The Problem of Style: Part One
In my last article I highlighted cider’s image problem and I touched on the beerification of cider. The reality is that cider is more like wine than we in the United Kingdom have appreciated: the importance of the fruit and its provenance; the harvesting and production of the juice; and the natural ABV that cider attenuates to; all bear far more in common with wine than beer. The future of cider must include more reflections on wine than on beer if it is to succeed, though cider must still forge its own path and identity.
On the face of it the problem appears to be that beyond the protected appellations of Normandy and Spain where typically strict and sensible laws have fostered a strong cultural identity, there are very few agreed styles of cider. Certainly in the United Kingdom, the spiritual home of cider, there exists very few legislative guidelines for cider beyond the ridiculous minimum requirement of 35% juice content, the even more ridiculous system of cider duty and the total lack of any system of quantifying dryness in cider. The beerification of cider is mainly down to the encroachment of breweries into the market: amongst the largest producers of cider in the United Kingdom we can name Heineken, Molson Coors, Carlsberg and C&C Group (owners of Tennents, Drygate and Pabst Blue Ribbon).
Cider is offered to most bars and restaurants as a complement to the kegged lager lineup and is produced by these large breweries at around 5%, significantly below where cider juice naturally attenuates to, but the sweet spot of British pint-drinking consumption habits. Add to that the sweetening of the national palate reflected in extremely sweet, fizzy, pop-like cider and it’s easy to see why your average punter could not tell the difference between a low intervention, barrel fermented cider and a Norman, keeved cider; or between a Dabinett or a Browns single variety cider. The homogenization of British cider has rendered the mainstream cider industry as soulless as the British beer industry pre-CAMRA but equally ripe for revolution.
In beer, particularly craft beer, styles are king. Something all drinkers will have experienced is that sense of awe, and probably confusion, at the sheer plethora of beers in a given establishment. For some it can be daunting. Many who have been to a craft beer bar will know that feeling of staring at the dimly lit cinema board or blackboard littered with absurd and brilliant names, and lots of words you may never have seen before like saison, barleywine and wee heavy. Eventually these styles help a discerning drinker orientate themselves at the point of ordering but not only that; as they drink more and more beer styles across a lifetime they learn that they love amber ales or kettle sours, and even will form preferences, and sometimes build an identity around the beers they drink (looking at you haze bros). And those styles help them to find things they like in the future.
Craft beer is very much a culture of styles: some brewers like Sam Calagione from Dog Fish Head have sought to recreate and revive ancient styles whilst other brewers like Lervig and Omnipollo use style as a wall to smash through in pursuit of iconoclasm. For more on beer style I suggest this wonderful entry in the Oxford Companion to Beer by my favourite beer person, Garret Oliver.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that the concept of styles had been around for a long time, especially with the number of beer styles that originate in the Middle and Industrial Ages. But beer styles are a relatively modern phenomenon, which started in 1977 when Michael Jackson (not that one) wrote his World Guide to Beer. Shortly after that, in 1985, the Beer Judging Certification Program started and by the time Fred Eckhardt published The Essentials of Beer Style in 1986 the concept of beer styles quickly was entrenched in beer and brewing culture and with this platform, the craft beer revolution was in full swing. The framework of style helps not only consumers choose but brewers to brew. It’s the North Star, the guiding light of pretty much everything that happens in that world. And it’s something that on the face of it cider is sorely lacking.
The inspiration for this piece originated in a phone conversation I had with Gabe Cook, aka the Ciderologist, and arguably the loudest voice for the reassessment of cider by the world (but particularly the British public). Despite writing exclusively about cider for this publication so far, my background is in fact beer where I work in a craft beer bar and will, hopefully, take the written portion of my Certified Cicerone exam in December. This beery background led me to ask Gabe: what are the archetypes for certain styles of cider that I could try to better understand both different styles of cider and also hybrid styles? I also had the zealous ambition to create a cider taxonomy if one did not already exist. I don’t want to suggest Gabe laughed at me, but I sensed a wry smile in his voice when he asked me if I had read his book, Ciderology. I hadn’t and what followed was a great primer for the book which, when it arrived a few days later, I read immediately.
In the book, Gabe recounts a quote from his friend Ambrosia from the Northman bar in Chicago who said that the UK was in danger of becoming the German beer of cider, clearly in reference to the rigid and uncompromising attitudes to brewing in cities like Dusseldorf, Cologne or Munich.
The truth is that beer suits the concept of styles: with four ingredients in beer the brewer has a lot more control over the outcome and thus beer is really made in the brewery. Cider, like wine, is so reliant on the quality of the fruit it would be fair to say it is made in the orchard not the cidery.
In part two we will explore what cider can learn about wine in the way we think about it, talk about it and drink it.
