Glamping and open-fire cooking - The new Kentish Pip Experience for 2022
Craft cider company Kentish Pip to relaunch glamping site with ‘open fire cooking’ restaurant, bar and tasting flights this spring
Kentish Pip (@kentishpip) has come a long way since the sale of its first bottle of Medium Dry Cider at its local pub in Bekesbourne.
Even back then, though, the product, a carefully-created blend of cider and eating apples was so delicious that the Mount family - the brains behind the delectable flavour - could be forgiven for the rather conventional name.
Now, that same cider is known as the Craftsman and is one of six in the core range by Kentish Pip. The company has won countless awards, including Kent Cider of the Year three times.
The branding has taken quite a leap, too, with eye-catching artwork adorning the range alongside the names, which include Forager, Skylark and High Diver, which tell the stories behind each blend.
So successful has Kentish Pip become, in fact, that the company has produced ciders for M&S and the Co-op and is sold by Shepherd Neame, Britain’s oldest brewery, in its pubs.
The Mounts, who have been growing apples at their farm near Canterbury for more than 100 years, have also recently launched their first release of wines from their vineyard.
But Sam Mount, whose father Mark milled and pressed the apples by hand in his garden when Kentish Pip was first born in 2012, says there is even more to come this spring.
“We’ve got a venue at the farm called The Barn and it will open on April 1 as a restaurant and bar with a campsite,” he explains. “It’s a 14th-century solid-oak thatched barn, right in the heart of the farmyard, 50 yards from where we make all the cider and it has a huge garden around it.
“There will be glamping but also a field called Ellen’s Meadow where you can come and pitch your own tent. We’ve also got three self-catered cottages.”
The Barn has a shop selling Kentish Pip ciders and Woolton Farm wines - named after their farm - alongside other local products.
“Then there will be the bar with food and we’ll have a cheese deli offering as well,” he says. “We’ll do tasting flights, so you can pre-book a five-wine or five-cider tasting flight, which we’ll serve with bread and cheese.”
The restaurant will be a collaboration with a nearby local place, although Sam is keeping quiet about who it is for now.
“It has a really good reputation, so it will be top notch-food,” he says. “It’s going to be outdoor, open fire cooking, so barbecue, grill and wood-fired.
“There will also be snack-type food, so cheese platters and things. We opened last year, but we did it very quickly, so over the winter we’ve made it more refined, especially in terms of the food.”
Sam is the fourth generation of his family to be at Woolton Farm, which was founded by Herbert Mount more than a century ago.
“As all farms do, you have to change and adapt and diversify to keep going,” he says. “So one of the things we did being apple growers back in 2012 was start making cider.
“My dad Mark has always been a cider drinker and used to make it at home by hand.
“We’ve had orchards here for many years mainly growing cooking and eating apples and when we set out making cider we experimented with some apples we bought from Somerset, which were traditional cider apples.
“We were really excited to combine these from the South West with the cooking and eating apples from Kent. We joined the two together and we think that created a balanced product that isn’t just fruity and sharp, or heavy and tannic.”
Mark then planted four cider apple orchards in 2014 and, with their foody, technical approach to making cider, the rest is history.
Sam says the branding, including the artwork on the cider cans - one depicting his dad’s well-worked hands - has also helped.
“You can be as technical as you want, but that’s not necessarily going to engage and excite everyone - you want to show the backstory and to reflect the type of drink it is.”
For more, see www.kentishpip.co.uk and www.wooltonfarm.co.uk
