THE STASSEN CIDERS

Each sip of Stassen cidre brings you to the secret garden of the Vallée d’Aubel, the green lush hillsides, the morning dew kissing the red glossy apples in the orchards and the pure, simple pleasure of retreating from the hustle and bustle of life. Reminding you to look up and see the enchantment in the everyday. Your own secret garden is never far away, you just have to find the key.

Stassen cidres are made with only the best apples in the tradition of a fourth generation artisan family. Craftsmanship and générosité are infused in each sip, a moment to share in the simple joys of friendship, good food and wonderfull of everyday.

Pour a bottle of cidre Stassen in fine flutes. Let the magic bubble up with the finest sparkles. Don’t haste: générosité needs time to fill up the hearts.

Serve a wonderfull time and let everyone help themselves to it.

OUR FLAVOURED CIDERS

Stassen & Nature

A beautiful love story!

Our Contracts

To ensure a guaranteed, steady and sufficient supply of apples which have the technological qualities it is looking for, Stassen has established several hundred hectares of orchards on long-term contracts with over twenty or so farmers. Half of these orchards are located in Belgium (in the province of Liege) and the rest are in France in the Thierache region north of the department of Aisne). Compared to a standard eating apple orchard, (trees 2 – 2.5 metres tall, planted at an average density of 1600 plants to the hectare), the cider apple orchard contains trees which are between 5 to 6 metres tall planted at a density of 700 trees per hectare. The cider factory provides its contracting farmers with a technical service carried out by an agricultural engineer.

Our Harvest

In eating apple orchards, the fruit is picked by hand while in our cider apple orchards, their strong natural resistance to knocks means they can be harvested by machine after they have been shaken off.

The apples are harvested when fully ripe and are processed straight away, after first having been pre-cleaned at the orchard and then given a final wash in the factory.

Stassen sources its apples from different suppliers

Eating apples

To produce its aromatic ciders Stassen sources its eating apples from local fruit farmers in the broadest sense. These apples are mainly the Jonagold, Elstar and Boscoop varieties.

Cider Apples

To produce some of its ciders, Stassen needs huge quantities of so-called “bitter-sweet” cider apples which give the cider its typical characteristics and distinctive flavour.

The varieties planted are cider apple varieties from France (Kermerrien, Douce Moën, Bedan…), and from England (Dabinett, Major, Ellis Bitter…). These varieties produce very firm small apples with a very high sugar and tannin content.

Organically farmed appels

To produce “Organic” ciders Stassen has set up long-term contracts with farmers who only work using organic production methods..