Cider Made Simple by Jeff Alworth, Illustrations by Lydia Nichols

Title: Cider Made Simple, All about your new favourite drink
Author: Jeff Alworth, illustrations by Lydia Nichols
Year: 2015
Format: Hardback
Page Count: 175
Price new: £5.92 (Amazon)*
*accurate at the time of posting

Description: (TLDR)
This is an American book written with the American reader new to cider in mind. The cover picture is of a frothy pint of beer, lets be charitable and assume this was done deliberately to entice beer drinkers to learn more about cider. No pictures but a fair few illustrations and a few charts, appears to do what it says on the can, a comprehensive introduction to cider in bite sized chunks.

On the back of the book it says:
This book is a gateway to a complex and always refreshing beverage.
New Styles  of cider are popping up on restaurant menus and at neighborhood bars everywhere. Here you'll find everything you need to know about ciders and perries (made from pears) so you can choose the style that is perfect for you. Each sip can be full of flavors that you might never associate with a simple apple: pepper, lemon, ciderflower, cedar and soil making cider as compelling a beverage as wine. Cider Made Simple is your key to this newly popular drink, from how it's made by key cider-makers in the United Kingdom, France, Spain and the United States to the amazing range of flavor profiles that cider has to offer.

Thatchers Then & Now by James Russell & Neil Phillips

Title: Thatchers Then & Now: The Story Of A Cidermaking Family
Author: James Russell & Neil Phillips
Year: 2014
Format: Hardback
Page Count: 139
Price new: £17.21 (Amazon)*
*accurate at the time of posting

Description: (TLDR)
3 sections 'Thatchers Story' 'Twenty-first century cider company' and 'Apples & Orchards' 
Lots of really nice photographs, many of them full page.

On the back of the book it says:
There have been Thatchers in northern Somerset since at least 1806  and we know that by 1878 Benjamin Thatcher of Upper Langford was advertising his Prime new cider at 30 shillings per hogshead.
James Russell traces the history of Thatchers cidermaking from those beginnings to the present day.  The modern generation of Thatchers have established themselves as leading family cidermakers with a reputation for producing a wide range of ciders to the highest quality and for breaking new ground in the development of orchards while caring for the land that produces the finest cider apples in the world
Photographer Neil Phillips has been capturing the images of Thatchers cidermaking for many years and this book is a showcase of his fantastic pictures as he documents the orchard and cidermaking year, the traditions and innovations, and goes behind the scenes at Myrtle Farm, Sandford to produce this unique body of work.

Bulmer's Pomona

Title: Bulmer's Pomona
Author: see below
Year: 1987
Format: Hardback
Page Count: 72
Price new: £60.00 from the Hereford Cider Museum 
(an unrealistically expensive price quoted on Amazon) 

Description: (TLDR)
Watercolours by Caroline Todhunter
Descriptions of the apples by Ray Williams
Line Drawings by Rodney Shackell
Commissioned by Bulmer's to mark their centenary
35 exquisitely painted plates each of one apple variety with a line drawing and description on the facing page.
My copy is staying in it's packing box so I don't get any greasy/dirty fingerprints on it or spill any cider or anything else on it

On the back of the book it says:
Nothing

The History and Virtues of Cyder by R.K. French

Title: The History and Virtues of Cyder
Author: R.K. French
Year: 1982
Format: Paperback 2010 /Hardback 1982
Page Count: 191
Price new: £3.57 (Amazon)*
Price used: £7.27 (Amazon)*
*accurate at the time of posting

Description: (TLDR)
I've just started reading this book, written over 30 years ago it's often quoted in more recent books. It goes in detail into the history and production of cyder (what we would label real cider today) and calls for resurgence of cyder production which we now have.

