The Raven lands in Bristol

Last night we held a launch event for Ravens Roost Cider in Bristol.  It was held at the impressive The Rummer in St Nicholas Market.  After an initial glass of Ravens Roost all round Roger started off with a brief history of our products and then I ( Dave) introduced the tasting session.  We tasted the component ciders made with apples from Taunton, Hereford & North Wiltshire that went into the final blend.  We also tasted our draught, "Best Mates", a still dry cider which is now on sale at a few pubs in North Wilts including The Red Lion at Cricklade (under the RavensRoost banner there).

We also tasted our Perry which although much praised we do not have commercial quantities for this year but are making plans for this coming autumn.  For a bit of fun we also tasted a single variety cider made from cooking apples which was much admired and described by one wine industry expert as ' like a dry crisp chenin blanc wine, clean crisp and an ideal palate refresher'.

So maybe that's another to consider for launch next year!

Raven Roost takes flight

The bottling of the Ravens Roost is now complete and the results are really very good even if we do say so ourselves!!  Early day customers are targeted at local real ale pubs and specialist food stores.  The  renowned Red Lion in Cricklade and the Whole Hog in Malmesbury are amongst our earliest supporters.The official launch will be on May 4th at The Rummer in  St Nicholas Market in Bristol on May 4th at 8pm .  All welcome.

Spring at last!

We have been checking the flavour development of the bulk cider every week and are pleased with the progress despite the cold winter.  Time now for second racking and then the bulk of this years production will go off for bottling as Ravens Roost dry cider.  This will be on the market from 1st April ( appropriate date) and the remaining stock will be available as still dry Best Mates cider in 1pint, 2 pint, 4 pint, 5litre keg , 10 & 20 litre bag in box and 5 gallon  plastic barrel

Cider making in the bleak mid winter

When the cold weather and the snow arrived in December we were glad that we had insulated our cider fermentation room.  Low level heating kept the temperature up but fermentation  slowed a little. 

During racking we had a bit of fun when when one of our 1000 litre tanks on our new pallet truck punched a hole in the floor and got stuck.  It turned out that an old drain had been filled with sand and only a skim of cement over.  Frozen water supplies added to the mayhem but all racking was complete and our first years production is now maturing in bulk.

Final racking and bottling of the Ravens Roost Dry Cider will probably be late March  early April  depending on flavour development and we wlll start selling the draught around the same time.

Branding & Label Design

We wanted distinctive names for our Ciders & Perrys. After much market research (including sampling), and during a "board meeting" over coffee on a sunny Saturday morning, the name "Raven's Roost" was suggested. This seemed to strike a chord, hinting at the product's rural roots without labouring the point. So, we settled on "Raven's Roost" for the bottled product, keeping our previous best suggestion, "Best Mates", for the draught.

For our labels, we wanted a simple but not amateurish design, that clearly identified the product as English, and had a distinctive, memorable brand image. We had always had the idea that the labels would prominently feature the fruit (apple for cider, pear for perry); we hoped by this to reinforce that our products is made solely from real whole fruit. Now that we had the name "Raven's Roost", it was a logical progression to have a Raven roosting on the fruit (after all the Woodpecker name has stood the test of time as a brand).

Our webmaster and part-time picker has developed the design, which combines a pen-and-ink illustration, with a colourized fruit, and some text in a clean crisp font. The pedant in us grappled with the thorny question of punctuation, but in the end the apostrophe was dropped for aesthetic reasons and so the brand name became "Ravens Roost".

The finished design will be printed on a clear background to show the colour of the cider to maximum effect. All other product information (volume, % ABV etc.) will be on a paper label on the back of the bottle.

As regards the cider itself, fermentation progressing nicely. The Taunton juice started in early October is now down to around 1006 and will soon be ready for first racking.