Orchard People

[00:00:00] Introduction to Pear Trees and Their Legacy
There's a saying about pear trees. They say that you grow pears for your heirs. And it means that what you do today isn't for your own benefit. It's for the benefit of the next generation. Now, if you grow modern pear varieties, you might be wondering where the saying comes from. New pear varieties aren't particularly slow growing.
They can start producing a harvest in maybe three to five years. But that wasn't always the case. Heirloom pear varieties can take many more years to mature. Often they grow to be really large, and some can live and produce for up to 400 years.
[00:00:45] Meet Barry Masterson: Passion for Historic Pear Trees
In today's show, we're going to be talking about old pear trees.
My guest is Barry Masterson of Kertelreiter Cider. Barry is Irish, but he now lives in rural Germany with his wife, Ines. And Barry is passionate about using pears from historic trees to make perry cider. Barry, welcome to the show.
Thanks, Susan. It's nice to be here.
[00:01:12] Discovering Old Pear Trees in Rural Germany
I'm really curious about when you actually started to get interested in old pear trees.
Was this a lifelong thing for you?
No, not at all. I like to blame the dog. That was basically my obsession started when we got her about three years ago. by that time, we'd been making cider for a few years already. And everything was about the apples and seeking out good varieties to plant in our orchard.
And, when I started taking the dog out on walks off the beaten track through the farmland surrounding our village here, All right. I was really struck by Just how many big old pear trees there were and so, it became a kind of a side quest when we were riding about to try and find more and more of these pear trees.
And, along with that though my interest grew in terms of why these trees were there.
[00:02:03] The History and Significance of Pear Trees
So it's like a skeleton of a lost landscape, and what were they used for. Because there was no real surviving culture of perry around this area, at least none that I knew of. So this in turn led down a rabbit hole of looking at old literature, trying to piece together the history of how pears and perry were making links across Europe in the past.
I am curious, because I've seen your beautiful pictures of these pear trees, and what I'm seeing is this landscape, like huge farmland, just plain farmland, and then there's one big huge pear tree here, and one big huge pear tree there. Why would that happen? Why would somebody break up their farmland in that way?
Yeah, this is why I often refer to it as a skeleton of a lost landscape, because in the past, so before, let's say, mechanization, took a hold, let's say in the 1950s, it was quite popular, at least in the German landscape to have the trackways between fields and field boundaries. So this kind of, land on the fringes that weren't really good for growing any other kind of crop did plant apple and pear trees there.
And in the 1950s. There was a kind of a rationalization of the farmland associated with the need for bigger fields, to deal with mechanization. And, they basically removed a lot of these rows of trees. They replanted orchards to compensate for that. but the stuff that was left, there would have been apple and pear trees left, but, apples don't live as long as pear trees.
They've gone, they've died. They were never replaced. And it's the pear trees that are remaining. And this is why it's really unusual. You see literally, as you said, a pear tree in the middle of the field. And probably marks where a boundary used to be or where a trackway used to be.
[00:03:50] Harvesting Pears: Challenges and Permissions
Okay, so you've got these big old pear trees and you are checking them out.
How old do you think they could be? who would have planted them?
You already mentioned that they can grow up to 400 years old. around here in our area, I'm not seeing that old. I think in the 1950s, or let's say the post war period, it looks like there was a period of planting, up to the 50s.
So there's lots around like 70 or 80 years old. then there's another kind of group. So I go around measuring the circumference of the trunks and then try to estimate the ages there's a formula for doing this. Obviously I can't count the ring, so it's only ever an estimate. but then we've got another group around, 120 to 140 years old and then a smaller group that are around the 180 to 200 years old and there's one up the hill from, where we live, past our orchard, and it's just such an impressive tree sitting on top of a hill with a 3. 7 meter, circumference trunk. It's, just magnificent.
Wow. Perfect for hugging.
Definitely a tree you want to
hug. You
need a few people to hug it properly. You
need a few people to go in a circle and hug it. So here I am imagining you. and Ines, your wife, in the middle of the night, sneaking out to go harvest these trees because they don't belong to you.
How do you get a right to, to, steal all the fruit? What's the, how did that happen?