On the back of the book it says:
'This book encapsulates all that has been lost in the cider world over the last 200 years, but having said that, over the last twenty five years, there has been a strong and diverse renaissance in cidermaking across the country, from Land's End to Norfolk from Start Point to the Black Isle. I am sure that Roger French would be heartened by the way in which his book has triggered not only in the making of Real Cyder once again but a new and healthy respect for it's place in our national psyche.'
James Crowden
'This book describes the rise and fall of cyder and sets out in practical detail the traditional techniques for making it. 
We are all familiar pastuerized, bland and carbon-dioxide-injected cider, but cyder is a living wine of some subtlety, matured in cask and bottled in the manner of champagne. Cyder disappeared from England in the nineteenth century, yet at it's height in the seventeenth century cyder was often preferred to good French white wine and there was much discussion on how cyder should best be made.
Today cyder is having a renaissance. The reader is taken through all the necessary stages from planting the tree, gathering the fruit, pressing and fermentation to laying down the vintage. The book also includes food and drink recipes for when you have made your cyder.'

Early Days of Cider Making by E.F. Bulmer

Title: Early Days of Cider Making
Author: E.F. Bulmer
Year: 1937
Format: Booklet
Page Count: 30
Price new: available new from the Hereford Cider Museum
Price used: £5.77 (Amazon)
*accurate at the time of posting

Description: (TLDR)
The Story of the early days Bulmers Cider by one of the brothers who started it.

On the inside of the front cover it says:
"This booklet is a facsimile reproduction by the Museum of Cider of the original privately published in 1937 to mark the Golden Jubilee of H.P. Bulmer & Co.
The author Edward Fredrick Bulmer was the elder of the two brother who founded and built up the original partnership of H.P. Bulmer & Co"

Further information on E.F. Bulmer is included on that page.

The American Cider Book by Vrest Orton

Title: The American Cider Book

Author: Vrest Orton

Year: 1973

Format: Paperback

Page Count: 136

Price used: £0.01 (Amazon)*

*accurate at the time of posting

Description: (TLDR)

The history of American cider, different cider making methods and recipes for cooking with cider and cider based drinks.

On the back of the book it says:

This book does more than tell you how to make cider it gives a fascinating capsule history of the world's second-oldest beverage. Replete with diverting facts, it follows cider through American history, legend and folklore. It relates the established methods of cider making, old and modern, amateur and commercial, and gives simple directions for making small batches of cider at home.

The last section provides 34 historic recipes for beverages to be made with cider: punches, nogs and nightcaps. Mr. Orton also describes the long-forgotten uses for cider in cooking and baking, and offers the reader scores of recipes, some of them old family favourites , for such dishes as dried apple pie with cider, wild game basted with cider, and apple bread.

Vrest Orton has written seventeen books and contributed to many national magazines, as well as being founder of Vermont Life Magazine. Today with his wife, Ellen, and his son Lyman, he operates The Vermont Country Stores, modeled after his father's and grandfather's original emporium. Mr. Orton also runs a national mail order enterprise and is actively involved in both state and federal government.

100 Ways with Cider

Title: 100 Ways with Cider

Author: Letts Guides

Year: 1978

Format: Paperback

Page Count: 63

Price used: £0.01 (Amazon)*

*accurate at the time of posting

Description: (TLDR)

A compilation of recipes from the Taunton cider kitchen. Approx. 30 of those ways are mulled cider or cider punches.

On the back of the book it says:

"The recipes in this book show how the simplest and most inexpensive foods available everywhere can be prepared in interesting, delicious and nutritious ways. Advice is given on the art of cooking with cider and the general preparation of the foods, and the recipes include suggestions for a variety of starters, snacks, main meals and drinks.

Cooking with cider is not a common practice in Britain, although as a drink it has been known and appreciated for centuries. In this book delicious recipes, many from the West Country, show how cider can enhance flavours and add unusual piquancy to both savoury and sweet dishes."

