Cider Chat

Neil Worley's of Worley's Cider makes cider in the area of Great Britain called Somerset. Climb the high hill at the farm and your can see the Bristol Channel. It is a remote location by UK standards and the soil at the farm is only 3 inches in depth before you hit limestone. Instead of growing apples at the farm, the apples are brought up the hill. When Neil traveled to Portland Oregon in February 2016 to speak at the United States Association of Cider Makers annual event called CiderCon, I caught up with him to chat about a very specific cider making technique called "keeving". What is Keeving? It is a process, whereby the nutrients of the sweet cider (before fermentation) are removed from the juice. During this process the nutrients float to the top of the juice forming a brown cap that Neil says looks like a "brown omelette". The brown cap is punctured and the juice is rack over into a new container to then be fermented into cider. As there are no nutrients in the juice that was keeved, the yeast will not