OUR AIM

The aim of Hannah More Zider is to bring cider-making back to Nailsea, and help bring proper cider-drinking back to the World!

Nailsea, a Somerset town that sits just ten miles from Bristol, spent most of the last century as home to Britain’s second largest cider-works: Coates Cider. As Nailsea’s biggest employer until it’s sad closure in 1975, Coates both established cider-making as the heart of Nailsea life, and put Nailsea on the map as the cider-making capital of the world! Starting with very little cash, no apples, equipment or land - but with a love of scrumpy and a small book, we set out in 2003 to bring cider-making back to Nailsea and produce the finest pint of cider ever tasted. And have fun doing it along the way.

We also want to do our bit for promoting proper cider-drinking throughout the world. 100 years ago real cider was widely available through the public houses of the country, as well as being drunk at the tables of royal households and the fields of farmers who paid their workers in scrumpy instead of boring currency like money. Although still reasonably popular in the West Country, and in areas across Britain, France and Northern Spain, it’s becoming tougher and tougher to find a nice pint of scrump. Now most of our pubs only serve tasteless fizzy chemical cider produced by a few big companies who have abandoned traditional apples and cider-making techniques for more profitable ingredients and methods. There’s nothing to beat the taste of real apples, pressed and fermented, and we think many more people should have the opportunity to appreciate cider made this way. Through our website we hope to promote pubs selling proper cider (made with apples and stuff!), and help cider-drinkers locate these beauties easier. We will also try to increase awareness of the activities and products of the farms and individuals producing the juice of the apple in the traditional way, and help keep these going. Hopefully we may even inspire people to begin their own cider-making with the stories of our own activities…

We would also like our website to cover other (sometimes only vaguely) related aspects of Cider, Nailsea and Somerset life (local bands, football, events) that may not have a place on the Internet already. Through our forums we hope to provide an easy way of discussing cider-making/drinking, local life, with other enthusiasts that may not have been available previously. By visitors to the site clicking on the adverts dotted around the site, we also hope to generate some revenue from running the website that will help fund our small-scale cider making attempts, as well as keeping the site going.

Hope you like the site, please let us know any comments/suggestions you may have at hannahmorezider@hotmail.com.

The Zider Will Rise Again…