Celebrate cider and deliver a premium experience that keeps drinkers coming back and not just in summer.
Here are the five suggestions from Kicking Goat cider on how a pub or bar could do this:
1. Educate your staff
A little knowledge goes a long way to enhancing the drinker’s experience and making the server feel great about their work. Cider is more akin to wine in its provenance and flavour profile.
Find one person in your team – often a current cider drinker and let them be the cider champion within your pub. Let them educate other staff members and enhance the drinker’s experience. The level one CCG training course (Level One Cider Training) is a great start for formal training or Kicking Goat – which has orchards in Somerset and Kent – is happy to drop in to train your team.
2. Range
With your staff trained and enthusiastic to sell cider, make sure you have the correct range to support them. Think about a mainstream cider supported by a more premium craft offering on tap – we would say 100% fresh-pressed for this option and a margin trade-up.
In the fridge, support this with a 330ml option, often a dry option – ideal for female drinkers and great for serving with food (see below). Finish the fridge offering off with a berry or flavour offering and look to balance your tap serve with complementary ciders highlighting regional flavours and styles.
Rotate your range through the seasons – offer guest ciders and/or mulled cider for autumn and winter.
3. Get the serve right
Ciders should be served between 6°C and 8°C. Too warm and they lose their crispness; too cold and they blunt the flavour.
Consider glassware – a stemmed and balloon-styled glass captures the cider aroma, which enhances the flavour of the drink as 70% of flavour comes through the nose. Wash the glass with water or a little cider to clean or ‘season’ before pouring the cider.
4. Cider and food matching
Craft cider is flavour-led. Different apples. Different ciders. Different flavours. And like wine, it is the perfect pairing with food. Particularly pork, Chinese spice & cheese.
Match ciders with different sausages – wild boar sausages work incredibly well with a medium Somerset cider, whereas pork and leek match perfectly to a dry Kent cider.
The flavour principle works the same with cheese – Somerset cider has the flavour strength and structure to stand up to an aged cheddar, as well as the natural provenance story. Ploughman’s with a Somerset cider anyone?
5. Proudly promote cider
It is gluten free, vegan, British and better for the planet as well (compared to beer, wine and spirits).
Give it its own space on the menu or blackboard. Begin the education experience with drinkers: ‘Ask one of our staff about our incredible range of ciders’, or ‘Flavours from across the cider regions’, for example.
Match with food and put listings on your food menu. Be known as a cider pub through your social media but, above all, rethink cider.
