Out & About Autumn 2021

InCIDER information

Tutts Clump Cider started as a hobby for Tim Wale, but has grown into an award- winning family business with their cider products available in local pubs as well as on supermarket shelves. GERALDINE GARDNER visited the Wale family in Tutts Clump to find out more

W hen we arrive at the Tutts Clump Cider buildings, TimWale and his daughters Rachel and Lucy are busy shifting boxes, loading up delivery vans and checking on the different vats of cider at various stages of fermentation. Tim’s journey into the cider business was probably inevitable as he tells me that as a young boy he would be given a small taste of it by three old brothers who worked on his grandfather’s farm. “We grew up in a Methodist household and they would always say to me ‘don’t tell your mother’. I was about seven at the time and I knew I liked the taste of it.” Fast forward a few decades and Tim was running a business as a motor mechanic in some

outbuildings near his home. “We had a small orchard and I thought I would have a go at making cider after seeing a demonstration of apple pressing at a Dorset steam fair in 2006, I bought a small apple press.” Timmade 25 litres of cider which seemed to go down well and the rest, as they say, is history. “It got to the point when what started as a hobby was clearly turning into a business. I never planned anything, I just go with the flow and so I decided to take the plunge.” The Wates moved the ‘business’ out of their home and into the work sheds and were soon producing more than 7k litres of cider, which is the threshold at which you are exempt from paying duty. “I bit the bullet and bought

a bigger press and made 30,000 litres and we have continued to grow from there.” They now produce around 74,000 litres of cider a year. You will find Tutts Clump ciders and perry in most pubs and farm shops within a 40-mile radius – and if you holiday in Penzance there’s a pub down there that stocks it. They also have a contract with Co-op, which distributes the drink to its stores throughout the country and Waitrose, which stocks it in some of its stores in West Berkshire. Autumn is very much apple-pressing season and aside from their own acres of apples, the family buys some in and also take in windfalls and unwanted apples and pears – as long as they’re not rotten – from the public and throw them into the mix.

“We don’t like to see any apples wasted and many people just chuck away bruised or excess apples. We would encourage them to bring them to us so we can turn them into cider – and they get a bottle themselves for every 25kg bag they bring us.” Tim’s knowledge about all things apples and cider is encyclopaedic. He talks at length about the best apples – Jazz apples are a single variety that last longer than others and make a particularly good cider – about the pressing process and the fermentation, which takes about a year. “You have to keep the air out, it’s very important that you don’t let the oxygen in. If we’re making cider vinegar we just leave the lid off.” Inevitably, Tutts Clump Cider has diversified into creating other flavours – with added fruit.

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O&A AUTUMN 2021