There was a time, not too long ago, when cider was one of the world’s most popular beverages. Siders were the only drink for those who didn’t like beer or wine, a kind of fruit soda with alcohol, which you could buy in a box in a shop. Nobody served sides at nice dinner parties or would in their wildest imagination spend NOK 300 on a bottle. Now this time is over. 🍾🍾🍾 In a steep mountainside in Hardanger, in the middle of a forest with thousands of lush apple trees in full bloom, fruit farmer Arita Åkre (40) strolls. She and her husband Gjermund have managed to become internationally recognized page producers in a short time. “Edel Sider” has won gold during the sides WC in San Sebastián and is served in exclusive Michelin restaurants around the world. But the Åkre couple are not resting on their laurels for that reason. – When we have the world’s best apple, we must also be able to make the world’s best pages. If not, we can just shut down the shop, says Arita. SIDE FARM: Arita Åkre originally comes from Bergen, but she and her husband Gjermund moved to Hardanger to take over his family farm in 2019. Since then they have been full-time side farmers. Photo: Tale Hauso / news Arita and Gjermund are far from the only ambitious side makers along the fjord. Recently, new side gardens have popped up all over the country. There are 24 producers in Hardanger alone; the vast majority of them have come during the last ten years. It has just happened that we Norwegians have had to go completely crazy about pages. Specifically Norwegian pages. The sale at Vinmonopolet has gone from 31,000 liters in 2016 to 279,000 liters in 2022. So an increase of 800 per cent! And the vast majority of Norwegian sides come from Hardanger. The region is becoming for Norway what Champagne is for France. What has happened? The world’s best apple Nobody knows for sure when the first apples came to Norway, but there is much evidence that British monks in the 12th century were the first to grow fruit professionally. The monks first came to Lysekloster south of Bergen, but quickly discovered that the climate there was too wet and acidic. They therefore got into their boats and sailed into the fjord until they found the perfect area to grow damn good apples: Hardanger. On the farm Åkre, on the west side of Sørfjorden, a little over half an hour by car from Odda, Gjermund’s family has grown fruit for over ten generations. Today, the farmer hardly has time to talk to us. He has already driven the tractor from the early hours of the morning to spray all his 20,000 trees before the rain comes this afternoon. SPRAYING: Gjermund sprays the apples to protect them from insects and diseases. The big fear is rowanberry moth, a small moth that basically lays eggs on rowanberries. But if there is a year with few rowan berries, apple is a tempting alternative. Photo: Tale Hauso / news In winter, spring and summer, everything is about getting the apples to grow as large and tasty as possible, before they are picked in the autumn. The wood must be cut, sprayed, fertilized and thinned. At Åkre we find all four of the most common apple varieties in Norway: gravenstein, aroma, discovery and summer red, in addition to rarer varieties such as rubinstep, bramley seedling, ellis bitter, dabinett, yarlington mill, harry masters jersey and major. As you can probably tell from the name, none of these apples are originally from Norway. Most originate from Great Britain, while Gravenstein, which has been in Norway the longest (since 1792), is named after Graasten Castle in Denmark. DISCOVERY: This is Arita’s favorite apple to eat. The variety originates from England and came to Norway in 1974. Photo: Arita Åkre Hardingane can eat apples. Despite everything, they have cultivated fruit for almost a thousand years. On the other hand, the farmers in Hardanger have not always had such a good grasp of sides. Yes, there are a few exceptions, and over time many so-called “cellar sides”, a cloudy apple drink, known for its strong yeasty taste and high alcohol percentage, have been made. But this drink hasn’t exactly made the taste buds explode. At least not in a positive way. At the start of the 2000s, this began to change. Then some of the fruit farmers in Hardanger put their heads together to try to find out why they couldn’t make better pages. The first thing they realized was that maybe it was time to make the cider actually taste like apple, and not just yeast and alcohol. But to do this, they need help. The time had come to look up over the high, snow-covered mountains around the fjord and look south towards the ancient vineyards of Europe. The Champagne method We have moved into the holiest place on the farm Åkre, the mixing room in the barn. Here, Arita sits for hour after hour, in dim light, and listens to Andrea Bocelli, while she tastes and mixes until what will become a new product on the shelves at Vinmonopolet. The contrast is great with her life just a few years ago. Then she and Gjermund lived in Bergen, and both had well-paid jobs in the oil industry. Today, Arita will make a new “pommeau”, a mixture of applesauce and distilled sides of apple mash, which has been stored in oak barrels for several years. On the table she has several bottles with mixtures from different apples and years. – Smell! says Arita and holds out the one blend from 2018. – This is the smell of sitting on a bench by the Mediterranean and looking out to sea. TASTING: Arita tastes all the different vintages and apple varieties first, then she writes down what kind of “character” they have, for example acidity, sweetness, nuts and oak. Then she mixes them together to find the perfect flavor combination. Photo: Tale Hauso / news Yes, you guessed right. Arita, like so many other Norwegian silk producers, has been on several study tours down Europe. She has also had a lot of help from the Norwegian-Italian sommelier Francesco Marzola. Through his guidance, she has acquired a refined taste for the noble drops. – We want to make “vinous” sides reminiscent of wine with complex, fermented flavours. It shouldn’t taste like applesauce with alcohol and sugar, Arita explains. Some of the most important knowledge Arita has brought with her from Europe is about fermentation. Here, the farmers are careful not to give too many details. Most people are open about what kind of apple they use, but what kind of yeast and how they ferment is often super secret. (Unless they make “natural sides” and use the apple’s own natural yeast for fermentation.) OAK BARREL: Garden Åkre is stacked full of barrels from floor to ceiling. Oak casks are commonly used for storing wine and sides to add different spice tones to the drink, such as vanilla, nutmeg and cloves. Photo: Tale Hauso / news Arita is also secretive about what kind