THE Cide Project has now completed another successful vintage from their home-grown apples produced at Kalangadoo residents Peter and Carol McDonald’s orchard.
The Cide Project was created by eight friends who wanted to produce cider as a hobby, outside their work commitments.
This year marks the fourth vintage the Cide Project has produced and their product has increased significantly in popularity over this time.
“We recently introduced a new scratter to our equipment as the volume of cider was increasing due to a larger demand,” Cide Project horticulture and orchard owner Peter McDonald said.
The Kalangadoo orchard produces 13 different varieties of non commercial apples including English and French cider varieties.
“Our ciders are popular at festivals and at the end of July we will be taking our product to the Beer and Barbecue festival in Adelaide,” Mr McDonald said.
The brand has also introduced an Extra Pale Ale beer recently, titled Side Tracked, due to ongoing requests from the community.
“We named it Side Tracked as our main focus was cider however, we became side tracked with adding beer to our collection,” Mr McDonald said.
Also due to ongoing requests, this year they have introduced a sweeter version of the cider.
“This sweeter cider is made up of more commercial apples to gain the appropriate taste,” Mr McDonald said.
He said the weather had a slight affect on the vintage this year but they still managed to produce large amounts of the cider to be sold around the South East and Western Victoria.
Now in its fermenting stage, the cider aims to be complete around September.