A Drink For it's Time by Michael B. Quinion

Title: A Drink For it's Time
Author: Michael B. Quinion
Year: 1979
Format: Booklet
Page Count: 24
Price used: £0.01 (Amazon)*
*accurate at the time of posting

Description: (TLDR)
Farm cidermaking until the 1930's 

On the back of the book it says:
"This book grew out of part of the work done during 1978 to establish the Museum of Cider at Hereford. Five young people were employed under the Job Creation Programme to investigate the farm cider tradition, as it has been practised in the 20th Century, mainly through a series of about 750 personal interviews with present and former cider makers. The project also included two sessions of practical testing of the methods on traditional apparatus at which several hundred gallons of cider and perry were made. The area covered is the Herefordshire Region, including not only that county but all of the neighbouring ones particularly Worcester, Gloucestershire and the Welsh Border Counties. The author is Curator of the Museum." 

A Taste Of Cider by Shirley Harrison

Title: A Taste Of Cider

Author: Shirley Harrison

Year: 1982

Format: Hardback

Page Count: 95

Price used: £0.01 (Amazon)*

*accurate at the time of posting

Description: (TLDR)

Recipes mixed with information on cider history

On the back of the book it says:

"The taste of cider is a liquid evocation of the English countryside of hedgerow walks, pub benches in the sun and the smell of stubble on an autumn day. The story of cider has been woven into the life and folklore of rural England for at least a thousand years: for centuries farmers have made it, housewives have cooked with it and doctors extolled its medical magic.

Yet it is really only since the last war that cider has become a high flyer in the kitchen. Today, cider is poured into the best British scones, Christmas puddings and eel pie, and may be found among the cooking wines on the shelves of our more exclusive restaurants and hotels.

In this blend of anecdote and recipe, Shirley Harrison combines old and new idea for cooking with cider with fascinating and often curious facts about this most traditional of English  Drinks. Over 100 recipes from such diverse sources as the Benedictine monks of Worth Abbey and the Queens cousin, Lady Elizabeth Anson, reflect the rich history of the drink which now ranks with Devonshire cream and Northumberland kippers as a culinary treat.

The Author Shirley Harrison is a freelance writer and journalist who lives in Sussex within a stones throw of the local cider producers. In helping them to set up an exhibition devoted to all aspects of the drink, she became aware of the tremendous versatility of cider, especially in the kitchen. As a mother of four Shirley finds that for family meals as well as on special occasions cider is nearly (nearly ???. tb) always a good as wine and certainly cheaper and believes that a recipe book should be seen as an entertaining invitation to explore new culinary possibilities.

Good Cider by David Mabey

Title: Good Cider
Author: David Mabey
Year: 1984
Format: Hardback
Page Count: 143
Price used: £0.01 (Amazon)*
*accurate at the time of posting

Description: (TLDR)
Chapters covering all aspects of British cider including a selection of 1980's stockists and makers.

On the back of the book it says:
"Since the Normans invaded England, cider has been a popular British drink -one that rose to equal win a the best tables in the seventeenth century, when there were around 350 varieties of cider apple tree. In the eighteenth century, farmers made their own to use in part payment in kind to farm labourers, who, at hay-making, drank up to two gallons a day.
A few years ago  cider seemed condemned to a similar fate as keg beers before the Real Ale Movement, but luckily a revival of interest in traditional ciders has saved many local products and the range of draught cider available from small producers and from large companies is now excellent. GOOD CIDER explains the difference between traditional ciders and fizzy bottled and keg ciders and provides a guide to the character of each variety, giving stars for exceptional flavour.
Distinguished food writer David Mabey has assembled a wealth of information; he traces the history of the drink and the special apples from which it is made - lamenting the loss of such intriguingly named trees as Foxwhelp (some not so lost these days tb) Joeby Crab and the famous Redstreak. He describes the methods of making cider. He describes the methods of making cider, now far removed from the days of pounding apples in troughs made from hollowed out tree trunks, and gives  instructions on how to make your own potent brew (you DON'T brew cider !!!. ffs who wrote this ??. tb) from windfalls. Also included are recipes using cider and listing pubs and wine bars recommended for their cider.