Rame Head Apple Juice

04/09/2025

Wow! We are busy! The fruit has been available for collecting from the early cropping trees from the beginning of August, in past years, in small, sensible amounts… this year has been a full on tsunami of early cropping varieties…well… cropping really early!! It’s caught us on the hop a bit but we took it all in our stride and collected, pressed & bottled over 1500 litres last month of really lovely apple juice- unprecedented for this time of year! Yesterday and today we’ve been catching up on collecting and sorting out our new Cidery, boy is that space making a difference! The photos were taken from one spot this afternoon , on my knees ( usual this time of year!) and show a very small fraction of the fruit that is coming… bring it on we say!!! We love this season!! More soon…

20/08/2025

It’s still only August but the unprecedented yield of fruit in our orchards has caught us out and now we’re collecting and pressing as quick as we can to catch up! We’ve never seen anything like this before but it’s a challenge we’re happy to deal with! On top of this we are reusing all our returned bottles for juice and whilst it’s yet another challenge we seem to be getting on well with them, hard work but rewarding. We have now got our cider vinegar bottled and this will be available very soon, our new logo appears on the label, the whole thing conceived and designed by Nick Warren at N9Design, we’re delighted with the results! The link to our film is here, take six minutes off, turn up the volume and have a look at site and the amazing area we live in! Hope you enjoy it….

Here's a short film of our orchards near Rame Head and how we produce our apple juice and cider. Since 2020 when Giles first started filming here, things hav...

03/08/2025

Well where to start..? The last 91 days have been non stop , week on week, bar the fortnight we had off walking in The Black Mountains… our first fortnight’s holiday in thirteen years… it was amazing! However back here at Rame HQ it’s been crazy busy but we are slowly seeing light at the end of a very long tunnel! We hope to move into our new Cidery within the next fortnight, it’s going to be stage by stage but just to be pressing in there will be fantastic! We were paid a visit by our Environmental Health Inspector last week, spot check, as it should be, no point in trying to dodge around the paying publics safety, we were fine, good reports all round and impressed with Lou’s detailed record keeping! We have had a lovely time with our owls.. wherever we have lived, even in the centre of Leicester, I have always put bird boxes up and, where there has been a tree, an owl box… I have never failed in attracting a couple. This spring was no exception, the young ones seemed very inquisitive about us! To watch them being taught to hunt by the parents was terrific… they loved the orchards, flying low and silent, we hid ourselves away so we could watch them in the dusk. We have already done one large pressing, terrific flavours in the juice, really happy with it and with the trees are very, very full of fruit, everything is early, we’ve never pressed in July before. The weather over the last few months has been nigh on perfect for our trees and gardens and it is still looking great over the next few weeks. More soon, our short film, our endeavours to recycle all of our bottles ( going very well!!) and everything and anything to do with our favourite season in the year!

05/05/2025

Sadly too busy up here today with the new Cider Shed and the veg plots to get to The Old Ship for a promised freeby sausage and cider but more than happy to support… hope the day went well… no rain!! Well done all of you and thanks to Lisa… let’s keep it going…

30/04/2025

For those of you interested in Camellias here a few photos of some of our amazing flowers that we had way back in February! As I said previously, some others are still giving us flowers now!

30/04/2025

I’m not sure but I think the weather conditions this year ( so far!!) seem to have been nigh on perfect for our orchards. The Camellias are the first to give us a clue up here at Rame, their flowers were really quite something earlier this year and some are still giving us a bit of a show… good for them! The buds and then the blossoms have come fast and furious, the Cornish Pines are first and along with our various crabapples have drawn in the pollinators, that along with the long grasses and Bluebells and all manner of wild flowers that we leave until the fruit is set , in place of the beautiful flowers on our apple trees. It is quite extraordinary after ten years of first planting our whips, a year after they were grafted onto rootstock from bud wood we collected, wrapped in damp newspaper, then clearly marked then all placed in a black bin liner and posted off overnight to the amazing nurseryman, John Worle. 230 trees, we have lost only one to Storm Whatsoever about three years ago. The whole orchard of 250 trees has, quite frankly, been alive and buzzing for a good couple of weeks now with a couple more to go I reckon..Sometimes it feels quite humbling to walk around and see this time of year going on “in your face” so to speak… as I said earlier “extraordinary!”

