Beverage
Farmhouse Cider
S tier
Farmhouse cider is the unpolished orchard ferment: often still or only naturally sparkling, sometimes cloudy, with wild or mixed yeasts and the tannin of bittersweet apples. English scrumpy, a Norman ferme bottle, and a Basque sagardoa poured from height all sit in this variety. It can smell of hay, leather, and apple skin. A sterile-filtered supermarket pint is not farmhouse just because the label shows a barn. Drink it at cool cellar temperature with cheddar, pork, and onions. In the pan it behaves like a dry cider with more character—and more risk of a funky reduction. If a bottle is acetic or mousey, cook with something cleaner. Strength varies; farmhouse is a method and a texture, not a single sweetness.
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History
West-country farms fermented their own bittersweet apples into the cider later called scrumpy.
Norman farm cidre stayed the rural drink beside emerging bottled trade styles.
Sagardotegi pouring kept farmhouse cider as a social, natural wine of apples.
Craft "farmhouse" labels revived wild-yeast, unfiltered cider for city drinkers.