We're very careful not to steal, or at least not to steal too much. But, we're lucky because, there's a lot of farmers around here and if we know who owns a tree and it's a variety that I'd like to test in making a perry, I'll just ask.
nobody is using the fruit anymore. There's very few people actually making use of these, of these pears. And they're just lying there rotting into the field. it's not a waste for nature. It's not a waste. nature will recycle and the birds and the rats and whatever, and the wild born deer will take their share.
But if we ask, they generally let us and, other times then, because our reputation for looking for pears is growing, we might have some farmers come and say, oh, by the way, I've got a Schweizer Wasserbirne pear up the field there. If you want to use that, you can. So yeah, we get permission first.
There's a couple of trees that we don't have permission for, but that's further away, not near the village where nobody
goes. Oh, perfect. Okay.
[00:06:17] Listener Questions: Alcohol Content and Hardiness of Pear Trees
We've got a couple of emails here. one is from Mason. Mason says, hello from Portland, Maine. Is this cider alcoholic? So I think that's, we're talking about perry cider.
Is it alcoholic?
Yes, definitely.
Is it to the same extent, as a cider made from apples?
it varies. apple cider or what? I don't know. Do you call it hard cider in Canada?
yeah, we call it. Yeah,
we just called it cider. So yeah, that has a range between 8 percent if you let it ferment dry.
Pears tend to have a bit more sugar, but they also have sorbitol, which doesn't ferment out, so you often get a little bit of remaining, sugar, it varies a lot. We can also talk about that later because sorbitol has other interesting effects, but generally between seven to nine percent alcohol, so a little bit more.
Interesting. Okay. We also have an email here from Debbie. so Debbie writes really looking forward to today's show on ancient pear trees and perry. I'm wondering about the hardiness of pear trees. Thanks very much from Debbie. So hardiness. Okay. What are your thoughts on that?
That's a good one. pears are growing
everywhere from, kind of West County of England through to the foothills of the Alps. we were talking before the show about the, how cold it gets here, so it doesn't get that cold, So there's a period in, February where it might go to minus 20 for a few weeks and the pears are quite fine with that.
I'm not an expert on the, growing zones of North America. So I couldn't say where things grow, but I think pears generally are quite hardy. if you're growing smaller trees, yeah, there are rootstocks, like a Pyrodwarf, that might be a bit more frost resistant than others if you're growing smaller trees.
But I think if you're getting it to seedling trees that are really big by the time they, by the time they grow, I think they're pretty hardy.
So we have a comment here from Paul, hello from Yonkers, New York, Susan and guest. That's you Barry. Your guest is from Germany but sounds Irish. I love the accent.
[00:08:40] Making Perry: Recipes and Techniques
Is there a recipe that Barry can share? Thanks and thank you Paul because that kind of leads us into Recipes and making perry out of pear trees. So first of all, you might want to explain why you have an Irish accent and you're living in Germany, and then we can talk about recipes.
I am Irish, I'm from Dublin, and we moved to Germany 13 years ago.
My wife is from this area so I blame her.
It's all her fault. So in terms of recipes, I think what Paul is asking here is when you are making perry cider, is it common to be mixing many different varieties? Is it common to just use fruit from seedling trees? Does it even make a difference? What type of fruit you use for your perry in terms of what types of pears?
Yeah, I, like to experiment a lot. a lot depends on what you've got, So if there's, enough of a certain fruit from a single tree or a single variety, I will make a single variety perries, mainly because I want to know what they do. So if it's a variety I've never used before, I'd like to know what are the properties.
Is it, how much tannins does it bring, how much of a fruity flavor? what are the acids doing? What are the properties? But I also do a lot of blending in the press, and a lot of that is okay, I'm going to take some extremely tannic perry pears, stuff you just couldn't even bite into, maybe bring in some more acidic, some lighter varieties that are more juicy, like Schweizer Wasserbirne, trying to get a blend in my head.
But a lot of it is trial and error, and if I find that it works, I'll repeat it. If it doesn't work, then the following year, because you only get a chance to do it once a year, the following year I'll maybe tweak that recipe if it's going in the direction that I want. But you can also, what a lot of makers do, is do single variety perries.
So you ferment them, let them finish, and then do the blending afterwards. And there you've got a lot more control because you can say, okay, I know what the, final product is like from, these different varieties. And I can bring a little bit of this little bit of that to get to the, end product that you might want to have.
I have never heard of that. That is very interesting. So I know you actually sell your perry. You've got your website. so when you sell perry, is that how you assemble your flavors? You do the single varieties and then you mix them together to, in a way that you know is going to work?
