Dorset cider tour: a taste of core values

In the Stable in Bridport, I stand at the bar and taste my way through a collection of "real cider". The Stable (thestabledorset.co.uk) is part rustic English pizzeria, part modern cider house. The thin-crust pizzas include a Joe Gundry (with smoked mackerel) and a Lamb Roast (with marinated lamb). And the choice of West Country ciders is impressive. The staff T-shirt says it all: "57 varieties … how do you like them apples?"

I am offered samples of Orchard Pig's Reveller from Somerset and Lyme Bay's Jack Ratt from Devon. But I'm looking for the local stuff. The proper made-in-Dorset, pressed-apple cider with a whiff of the Purbeck Hills and a snifter of Thomas Hardy's Wessex.

"Five years ago, we'd have struggled to come up with one example," the Stable's manager, James French, tells me. "Now we sell over a dozen Dorset ciders."

These include draft, keg, boxed and bottled ciders, still and sparkling, sweet and dry, blends and single varieties. The Dorset Nectar is "very appley", says James, "very strong". Cloudy, amber and sweetened with honey, it's produced, I discover, by a sculptor-cum-farmer who runs a 15-acre organic orchard just a few miles from Bridport. There's a story behind every Dorset cider.

Lulworth Skipper (lulworth-skipper.com) is named after a local butterfly. "Very dry," says James as he pours an inch into a glass. "Very clean." The maker matures his craft cider in oak cognac casks.

The Purbeck Cider Company's Dorset Draft (purbeckcidercompany.co.uk) – a pale lagery colour, chilled, with a light spritz – is made by twentysomething sheep farmer Joe Hartle. At his family farm near Corfe (where his parents make Purbeck ice-cream), he produces eight varieties, including Joe's Cider and a medium-sweet perry. He's planted his own pear and apple orchards and designed some nifty branding.

"Craft cider is a refined product these days," says James. "It's quite specialist." They are natural, made in small quantities from 100% juice (industrial ciders use about 30%). And they're potent, too: my cheeks have turned the colour of a Slack-ma-Girdle (an old variety of sweet apple, streaked with crimson).

Dorset's cider revival is partly down to local enthusiast Nick Poole of West Milton Cider (westmiltoncider.co.uk), who started a tiny, village-hall event in 2000. It began with a few "old boys" sharing small quantities of garden-shed scrumpy. But within a few years it had morphed into the Powerstock Cider festival (on the last Saturday in April; the 500 tickets get snapped up weeks in advance). A showcase of the region's artisan cider, it's at the heart of a growing network of commercial producers who are not only making cider but also regenerating ancient orchards, and rediscovering old apple varieties (from Buttery Door and Crimson King to Dabinett, Harry Masters and Yarlington Mill). "It's all about keeping the old traditions alive," says Nick Poole.

In Hardy's Dorset, there would have been an apple orchard and a cider press on every local farm. Cider formed part of a farmworker's wages, particularly during the harvest. But when the practice gradually died in the 19th century, the orchards were "grubbed out" and the know-how disappeared.

You can get a feel for the old ways in the curious Millhouse Cider Museum (millhousecider.co.uk) at Owermoigne near Dorchester. Aside from barns of timber presses, circa 1750, and a small collection of cow-horn cider beakers, the museum has a decent shop and tasting area. Here, I find Bridle's cider (a vintage dry from a farm near Shaftesbury), Marshwood Vale's Yarlington Mill single variety and Lancombe Rising, a bottle-fermented, or "keeved", cider from West Milton.

I buy a bottle of dry sparkling from Cider by Rosie (ciderbyrosie.com) made by 73-year-old Rose Grant, a former electronics engineer who produces a small range of full-juice ciders at her home near Blandford. Rose supplies around 20 Dorset pubs, but in an area where the licensed trade is dominated by breweries, free-house cider pubs are not that common.

Worth investigation, then, is the Castle Inn at Lulworth Cove (thecastleinn-lulworthcove.co.uk). Alex Halliday, whose parents have run this thatched village pub for 30 years, offers 19 real ciders including Dorset Tit by Marshwood Vale (marshwoodvalecider.com).

And I thoroughly recommend the Square and Compass (squareandcompasspub.co.uk) in Worth Matravers, a tiny Isle of Purbeck village, on a hilltop between the ruins of Corfe Castle and the sea. Run by landlord Charlie Newman, the pub is all flagstones and wood-smoke. Drinks are served from a hatch. There are chickens in the garden and Jurassic coast fossils in a small back-room museum. The food is simple: homemade pasties and pies served on paper plates.

While I sample a glass of his chemical-free Kiss Me Kate, the house sweet, Charlie tells me that he sold around 17,500 litres of real cider last year – not all his (as most small producers keep their output below the duty limit).

He tells me about the summer growing season, the autumn harvest, the winter fermentation. So, now is not the best time to be talking about cider making, then? On the contrary. As the trees begin to blossom in April and May, last year's juice starts "fizzing up" ready for drinking. The best is yet to come.