East of England
Brooks and Conquest Cider
East of England
Peter Brooks and Mark Conquest got together about 5 years ago. With the idea of creating the type of Cyder they remember drinking growing up. Mark Conquest grew up in Cambridgeshire and spent his youth working in his family’s fruit growing business supplying wholesale markets as far afield as Yorkshire and London, as well as selling at the ‘farm gate’. Peter Brooks moved to Cambridgeshire as a child. He tried his hand at a variety of jobs whilst growing up, often involving fruit picking of some kind, which instilled a passion for locally grown produce and fruit production.
The apples used come from orchards that are about 100 years old and the trees are now about 6-8 metres tall (So the real ‘old fashioned’ style). Mark’s Grandfather & Father have a 70 year history of working the orchard and he himself for well over 20 years. No longer selling to markets and wholesalers the apples are now picked to turn into Cyder.
No sprays are applied to the trees, and through a unique ‘database system’ they achieve full traceability of what crate of apples came from which trees.
The Cyder is then ‘made’ in Peter’s barn in Somersham, just a mile up the road from the orchard.