I tend not to do post ferment blending.
So I either do single variety and stick with that. or as I said, there are, let's say blends that I've done in the past in the press. I mill them and press them with different components, different types of pears. And in some cases it really is, necessity being the mother of invention, but, we've only got so many pears from a few trees.
Okay. Okay. I'll just use them and I'll put them in the press more often than not. That ends up being the best perry of the year.
I was gonna say, are those the ones that you think, oh, I'm embarrassed to sell that. no, they,
they end up being really good. And then it's not repeatable because I don't know what's in it.
Oh my gosh. But I guess that's what makes them special. Yeah. Yeah, it's so unique. we've got an email here from Steve. Hi, listening to you from Delson, Montreal. Very interesting. Our apple cider here is non alcoholic, but it's called cider. Why is cider that is made with pears also called cider, but it is alcoholic?
Thanks.
Drink made of pears is called perry. if it's only made of pears, it's perry and I think North America is probably the only place where, cider with alcohol is called hard cider. it's an historical thing, different, countries, different regions have different traditions.
And, I always find it strange that apple juice is called cider in North America. in our, over this side of the Atlantic, at least if it's made of apples, it's cider. If it's made from pears, it's perry, with alcohol. If it doesn't have alcohol, it's either pear juice or apple juice.
Oh, pear juice, right, exactly.
[00:13:16] Challenges and Rewards of Using Different Pear Varieties
Okay, a lot of the people listening to this show grow fruit trees, and many grow pear trees, and many maybe Bartlett pears, or any of the modern varieties. Would those be appropriate for making perry? Can you just juice and ferment your Bartlett pears, and turn out, have a really nice perry as a result.
That's a good question. So I don't see why not. so let's go back to, to cider or hard cider for a moment. So there are people who, I don't want to call them gatekeepers, let's say purists, who would say that you can't make a good cider unless you're using cider apples. frankly, I think that's wrong because, it does a huge disservice to, other traditions.
that are not, let's say, the English western counties or French traditions where, cider apples are used. They're very, either tannic or quite acidic apples, but usually there's a tannin component in there. the German cider tradition, for example, uses predominantly acid-led dessert apple varieties, as does the English Eastern counties and the Asturian or Basque cedar tradition.
So I'd be a total hypocrite if I said Perry can't be made with dessert pears. And I've done it myself as well, but it's not without challenges I think so. while the acids of dessert, apple ciders can help keep them, so it's like a natural preservative, often those acids, would be missing in dessert pears.
So without the acids and without the tannins, plenty of old texts basically say that, a perry won't keep long. So it won't keep well. And obviously back in those days, they were very interested in drinks that kept well because they weren't using lots of preservatives and stuff. they say the same thing about, some perry pear varieties that have relatively low levels of tannin.
for example, we use a variety here called Schweizer Wasserbirne, that's the Swiss water pear as a translation. it's very common around this area. And, the old text would recommend to basically. add a portion of crabapple into the mix when you're pressing them, straight into the press with it.
So maybe something like 10 percent to basically add the acidity that would otherwise be missing. And this is supposed to help add structure, cut through the sweetness of the dessert pear, perries and, a bit, yeah. A bit like, so some of the traditions, other traditions here is when you're making an apple cider in this region of Germany, at least you would add a portion of perry pears to it to add tannin to the cider, so it's a bit like that in reverse.
So yeah, you can make perry from dessert pears, but it has its own challenges, let's say, compared to using perry pears. So perry pears. Maybe to explain the difference between perry pears and dessert pears in this case is perry pears have usually massive amounts of tannin. so you can't bite into them. You can't eat them.
You pick them from the tree and you go, God, that's a juicy looking pear. And you bite into it and your teeth just go furry. And it's like pulling your cheeks together. And most people just have to spit them out. the, they've either got massive amounts of acid and massive amounts of tannins that they're totally inedible.
So you've stories about, going back a couple of hundred years, perry pears being certain varieties being so tannic that even the pigs won't eat them.
So what does the tannin do
for the perry? to me, this is the difference between, let's say cider and perry, the levels of, Tannin in the perry pears are just so big so that you can't compare it to using dessert pears in that case. So I think it's totally valid. Make a drink if you've got dessert pears, make a drink with them. But you may have to do some things to get the structure that you need, that it's not just a sweet thing.
