CAMPAIGN FOR REAL ALE

• Supermarket Beer Prices
• Hunts Cider
• Hunts Food & Drink Festival

On the heels of the opening of Son of Sid, the first brewery in our area for over 20 years, comes news of a Huntingdonshire cider maker forging small but significant inroads in the local pub trade.

Cromwell Cider is made from the produce of a five-acre orchard between Hilton and Fenstanton and sales of the draught cider have been taking off in local pubs including the Oliver Cromwell in St Ives, the Cock, Hemingford Grey and the Prince of Wales Feathers at Castor.

The cider is made in the traditional East Anglian way with a blend of dessert and Bramley apples, unlike West Country ciders made with cider apple varieties. But Tony Hobbs, who makes Cromwell Cider, says that although this creates a lighter and gentler drink it still packs a punch.

When Tony’s grandfather retired from the army after World War One, it was his dream to become the county’s major supplier of honey. Whilst transporting a newly begot swarm from Hilton to his home in Fenstanton, the bees escaped, forcing Grandfather to beat a hasty retreat and leave pony and trap with bees in an abandoned orchard. Dreams rarely come to fruition but after three generations Tony is the proud owner of 26 stocks of bees and the orchard.

Much of the local area was traditionally a fruit growing area and Tony’s grandfather and father did well selling apples and plums. With the advent of cheap foreign fruit and supermarkets, however, the days of home grown fruit declined and most local orchards have given way to wheat, barley, and oil seed rape.