Description

Mark is growing 120+ varieties of apple across his 12 acres orchard located near the town of Slane. Apples are grown without the use of chemicals and are hand-picked.

Mark makes his cider using the Keeving method, an ancient process which isn’t the easiest thing in the world to explain as it is more intuitive than an exact science and has taken Mark almost 10 seasons of cidermaking to master.

Many ciderist’s regard it as an Art form and the pinnacle of the cidermakers skill, however he would personally put it down to perseverance and attention to detail.

It is a technique whereby apples are milled and left in the fresh air overnight, they are then gently pressed and the cloudy apple juice is clarified by a natural pectin gel which traps any particles and impurities, this gel then rises to the surface of the juice by the action of yeasts, leaving a crystal clear and clean apple juice to be syphoned off from underneath the gel into another tank ready for fermentation. The fermentation then commences at an imperceptibly slow rate over a period of 6 to 8 months or more. It is then hand bottled and further matured for a minimum of 6 months before release.