Zone 5a here. I will admit, I have not tasted a lot of cider apples yet. However, I have spent many hundreds of hours researching cider and cider apples, and I have tasted over 100 old heritage varieties over the past 3 years (mostly eaters and cookers, not really for cider). I've also planted a small orchard in my yard, played around with grafting... I now have 5 varieties on one of my trees! What can I say... it's been somewhat of an obsession, and I just love to learn new things. Now back to your cider questions:
Kingston Black, in particular, is an excellent and well known apple for cider, and I now know that it is also delicious to eat -- I got my hands on some this year, ate several fresh but made a single varietal cider out of most of them. Drawbacks with Kingston Black are that it is an extremely shy bearer and susceptible to diseases/infections such as scab. Beautiful and tasty little apple though -- I think you really must give it a shot.
Dabinett and Yarlington Mill are some more must-haves. I've not tasted these yet but many swear by their quality, and they are both said to be very productive and less susceptible to disease.
The above are all good old English cider apples. However there are also quite a few great American varieties that I have tasted.
Arkansas Black is tart and spicy with wonderful flavor -- an American bittersweet apple. It is also a great keeper. You can keep a few in your refrigerator for eating for 4-5 months or maybe longer.
Liberty is a good base tart style apple with excellent disease resistance. Press it quickly, though, as it goes mushy in a short time.
Wealthy is a great old American apple that is as juicy as it is delicious to eat. It is well balanced but slightly more on the tart side. It is also a good keeper for eating or baking or cider or whatever -- great all-purpose apple.
It might sound really obvious, but... you really just can't go wrong with Honeycrisp. It is truly one of the most juicy and delicious apples ever known, and can contribute significantly as a base in cider. You might not want to make a single varietal cider of it as its flavor is not terribly complex, but with all its sugar and juice it will help jack up the volume and original gravity. Plus you can eat some as well, and not have to spend $3 or $4 per pound! It keeps a long time.
Finally, be sure to throw in a couple of crabapples. I've planted Dolgo for this purpose. It is quite tart. A lot of people like Wickson which is a sweeter one. I am also knowledgeable of a local crab known as Yarwood, which is a tasty and juicy little apple that is well balanced between sweetness and sharpness. But really, any random crab variety will help in your orchard as well as your cider making. Crabapples help significantly with pollination of all the other trees. In general they will contain more acid and tannin than the standard culinary or cider apple, as well as flavors all their own, which will add interesting character to your cider.
Another excellent resource for information on English apples can be found on YouTube -- look up stephenhayesuk and watch some of his videos. This guy is awesome, very knowledgeable. His Fruitwise website also has good information, see here:
http://www.fruitwise.net/varieties.htmlHope this gives you a few ideas! If you have any specific questions, I'll try to answer as best I can. Happy orcharding!
Topic: Calling Cider Apple Experts/Growers (Read 5937 times)
