Winning cider like granny’s rhubarb pie

A TASMANIAN boutique brewery is already dreaming of a hat-trick after its rhubarb cider won at a national festival celebrating wacky beverages for the second year running.

Devils Brewery Tasmania won People’s Choice Best Cider 2018 at the Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular for its Grandma’s Jam Cider, and backed it up this year with its Grandma’s Apple and Rhubarb Crumble.

The festival — held this year in Melbourne, Brisbane, and Sydney — invites beer and cider makers from Australia and New Zealand to create one-off unusual styles.

Head brewer and owner David Tottle said Devils Brewery Tasmania was one of 170 entrants this year.

He said this year’s winning entry followed last year’s theme of “something that grandma would throw together”, and was successful because it was adventurous and drinkable.

“My assistant cider-maker, Mady Burton, she is a madkeen rhubarb grower, so we decided to use her access to the rhubarb and her knowledge of growing rhubarb and then blended that in with our Tassiegrown apples,” Mr Tottle said.

“What made it quite unusual was that we didn’t want to make a regular cider, which would have been too easy, so we sort of took it to the next level, I guess, by what we call ‘freeze concentration’.

“We removed some of the water content, and that did several things. It increases the alcohol content, it increases the ... thickness of it and it also intensifies the flavours.

“Then, instead of just adding Co2 to make it bubbly ... we added nitrogen, which gives it that sort of rolling, creamy look, like a Guinness.”

Mr Tottle said he was now out for a hat-trick of wins.