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Jordan and Alan Spinks
In just two-and-a-half years, father and son Alan and Jordan Spinks have gone from brewing cider in their garage to producing tens of thousands of litres a year as the award winning Forbidden Brewing Company.
They have relocated operations from Long Bay to The Cider Shed, an orchard and restaurant on SH1, just north of Warkworth.
Forbidden Brewing started after Alan and Jordan both found themselves at a crossroads: Alan was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer and was unable to continue his career as a clinical adviser to hospitals, while Jordan was made redundant from his job at a cider company in Silverdale.
“We started to make cider in the garage in a 10-litre tub, carbonating the batch with a soda stream,” Alan says. “We never set out to start an international cider company but it’s just taken off. Now we’ve won 10 medals and trophies, including the Champion Cider award at this year’s NZ Brewers Guild awards, and we’ve been recognised as one of the best new businesses in the country.”
The family emigrated from Cornwall nine years ago after holidaying in NZ in 2001. Jordan soon became frustrated with the lack of quality cider in NZ and started learning traditional cider-making techniques.
“It’s completely different in the UK,” Jordan says. “Here, 90 per cent of the cider is made from concentrate and sugar and flavours are added. Whereas we only make cider from freshly pressed apples.”
Forbidden produces over 55,000 litres of cider a year, exporting about 15 per cent, but their plan is to double production.
The apple orchard at their new Warkworth headquarters has 500 trees which will supply the majority of the fruit for the cidery.
“We didn’t just want to be a cider making factory,” Alan says. “We wanted to control things from seed to bottle.”
They have also been working to turn The Cider Shed cafe into New Zealand’s first cider centric bar.
“There will be 10 different ciders on tap and no beer,” Alan says. “We want to hold a range of events this summer, like movies in the orchard and live music, with a harvest festival in autumn.”