Whereas the perry pears, Those tannin bombs really add structure to the drink when it's finished. And even though I can say the pigs wouldn't eat them, some of these varieties were really renowned for making them the very best perries. So after a year or two of aging, the tannins would settle down.
And it's just, it's hard to describe, you have to drink them. So I really like perries that have big tannins and they dry your cheeks out. it's like a rich red wine, but you also have Perry's that are made more acidic, Thorn, for example, which I know you can get in North America, which are, let's say, more acid led and a bright and full of summer fruit and there's a whole range there.
So I'd say if you don't have access to perry pears, try it. You could also look for, wild pears, stuff growing out. Raging Cider in San Diego, for example, I know they go foraging for basically seedling pears, and they're pretty close to perry pears that we might have in Europe.
Rev Nat's Cider was also telling me he has made perry using Bartlett because it's just so commonly available, but he found it one dimensional and a bit sweet. So what he did was he started dry hopping them. So adding hops to the finished product to basically again, bring structure, offset the sweetness that the dessert pears have.
Because as I said, lacking the tannins, lacking the sugars. They might tend to be a little bit one dimensional.
We have an interesting question from Vince. Vince says, or a comment here, mixing some perries can cause it to go very cloudy like milk. This can't be fixed. So test with small quantities first.
Yeah, absolutely Vince. So I've had that experience myself. I've made a perry in 2019, I think it was, and I used 60%, perry pears. So these are really tannic pears and it was 40 percent Conference pears and it stayed milky even after a year aging, it stayed milky. I ended up calling it pale rider, but it was very nice, but it's just not what you expect. It looked like a New England IPA.
So was it an appealing look? Does that milkiness make it look like, eh, maybe I don't want to drink that?
I found the Germans liked it because the Germans tend to like their beer. So what they say naturtrüb, which is naturally cloudy.
They think it's healthier if it's cloudy. I'm not sure about the English, but I did send bottles over and people liked it.
Okay, good to know. We have another question. This one's from Sue. I'd like to know this as well. Hello, are Barry's products available here in Canada? And Sue's from London, Ontario.
no, they're not. Oh,
mean, horrible. Sue and I want a special delivery. I had an interest, some interesting conversations about you and about this on Facebook. one comment was, Carmen wrote, I have two perry pear trees that I got from Fedco that I planted about five years ago, but they haven't produced any pears yet, so I don't know what they will be.
I make mead, so I planted them specifically for that.
[00:20:50] Growing Perry Pear Trees: Patience and Care
I guess the question here is, we talked about how perry pear trees, these pear trees that are not for dessert pears, they can take a long time to establish themselves. how long is long? Do you think Carmen might have to wait 20 years until she gets any fruit on these perry pear trees?
It depends on the rootstock. So if it's a seedling rootstock, it could be 10 to 15 years before you see any amount of fruit. So we've got some trees. They're 15 years old now. They weren't planted by me because it was obviously before I moved to this village, but we've taken over the care of them. And I think this year was the first year that they carried anything of significance.
If you have a dwarfing rootstock, they will tend to fruit quicker.
Okay, so that's good to know for people who are interested in planting some perry pear varieties, and we are going to talk about them more. But I had another interesting story from Facebook. This was from Gloria from coastal BC, British Columbia, here in Canada.
So Gloria writes, I'm growing perry pear trees. They haven't fruited yet, but I do see flower buds on a few. Now, Gloria writes, I won a best in class and gold medal for perry at the Great Lakes International Cider and Perry competition this year. Excellent. Isn't that nice? She says, I find Perry is more delicate and more champagne like when done right.
And when proper fruit is used, she says there is very little pear flavor with perry fruit, with an untrained palate. So it's not like those sticky, sweet, mass marketed pear ciders that taste of fresh pears. That's not the real thing, according to Gloria. She says, the flavor of pear is there, and a good perry, but it's not a smack you in the face pear flavor.
So she said, my perry had a strong vanilla custard note, which is very cool, but not creamy buttery like chardonnay can be.
[00:22:57] Tasting Notes and Origins of Perry
It was floral on the nose, and it changed a lot as it crosses the palate. And it had a beautiful long finish. It was three years old and dry. This perry was made from 100 percent one single pair variety from an unknown source.
