Rainer Verborg does not resemble your average cider maker: no brown jumbo cords, straw hats or neckerchiefs for him. Rather, he’s resplendent in a billowing black tunic and dog collar, for Father Rainer (pictured) is a Benedictine monk.
Standing by a somewhat Heath Robinsonesque cider press in a tumbledown farm building in the ambrosial grounds of Ampleforth Abbey in North Yorkshire, it is fair to say he is an unlikely looking hooch magnate, and it’s doubtful he’ll be denting the fortunes of Bulmers any time soon. But for the past few years, Father Rainer’s cider and cider brandy have been quietly taking the culinary world by storm.
Languishing untouched and unloved after the previous overseer retired seven years ago, the Ampleforth orchard — planted at the beginning of the 20th century, although monks have grown apples here since their arrival in 1802 — has blossomed into something approaching a streamlined operation under Father Rainer’s watchful eye. He landed the job, he says, ‘by the back door, after one of the other monks noted my bee-keeping skills and thought they could just as easily be applied to horticulture’. He did also spend time as a trainee chef in his native Germany, before his true calling came knocking.
The orchard produces 49 varieties of apple — 43 eaters and six cooking apples — with charmingly odd names such as Belle de Boskoop, Ashmead’s Colonel and Ribston Pippin, the latter grown on a tree planted nearby in the 17th century.
No pesticides or chemicals are used and as everything is picked by hand by just two or three monks, it is still essentially a cottage industry. But with the planting of two further orchards last spring — bringing the total tree count to around 2,200 — Father Rainer’s hopes for the business are high, and he’s aiming to increase output by three or four times in the next few years.
He’s also been busy updating a recipe book, Cooking Apples, first published 30 years ago by a Father Edmund Hatton and containing 120 or so recipes — some suggested by visitors, others Father Rainer’s own creation, including old favourites like apple roly poly and tarte tatin and modern palette pleasers such as apple burger with curry dip and cider sorbet.
Some of the Abbey’s apples are sold at local markets — in a good year, up to 50 per cent — while the mis-shapes make around 5,000 litre bottles of cider. Which is good news for cider drinkers. Rejects they may be, but those unsightly lumps of pure pomme are responsible for what is, at 8.5 per cent, is a tasty and ‘applely’, but fairly lethal brew.
Seven thousand litres of this cider (up from 2,000 litres last year) is used for distillation and ends up as cider brandy — ‘Calvados in anything but name, though obviously we can’t call it that’ — sloe and damson gin. For the past few years, all three have been selling like hot cakes for £5.50 and £10 a bottle respectively in posh Yorkshire food stores such as Weeton’s of Harrogate and Hunters of Helmsley, as well as the Abbey’s own on-site shop.
Harvey Nichols’ restaurant in Leeds also takes consignments, which it uses in cocktails, mussel dishes, apple brûlées and other desserts. Head chef Richard Walton Allen, who first heard about the Ampleforth apples six years ago and has been championing them ever since, says: ‘Because they produce so many different varieties, we take pot luck, but they always have a great flavour. If customers ask for a Calvados we tell them we have a local product, and it always goes down really well.’
In a further quest to place the orchard on a more businesslike footing, Father Rainer has negotiated a deal with the veteran Somerset Cider Brandy company, which has been in the business for more than 50 years and is one of only two cider distillers in the UK. The cider is taken down in a lorry, distilled overnight into spirit and the eau-de-vie is brought back to Ampleforth, where it spends three years ageing in oak barrels before it is ready to be sold.
‘Cider brandy is a wondrous thing and more people should know about it,’ says distiller Tim Edwards. ‘Natural cider is made from cider apples and they only grow on the west coast from Devon up to Hereford. The Ampleforth apples are very good but it’s an expensive operation to have a distillery so it makes more sense for them to bring them down here once a year in August.’
And the secret of Ampleforth’s success? ‘Sunny days and cool nights are what helps the apples to develop their flavour,’ says Father Rainer. ‘And in Yorkshire, there are plenty of those.’
Tina is a travel and lifestyle writer who was marooned in London until she returned to Yorkshire and her senses.
Spicy apple soup
A heart-warming soup for a cold autumn night (Serves 4)
• Peel, core and coarsely chop the apples. Peel the cucumber, remove the seeds and chop. Halve the red pepper and remove the seeds. Cut two dozen very fine strips (used later as decoration). Coarsely chop the rest. Peel the garlic and squash with a strong fork or knife.
• Halve the chillis lengthwise and remove the seeds. Briefly fry the garlic together with the apples and the chillies in hot butter, add the pepper and cucumber pieces and fry for a few more minutes. Stir in the paprika powder.
• Add some of the stock and cook until all ingredients are soft. Gradually add the remaining stock. Drive all through a sieve or use a hand blender. Season with the salt, pepper, sugar and cider vinegar. Finally stir in the cream.
• Serve individually decorated with the thin pepper strips very briefly fried in some hot butter. Best accompanied by a crispy white bread roll.
Ingredients
4 apples (Crispin, Jester or Suntan), 1 tbsp butter,
2 medium-sized red chillis,
1 red pepper, 1 clove of garlic,
1 small cucumber,
¾ litre stock (veg stock if vegetarian), salt, pepper,
½ tsp paprika powder (hot),
sugar, cider vinegar,
100g cream
To order Ampleforth cider brandy, damson gin, sloe gin and the cookbook Cooking Apples (the apples and cider have to be purchased on site), click on ‘Our work – shop’ at www.abbey.ampleforth.org.uk or call 01439 766000.
For more autumn apple recipes visit www.spectator.co.uk/scoff and search for ‘Ampleforth’
