Dijk Cider: drink local, drink natural, drink sustainable

Despite lacking craft beer’s trendiness, Dutch artisanal cider’s mass appeal continues to attract fans to the all-natural ingredients and traditional production methods. Cidermaking’s history pre-dates brewing, and today’s drinkers recognise why ancient cultures found it refreshing.

No one expected a renewed, determined focus on regional skills and talent before COVID-19, but it is nonetheless a welcome, albeit overdue, shift in social and cultural perception. Ditching corporate growth and environmental destruction, people’s choice to drink local, drink natural and drink sustainable enables artisanal craft beers and ciders to embrace progressive change, to succeed.

Vijfhuizen’s Dijk Cider operates near Haarlem since 2018. Cidermakers Edith and Rob de Vries repurpose the unwanted, unloved and misshapen apples that pernickety shoppers deem too ‘ugly’. It’s a considerate method, an approach consumers favour in the 21st century economy.

Whatever the fruit’s aesthetic beauty, Dutch orchards offer high quality apples that cider drinkers relish. Produced each autumn and allowed to mature, Dijk Cider’s gluten-free small batch ciders contain 100 percent self-squeezed apple juice. There is neither apple concentrate nor artificial additives, nothing else besides a sprinkling of bottle refermentation sugar. Like many artisanal dry ciders, Dijk Cider’s is unfiltered and thus cloudy — another reminder of how cider used to be.

Edith and Rob also produce unique ciders from customer’s own apples.

Dijk Cider is available through its webshop or at various outlets in Haarlem, including Lokaal Dutch Beer Bar and Hello I’m Local – Boutique Hostel.