Or seedling tree that she doesn't own. So I don't know where she got this fruit from. She found the tree. She had no idea what it was going to be like. She did a single variety and it was award winningly fantastic.
How do you
feel about that?
I think that's absolutely fantastic, Gloria. I'm jealous. Can you please send me some scions over?
I want that tree.
I know
she's absolutely right. the flavors you can get from perry, it doesn't taste like fresh. It's absolutely right. Unless it's something that's, medium or sweet that there's a lot of kind of unfermented juice left there, but those flavors she's describing, I'm getting really thirsty.
I know, me too. And that's, as soon as I read the strong vanilla custard notes, I'm like, okay, I need to have some of this stuff. She's not that far away. Maybe I don't know. But
[00:24:12] Champagne-like Qualities of Perry
Gloria said one very interesting thing. They're saying champagne-like, and This is definitely the case. There are even, some varieties here that's so called the Champagner Bratbirne.
so this is champagne. I see Bratbirne translate directly as a cooking pear. But the Bratbirne class of pears in Germany were reputed to make the very best pear wines. And the Champagner Bratbirne was named so because It was indistinguishable from the finest champagne. And there are even stories in, from England.
So in England, basically in the 17th century, they wanted, perry to be the English wine and because of the war is going on with France and with the Netherlands or Holland at the time, and they wanted to basically establish a local wine industry. So they wouldn't have to be importing stuff from France and Germany and Spain and whatnot.
And perry was. the desired, local wine, let's say, and they were doing tests, with wine merchants and stuff doing blind tastings where the perry was indistinguishable or, preferred, compared to some of the finest wines that they'd been importing at the time.
What a shame that it's been so sidelined over the years.
Yeah, it
really is. Yeah.
So it's interesting. There are lots of interesting cultivars of pear trees that are these heirloom varieties. people shared on Facebook. There's one called but B U T T. and then there's one called Stinking Bishop. Summer Blood Birne, that was one of them.
[00:25:55] Historic Cultivars and Uses of Perry Pears
So I want to talk a little bit about these historic cultivars.
Before we dive into these cultivars, the old cultivars, were they only used really for perry making or was there some way that they could be processed and used for food for humans or animals?
Yeah. So in England, I'm not so sure.
So perry making was very much the thing to do with perry pears there. but we were talking at the top of the show about the pear trees around here. And one of the things that was really confusing me was there was no extant tradition or living tradition of making perry in our region, at least.
And I was like, why are all these perry pear trees lying around if nobody's using them to make perry? And, obviously schnapps is one thing that can be made. and I think I mentioned, so one of the traditions around this region was to add perry pears to the cider to add a bit of structure and, bring tannins into, the German ciders that otherwise don't have any.
but I stumbled across a farming trade handbook from 1806. And, I was basically like trying to find, more about German perry. And that had all sorts of information, about what they were doing with pears around Germany back in that time. And, it turns out pear trees are a really important part of farm life.
So obviously they were making perry. they were used for feeding pigs in particular. I think across Europe, traditionally, pigs would have been fed acorns in autumn, free foods that would fatten them up. But apparently if you fed them a diet of acorns mixed with perry pears, they would fatten up much quicker.
they would dry the pears so they could use them throughout the year, either in the home or as a feed. And, the best of all was finding out they would press the pears and then boil the juice for 24 hours over a wood fire to produce a syrup. And this syrup was used by the common man , as a spread on their bread or as a sweetener or in baking.
Of course, this was a time before sugar was readily available. 1750 or so that, they figured out in Germany how to turn sugar beet into actual sugar. so this is what farming life was like. They were using pears for all sorts of stuff. And this to me was absolutely mind blowing. the Swiss still do this, by the way.
there's a festival in Switzerland every year that celebrates making this syrup. They call it, Birne. So Birne is the German word for pear. And, in Germany, at least until the 1980s, there was one maker, making a similar product out of apples. it was called, apfelkraut. I don't know why they called it apfelkraut.
It's nothing to do with sauerkraut, no cabbage in it. And, I guess it's a bit like, Apple butter.
That is fascinating. So they're using this syrup as a sweetener when they're making some pies or desserts or whatever. that is incredible. Okay. And this is from these pears that really would not taste good fresh.
You cook them up enough. You guess you get the sugar out of them.
Yeah. Yeah,
And you mentioned sorbitol.