25/04/2025

Hello!!! Apparently , FB tells me, it’s over a hundred days since I posted… how remiss of me! No news here is good news… we have been flat out working on various projects which I will elaborate on in the coming weeks… in the meantime here is a photo of our incredible Crabapple tree absolutely phenomenal this year… Crabapples come to blossom early to encourage the pollinators into the orchards… this is a very encouraging sign!! More later….

31/12/2024

Well.. a very good New Year’s Evening to you all!! I hope that you have all had a wonderful Christmas and have dried out from the last few days of rain & mizzle. We’ve had a great, somewhat interesting year, started in January ,with the old couple, some of you will know them well, going in for their “old persons check up”! ( GP’s don’t like that phrase!) They both came out, pretty much, of those with emergency referrals for different cancers, the chap was operated on within twelve days, the lady was scanned very quickly indeed. All is well with both of them, they cannot speak highly enough of everyone that was involved, receptionist’s right through to surgeons and staff and scanners.. give the NHS anything they want was this couple’s response!
Anyway, moving onto apples.. we love all of our customers, those who sell our products in the cafes and pubs, those of you that shop from us here at Rame HQ, and those of you that bring your fruit to be pressed into your own juice and cider… many thanks to all of you!
I have to thank some very special people in the apple industry that have helped us this year, Bob Chaplin, Tom Oliver, Chris Newton, they are beyond doubt top guys in cider, fruit and juice and we’re humbled that they have been there to help us, yet again, this year. Bob suggested we enter the Bath & West Show Cider Competition .. we came away with two Bronze Awards in the Newcomers section!
We had Adam & Murray, The Ciderhouse Rebellion come and play , promoting a new cider, great gig.. many thanks to all who came….at £12 a ticket it was a bargain!
We have been helping Boconnoc House Estate with their orchards and apples… long may that continue.
Our new Cider Shed continues to move on, it has to be finished for this season, seven months away!!
Again I have to thank Chris Bartolini and the Podsters for being there to help whenever we’ve needed it, totally uncomplaining and making us laugh!
John & Amy… many thanks!
So here we go…2025… have a great evening….I, and Lou, really wish you all a happy, healthy, peaceful New Year, cheers ..Ade x

30/11/2024

We always seem to have “ The Last Apple”( can you spot it?!!)….nice view of the spire of Rame church ….plans being made for Pet Nat & other naturally sparkling ciders to be produced over the next few weeks & months…

29/11/2024

And in the spirit of “ minimum intervention “, listen carefully to last weekend’s freshly pressed juice fermenting on its own wild yeasts… turn up up the volume and listen through your speaker!! I absolutely love this part of cider making!! Cheers Ade

29/11/2024

Well it’s all done! A great season, plenty of fruit to keep Lou & I very busy getting our juice quota together, seemed slightly less hectic than last season but definitely harder work, we have absolutely loved being involved with Boconnoc House and the team there, we produced three hundred bottles for them in return for access to the orchards, both parties are happy! Back here at Rame HQ we finally finished pressing for cider a week ago, going with the principle of minimal intervention we pressed a couple of thousand litres of juice which is in a mixture of stainless steel vats, plastic vats and used single malt barrels and will let the juice do it’s own thing! In the meantime we run around sorting gutter clearance, harvest the final tomatoes, keep working on the “new” apple shed and generally don’t stop until it’s too late or dark to get anything finished! We’re hoping to open a Christmas Shop ( off sales) on odd days up until you know when… apple juice, ciders, tastings, the odd tour of what this year has brought us… more details later!

14/11/2024

More Apple news later but I thought I would share these recent various sunset and early morning views with you… all good up here at Rame HQ… apples still ruling our lives!! Keep moving!!!