a time.

Starting in Bermondsey. While Druid Street is known among craft beerophiles as the start of the Bermondsey Beer Mile, packed with blood orange double IPA-producing microbreweries, there is a new craft pint puller in town. Hawkes Cidery bills itself as the first urban cider maker, and founder Simon Wright is on a mission to get us sinking good cider. ‘For years, mainstream cider has been mass produced, and of mostly poor quality,’ he says. ‘Craft cider has been a thing for a very niche group of people in places such as Somerset or Herefordshire. But British apples are wonderfully varied, they’re also cheap and provide nuanced flavour profiles when you play with them. We’ve had the craft gin revolution, and craft beer just gets bigger and better, so I truly believe it’s high time that cider has its day in the sun.’

Ciders in the taproom are ranked by their various levels of sharpness, sweetness and tannin, with some of the super-dry, super-tannic tasting almost like Syrah. Brothers Toffee Apple this is not. Its own brand, Hawkes Urban Orchard, is not challenging cider — it’s simply very crisp, alcoholic apple juice, easy sipping at 4.5 per cent and, when I visited on one hungover Sunday, blissfully revitalising.

There is an apple donation scheme for anyone with an overloaded fruit tree dropping Granny Smiths quicker than you can say ‘Newton’s law of universal gravitation’. You are given one bottle of Urban Orchard for every 3kg (about 15 apples) donated — and on 11 November you can even brew your own Bramleys at its Urban Cider Making Masterclass.

The revival of cider is long overdue — the UK has for some time been pipped to the post by the States, where craft cider is big business. Still, London is finally getting aboard the apple cart. Scandi-inspired restaurant Rōk is pouring its own brewed ciders at its new pop-up spot in Old Spitalfields Market, while at the new Farm Girl café in Sweaty Betty Carnaby Street, you can chase your in-store Paola’s Body Barre with a glass of hydrating Hoila, an Alpine cider made in South Tyrol and served in an extremely Instagram-friendly bottle. The same can be said of French brand Sassy Cidre and its admirable determination to make cider cool again with graphic bottles and a rosé variety.

Need something to soak up the juice? The Cider Box, campaigners for real cider, hosts regular cider and cheese evenings — most recently at Kennington’s Old Red Lion — to encourage consumption of Braeburns in booze form and Brie. And if you’re steering clear of the booze but need to keep warm this season, sip yourself silly on Dominique Ansel’s hot cinnamon apple booze-free ‘cider’ while insulating yourself for the winter with a cronut or six. What are you waiting for? Get some cider inside ya.