[00:29:27] Perry Production and Sorbitol
What is the role of sorbitol in the fruit?
Yeah, so pears contain sorbitol, which is an unfermentable sugar, so this is why you can basically let a perry ferment as far as it will go, and it will always have a little bit of residual sugar left because the sorbitol doesn't ferment out.
So the content varies between pear varieties. So the Schweizer Wasserbirne that I mentioned earlier, that's really common around here. We had it finishing, it wouldn't ferment anymore. And I think it had 20 gravity points, which is quite high. That's due to sorbitol. Whereas other varieties, you might go down to, six or seven gravity points by the time it's finished.
So it would have less, but you have to be very careful with sorbitol because it is a purgative. So it has, basically, if you're going for a colonoscopy, you could drink a little perry and flush it right out. So if you're in any way sensitive to it, and this is really funny as well to me. So these old texts going back a couple of hundred years.
Talking about certain varieties that were, known purgatives and if you didn't have a strong constitution, if you weren't used to it, basically, it would be furious purging was the word used.
Oh my gosh. Okay, we got a couple more emails. Lisa writes enjoying today's show the last couple of years I have been experimenting with pears but strictly in the sense of canning and cooking only tried pear cider once or twice but definitely enjoyed it.
What an interesting idea to grow a special pear for drinking. And we're going to talk about those cultivars in just a moment. Winnie writes, hello from Boston, Massachusetts. Maybe a silly question here, but how did the name perry come about? Was it a name from someone called Perry who invented this cider or because of the fruit's name pear?
Yeah, I imagine it's from the name of the fruit, that's something I need to look up. So in French, it's called poiré, just like pear. So it's almost, so to me, the French are also very famous for producing perry. you don't see it very often outside of France, unless you've got a specialized shop, but in Normandy and places like this, the big perry makers also historically.
So I could imagine that maybe it came from, French. poiré, perry.
[00:31:59] Favorite Perry Pear Cultivars
Okay, so now let's discuss a few of your favorite cultivars of pears, maybe something that people might consider planting in their own backyard or in their small orchard, what would be really useful.
Oh, I think a lot depends on availability of course and where you are.
in England if I was in England. Varieties like the Red pear Anjou pear, probably two of the most common varieties for, let's say, larger makers on the commercial sense, or the Brandy pear or Hendre Huffcap. if I was in France, so I mentioned, normally the Domfront area, which are really famous, and they have an appellation for their perries, where all perry produced there must have at least 40 percent of a variety called Plant de Blanc, I don't have that variety.
We're right next door to France and it's quite difficult to get French varieties here. So that's what I'm seeking out. But they've got dozens and dozens of perry varieties. if I was in Germany yeah, perry is quite rare and there's only, yeah, there's probably not very many people making perry.
But, there are many, local perry pear varieties. In our region, Champagner Bratbirne, we mentioned this earlier, is probably like a poster child for a regional perry variety and leads to arguments with the French Champagne people who don't like that name being used on bottles that isn't Champagne.
and the Schweizer Wasserbirne is probably the most common variety you'd find around here.
I understand that there are also some red fleshed, perry pears as well. Does that change the color of the actual drink in the end?
They tend not to. red flesh varieties tend to be more curiosity than, let's say a useful addition.
I believe there are a couple of varieties that will retain the color of the juice after pressing, but normally after fermentation, they lose the color and they just look like any other. and they don't necessarily have massive amounts of tannins, but I think they're, I know a guy here and he collects them and there's a chap in England who runs the National Perry Pear Centre and he has a private collection of red fleshed pears.
So it's a definitely a fascination, yeah, and the very old varieties as well. So the Sommer Blutbirne, Sanguinole in French, has been around since the mid 1600s at least.
Incredible. we had in a previous show, we talked about, a number of previous shows, we've talked about heirloom apples and it's incredible how each heirloom apple variety has a fantastic story that goes with it.
Who discovered the tree or who developed it? and so I'm assuming that there will be some perry pear trees that come with a beautiful story as well.
Yes, definitely. God, they Live for so long and it's just to me amazing that you know these varieties that were being described in books back in 1640 and they're still going strong.
And I can't think of any story off the top of my head. In terms of, some nice discovery, but. I think just, reading old literature and looking at these, like the Barland pear, for example, has, was really famed back then as producing the very best perry, or the Lullum pear, the Taynton Squash, and actually some of these are available in North America.
