News 2024 06 15
Greetings to all,
summer is here, busy times. For the ones who kept an eye on our activities, we have managed to participate at EMF 2024 at Eastnor as a part of the Food Hacking Base (fhb) gang. There were some challenges during the build up because of the unexpected rainy English weather, but over all it was really nice to meet many friends and cider enthusiasts. During the cider flows we have tasted variety of locally produced ciders which we also have managed to source for future tastings, so we are now quite well stocked. From England I went to Normandie, where unexpected bottling took place. This year's cider got too dry however with help of Christophe Bouvet from Ferme du Vastel I've managed to bottle around 1300 of 75 cl bottles of millésime 2023, assemblage 1, brut at 1016 at 17°C. Ten percents is cider from Kavsírna Jara, lot 4.3, rest is from Ferme du Vastel, all clean and natural, mostly hand picked. I've also played a bit around and bottled around eighty 75 cl bottles of kvasírna jara's cider, lot 4.2 with addition of honey, density 1016 at 17°C. Importantly I have brought to Czech around 200 l of lot 4.2 which we plan to blend into assemblage 3, cidre à pression. It will be assembled with honey and maybe some herbs, transferred into the kegs and used as draft cider at the events. Otherwise on the way to Czech it was quite adventures. I have lost two wheels from four on the trailer, managed to fix one but arrived just on three after all. The trip took around 24 hours, bit too much to my taste. It seems that my beloved trailer needs some decent upkeep, well it earned it over the years, no question about it. If all goes well we will have draft cider within ten days so we can use it at the events during the summer. One of the aims is to decrease the pressure on the stock of bruts which are now with the new bottling around 4500 of 75 cl bottles max. Next year, 2024 season, we should bottle at least 6000x of 75 cl bottles of bruts, rather eight thousand if possible. This is important because the bruts sell best and if we want to be secure that they are stable and don't referment, waiting two summers after bottling is the safest. We hope to see many of you during this summer trying our draft ciders and of course also other products, hopefully soon some probiotic drinks for example.
Have a great time, enjoy the sun and hopefully see you soon!
Sincerely for Kvasírna Jara,
František Apfelbeck
