Axminster Craft Cider

Axminster Craft Cider is made at Uphay Farm on Membury Road, just outside Axminster, on land where cider has reportedly been produced for hundreds of years. Nick, who runs the operation today, restarted cidermaking here in 2019 and sold out of his first two batches almost immediately. The cider is made the traditional West Country way: wild yeasts naturally present in the pressed juice do the fermenting, and nothing is added to cut the strength or stretch the batch. It's 100% pressed apple juice, nothing else, which puts it closer to farmhouse cider than anything mass-produced.

The core cider blends Dabinett and Sweet Coppin apples, two traditional West Country bittersweet varieties, for a rounded, full-flavoured drink. Alongside it sits a single-variety Yarlington Mill cider, sharper and more tannic, for drinkers who want to taste one apple on its own. Both are bottled at 500ml and sold in cases of twelve direct from the farm, with a small number of local stockists around Axminster now carrying it too. Exeter & East Devon CAMRA lists it among the region's small cider producers worth seeking out.