So we had a quick look at some nurseries on the USDA, for example, and I was really amazed to see some of these like really ancient varieties are actually available in North America, so there's some hope.
[00:35:52] Harvesting and Processing Perry Pears
Now tell me, making perry is different than making cider, and you mentioned to me that harvesting is one of the main differences.
Can you tell me what it's like to be harvesting your pear trees? It's a, it sounds to me like it's a very busy time of year for you guys.
It is, so I think anybody who's bought pears in the supermarket, even for eating, knows what pears can be like. They're a bit temperamental.
They'll be rock hard one day and then you turn around and look back and then they're mush. So it's the same with perry pears. So trying to find that optimal kind of window of ripeness where they're actually ready to pick and then ready to use can sometimes be really tight. so Thorn, for example, it's quite an early perry pear.
Which I think is also available in North America that like drops and you have to press it within a couple of days, everything, you have to use them. There are varieties that will keep, but usually let's say later varieties, things that are maybe ripening and falling off the tree in the end of October, November.
They will keep for weeks. And I really like those because it means I can take my time. But other ones, you might have a week, maybe two to actually work with them. another challenge for us at least, because we use the big old trees that are lying around. We don't have a, like a plantation on dwarf rootstocks that are easy to harvest.
You've got these trees that are 10 or 12 meters tall. You can't go shaking the branches of these. So you have to wait. And, basically we visit every couple of days. Sometimes we pray for a storm to shake some down and every couple of days, we're maybe getting a couple of sacks from each, from each tree.
And, yeah, but that's very labor intensive. It's, a lot of work.
What is the ideal, ripeness for making the perry? I guess if it's, if the fruit is underripe, will the perry not taste very good or overripe?
Yeah, there's different schools of thought there. That's such a good question.
I wasn't expecting. So if they're, not fully ripe, they will be quite tannic and maybe quite difficult to get the juice out of. on the other hand, pears ripen from the inside out. So you have to watch very carefully. So if you ever cut open an overripe pear, you'll see it's going brown on the inside.
So it's a bletting process, basically. It's not rotting. It's bletting, but like with medlars, you can't eat medlars when they're straight off the bush and they have to blet first after the first frosts and the enzymes start working on the material, and they end up looking like a brown mess.
But apparently, an acquired taste, let's say. Pears do the very same thing. Some pears will. Keep their form when they're bletting and they basically turn really dark brown or almost black. And on the inside, then the flesh of the pair has transformed into something that is like this honeyed sweetness.
The tannins have, almost, gone. And, there's just more sugars and very rich kind of almost umami kind of flavor, but they're really difficult to work with because it's, if you run them through the mill. It's not if you're milling apples, you've got this nice structure, you've got pieces of apple, when you press it, the juice has a, structure to be able to come out through the pieces, let's say.
If it's a paste, like with really overripe pears, the juice doesn't come out and the efficiency is dreadful. So I try to aim for something in between, if they're just starting. If they're just starting to go brown on the inside, I like that. But with some varieties, you're better off pressing before.
Otherwise, the juice turns turbid and oily looking. your mileage may vary and, different traditions, different schools of thought have their own way of doing it. But as long as it's a nice drink at the end of it, I don't think it really matters.
we have an email from Vince who wrote before as well.
Vince writes, Red Longdon is a good variety as it is a large pear that keeps well. So pressing does not have to be rushed like some varieties and makes a very nice perry. So that's Vince from the UK.
Good tip. Is that,
is Red Longdon something you've used in the past?
No. I'm building a collection of English varieties at the moment.
So you can't get English varieties normally in Germany. so till now I've been using whatever's available locally, but I'm building a collection and, the Red Longdon isn't on my list, but I've, about 30 other varieties, from England that I grafted last year and will be grafting this year.
And so what kind of rootstock have you grafted onto? Because do you really want to wait 15 years until you get fruit from your perry pear trees?
Yeah, this is a tough one for me. I grafted onto seedling rootstock because the project that we're doing at the moment is to create a traditional streuobstwiese.
So it's a German meadow orchard basically, where you have full standard trees and flowering meadow underneath. I started this project last year. I had very generous sponsors, sponsoring trees, so we could buy a plot of land and, This year we will sow the meadow and start planting the tree.
