november-2011

PRAGUE CIDER
You wouldn’t go to Peru for
pizza or Sierra Leone for sushi,
right? After all, there are
certain delicacies that specific
countries are known for and some that
just seem odd. The Czech Republic is
practically synonymous with beer. So how
did a beer-drinking local introduce cider
to the nation? As that famous drinker
Ernest Hemingway said: “Always do sober
what you said you’d do drunk. That will
teach you to keep your mouth shut.”
So meet Vaclav Beran, a studiouslooking
29 year old, who, along with
his sister Lenka Beranova and long-time
friend Petr Fila, launched Mad Apple cider
a couple of years ago. “It was an eveningat-the-pub
idea,” admits Lenka, 30, who
looks after the business and marketing. She
and Petr spent three years in the hospitality
industry in Bournemouth, where they first
discovered cider at a local pub.
“Our first contact was funny – we
didn’t know what it was,” she adds.
“So Petr threw it away.”
After trying out the drink a few
more times, they eventually developed
60JetAway
Refresher Course
Mad Apple’s founders hope to educate the Czech Republic’s
drinkers about their cider’s thirst-quenching charms. But can
Prague’s coolest drink compete with the local beers?
Words: Jacy Meyer Portrait: Jan Sochor
a fondness for the stuff. When Vaclav came
for a visit in summer 2007, they couldn’t
wait to introduce him to it.
“After a few pints, we had the idea to
go back to the Czech Republic and make it
there, because there’s nothing like it,” she
says. “The next day we thought, is this
really what we want to do?”
But the idea took hold and began to,
well, ferment. At school Vaclav had studied
chemistry, biology and, more unusually,
viticulture – the perfect bases for creating
alcohol – so the process of making cider
appealed to him. When Petr and Lenka
returned in 2009, they went back to the
wine shop in Znojmo (a major winegrowing
region of the Czech Republic),
where Vaclav also worked. They still run
the shop; Vaclav is Mad Apple’s only
full-time employee.
“I visited smaller cider houses in the
UK, ones that grow apples and make cider
on site, to look at the technology they
used,” he explains. “There are so many
different types of cider: still, sparkling,
dry, medium, sweet, cloudy, clear…”
They started small, in their garden,
brewing 1,000 litres of cider using an
apple press they made themselves. Family
and friends were invited to an apple taste
test, where Vaclav eventually settled on
eight varieties. Fermentation took about
two months, and then they left it in the
barrels to mature. They eventually found
a brewery in Uhersky Brod, 100km away,
to pasteurise, carbonate and bottle it. But
then came the key question: would people
actually drink it?