A SMALL cider company created on a whim is debuting its cider at a Barnsley pub.

Dunwrights Cider is a small cider mill based on Racecommon Road, Barnsley, created when friends Andrew Hamilton, 38, Rob Crayton, 43, and Mark Platts, 50, decided to make cider on a whim in their garage.

The friends got off to a good start when their cider sold out at the CAMRA Beer Festival that same year.

“I’ve got an interest in cider,” said Andrew. “We did some research and went to some cider makers to give us an idea of what we should be doing.”

The team are aiming to keep their process as local as possible and use mainly local apples in their cider.

“The apples that we have are from local allotments, gardens, hedgerows, and farms,” said Andrew. “We had to buy a few from commercial orchards but most of the apples come from the west of Barnsley.

“Historically, cider was made in Yorkshire until about 200 years ago when the industrial revolution happened and the process became more mechanised.

“We want to bring that tradition back rather than starting something new.”

After three years of perfecting their cider making process, the team at Dunwrights felt that it was time to sell their cider in local pubs.

“We are all regulars in The Old No 7 in town and the landlord, Stuart, was really keen to debut our cider so here we are.

“It’s pushed us to make more cider so we saved up and got the equipment so we have the capacity to make more cider.

“We are averaging about 2,500 litres in total this year, but next year we want to sell 7,000 litres which can be difficult since apples only grow for four months of the year so that limits our cider making window.

“The plan is to keep growing and producing more cider. It’s all onwards and upwards from here.”