So the goal for me with this collection was to preserve rare, endangered, or let's say, significant varieties from England, Germany, Austria, Switzerland. I don't have the French ones yet. So that was my goal there on seedling rootstock. Kirchensaller Mostbirne is the rootstock generally used for full standard trees here.
But, I wish I hadn't done that now because I found another rootstock that I'd much rather use, which is resistant to pear decline. This is a kind of a hot topic at the moment. So fire blight, pear decline are two very nasty, diseases that can affect pears. And if I'm planting rare trees that I want to, they will long outlive me, they'll long outlive my son, and I hope they'll be still there in 400 years.
I may regraft these trees onto these new rootstocks, that are resistant to pear decline disease. Slightly smaller than a full seedling, about 20 percent smaller. but it's quite new. And this is the first year that are available to buy, by normal people like myself in Germany.
So with your business, you've got this wonderful little business.
You are selling your perry. You've got a website. What's your website. Can you share it with us?
That's, Kertelreiter, punt de e, sorry, point DE, . I switched to German automatically. Sorry. . So K-E-R-T-E-L, which is Kertel, which is the stream that flows past our house here and reiter, or R-E-I-T-E-R, which is a rider.
I don't know if I need to explain why. It's called Kertelreiter and then point, de for Germany.
So you are creating this perry, do you have a facility to make it or is it from your kitchen? where are you making your perry?
I make it at the front yard. So in the pressing, we do it at the front.
So as in the open, we do have a large barn, but, I need to convert that first to get a flooring in and drains and that type of thing, but we live in an old farmhouse and basically the cider cellar is right below me. It's a former cow stall because it was a farmhouse and that's where the fermenters are basically stored, but the pressing and the dirty and wet work we do out in the front yard in autumn.
So I have to ask you, where does this passion come from?
[00:43:37] Preserving Perry Traditions
What is it about pear trees and perry that just seems to mesmerize you? What is it about it that's special?
I'm not sure I can explain that. I think anybody who's in this, in the cider industry or anybody who's interested in drinks like this, apples are the star.
Everybody plants apple trees. If I look around here, if anybody from the local nature conservation, organization, they're planting apple trees, it's important. I think it's really important. They're planting old cultivars. They're preserving old varieties and old ways and with the big standard trees and that type of thing.
But very few people actually think about the perry pears, very few makers doing it. like I said, I can think of a handful of makers in Germany. England's very lucky to have the likes of the Ross-on-Wye Cider and Perry Company, or Tom Oliver, or Gregg's Pit, or Little Pomona producing really, good perries from old heritage varieties.
so I think the more people who will take the time to plant these trees and preserve these varieties, I think it's really important. like I said, 400 years ago. It was going to be the wine of England and, we didn't mention that Austria still has a very thriving perry tradition, I've just discovered in the Pfalz, so in the Palatinate area of Germany, there's a small pocket there where they're still making perry in a very traditional way, with varieties that are only available there.
now I've got a couple. And, it's just such an almost forgotten drink. And it's just so bloody good. It deserves to be recognized. I think it's just wonderful. And the history. I'm
so, glad that you're bringing it back. That is wonderful.
[00:45:27] Conclusion and Farewell
And thanks to all of you who participated. And I want to thank you, Barry, for spending this time with me, educating me, I realized this is episode 76. I have done 76 shows, all on various fruit tree topics. And this is my first one on pear trees. So just like you were saying how everybody pays all so much attention to apples, right? And nobody pays attention to pear trees. So we've got to correct that now.
Very good start.
It's a good start.
So thank you so much for coming on the show today. And, yes, if anybody wants to know more about you, they can go to your website and learn some more.
And that's it for today, everybody. You've been listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast. And if you missed part of the show or you want to learn, listen back, or if you want to listen to some previous episodes, we've got lots of great episodes on heirloom apples, for instance, or how to grow all sorts of types of different fruit trees and berry bushes.
So all you have to do is go to podcast.orchardpeople.com, and you will see a lot of other shows on all sorts of topics. If you want to learn more about growing fruit trees, go to orchard people. com. I've got articles, I have courses and all sorts of stuff. So that's all for today. I hope you guys will join me again next month when we are going to dig into another wonderful fruit tree care topic. See you next month and thanks so much for tuning in. It's Susan Poizner from OrchardPeople. com. Goodbye for now.