With orchards coming into bloom and fruit beginning to set, CAMRA is raising awareness of cider and perry producers and the issues that face them.
Photograph: Bill Bradshaw
This Cider and Perry Month begins in the wake of Heineken’s decision to cut down almost 300 acres of orchards. The global brewer — which manufactures products including Bulmers, Strongbow, and Inch’s — has felled the trees ahead of its planned sale of Monmouthshire land.
“This is an act of needless environmental vandalism by Heineken and it is simply shocking,” said Gillian Hough, CAMRA’s real ale, cider, and perry campaigns director.
“Orchards provide a unique habitat for wildlife, including species that can only make their homes in trees of this kind. The beginning of May usually marks the blossoming of orchards across the country and birds are nesting up. To see images of these trees uprooted, lying in piles like toothpicks, is very upsetting.
“Given Heineken’s recent Brew a Better World sustainability campaign, and their many claims in the media about their wide-ranging environmental commitments, tearing out this orchard feels especially cynical.
“If they were sincere about these claims, they would be investing in orchards, and in producing high-quality, high-juice content ciders, not wreaking destruction.”
To offset this disappointing news, CAMRA has a month of celebration planned for May. This kicks off with the publication of Adam Wells’ book, Perry: A Drinker’s Guide, which tells the full international story of perry for the first time. Funded by a Kickstarter campaign, the guide charts the drink’s history and walks the reader through perry’s three great heartlands, in the UK, Normandy, and Austria’s Mostviertel.
Find out more about CAMRA’s Cider and Perry Month activity here.
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