of yeast she uses, but she has picked up the method itself from a not-unknown French wine region called Champagne. This method is called the “méthode traditionnelle” and involves the fermentation of the sider twice: first in barrels or in steel tanks, then a second round in the bottles afterwards. During the last round of fermentation, the sides of the bottles are placed in “champagne shelves” which Arita has to walk around daily and turn so that the yeast collects over the cork in the neck of the bottle. This fermentation method causes the side to have more and fewer bubbles. He is very comprehensive, long-winded and expensive. But as Arita says: – We must find the best taste and win competitions. Only gold should hang on the wall. THE WALL OF AWARDS: Edel Cider has, among other things, won gold at the international cider fair CiderWorld in Frankfurt and at the International Cider Competition in San Sebastián. Photo: Tale Hauso / news But in the world of food and wine, it is not enough to make excellent, world-class products. The side farmers also have to make the customers believe that the product they make is better than all their others. And to do that, they need a story to tell. Again, countries further south in Europe have been great sources of inspiration. “Terroir” The reason why many people want to eat ham from Parma, drink red wine from Piedmont or sparkling wine from Champagne lies in the term “terroir”. “Terroir” means that different foods and beverages have their own specific characteristics because they come from specific geographical areas. In France and Italy, this way of thinking has been common for several hundred years. According to wine journalist Merete Bø in Dagens Næringsliv, “terroir” has also been extremely important in Norway, without us having a proper language for it. – For the farmers, it has been reading and deciding that they cannot plant this and that type of apple there, because there is too much cold wind in that particular grove. They have always known that climate and soil affect the apple, Bø explains. Hardanger “Terroir” Climate: The temperature in Hardanger rarely goes below -17 ℃, and rarely above 30 ℃. Compared to other cider districts in Europe, the apple has more acidity, but less sweetness and depth. Light: With high mountains on all sides, the apple is exposed to less direct sunlight, but due to long northern summer days, the apple receives a lot of indirect light. Soil: The apple tree in Hardanger stands on moraine soil that has previously been under glaciers. This soil has mineral rocks that affect the growth and quality of the apple. Terrain: Fruit trees thrive on steep slopes, which Hardanger has plenty of. The tree gets better drainage and more sunlight, compared to a tree standing on flat land. Tradition: Currently, there is not much tradition to talk about when it comes to the making of the sides themselves, unless you want to make cloudy cellar sides. But the farmers compensate with long traditions when it comes to growing the raw material itself: apples. In 2009, “Sider frå Hardanger” became a protected geographical brand in Norway, in the same way as Champagne in France. In order for a bottle to be decorated with the stamp, both the apple and the cider must be made in Hardanger. The brand has helped to make the side more exclusive, while at the same time it has become more important for the side producers in the region to play on the same team. – If I try to sell my “Sider from Hardanger” and it tastes bad… How will it go when someone else sells their “Sider from Hardanger” the next day? One bad product can damage the reputation of everyone else. That’s why we should share knowledge and help each other, says Arita. HELP FROM THE MOTHER-IN-LAW: What should one do with labels when mother-in-law Marit Åkre can write all the information you need on each bottle, with marker? Photo: Tale Hauso / news Good raw materials and new knowledge from Europe have been important reasons for the huge demand for Norwegian sides. But according to Arita, there is another important reason that has possibly contributed more to its popularity than anything else. The legislative change Although we have a flood of good raw materials in Norway, it has not only been easy to be a side farmer. The Norwegian state has taken care of that. We have one of the world’s strictest laws for alcohol advertising. The farmers have thus had great challenges in telling people that they actually make pages. Nor have they been allowed to sell their drinks directly to customers. But then – on 1 July 2016 came the big turning point: The Norwegian Alcohol Act was changed so that farmers were allowed to sell sides on their farms. And thus the snowball began to roll… GARDSBUTIKK: It was then Minister of Agriculture Sylvi Listhaug (Frp) who in 2014 began the process of changing the alcohol law, so that farmers could sell their own sides. Here, Odd Isungset stops by the shop to buy drinks. Photo: Tale Hauso / news Before the change in the law, there were only five cider orchards in the whole of Hardanger, but now one fruit farmer after another started making cider from their apples. A “side cruise” was set up on the fjord, and suddenly side tourism from farm to farm in Hardanger had become a thing. For Gjermund and Arita, who have become quite large silk producers, the farm shop does not amount to more than approx. 5 percent of the total hall. They still believe that the effect of the legislative change has been revolutionary. – The garden shop is our only legal marketing channel. When I ask the customers how they heard about us, 90 per cent say that they have been recommended to us by people who have visited us before, says Arita. SIDERCRUISE: During the summer months, you can go on a “cruise” from farm to farm to taste sides in Hardanger. Photo: Tale Hauso / news In the summer of 2023, Hardanger is expecting several thousand new side tourists from home and abroad. The region has become an epicenter for the golden apple drops. At the same time, we must not forget that several side areas are also in the process of being established across the whole of southern Norway. Arita keeps a close eye on the other areas that are in the process of developing, for example in Trøndelag and Telemark, and warmly welcomes the competition. – Hardanger is perhaps the country’s oldest orchard, but sides must be Norway’s national drink, and then more people must participate. Source used in this case: Hi! Do you have any thoughts on this case or tips for other stories we should look at? Send me an email! You can find the rest of news Kultur’s long readings here. Listen to an interview with Arita’s neighbour, side farmer Olav Bleie:
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From drunken grumps to noble drops – Culture
