Yarlington Mill is a traditional English cider apple variety. It was discovered at the end of the 19th century and has been a mainstay of English commercial cider production ever since.
It is a heavy-cropping variety and yields a large quantity of good quality bittersweet juice, which can be blended with other cider varieties. The apples tend to be a bit larger than is generally the case with cider varieties.
Yarlington Mill produces apples from a young age. It will readily over-crop and as a result may become a biennial bearer, but this can be controlled by thinning the crop in the "on" year. It is generally quite easy to grow.
As the name suggests, Yarlington Mill was found in the late 19th century as a seedling tree growing by a water mill in the area of Yarlington in Somerset, one of the traditional cider-producing areas of England.
Cider production in Europe is traditionally associated with three main regions - Asturias in north west Spain, Bretagne and Normandie in north west France, and the "west country" area of south-west England. These regions all face the Atlantic ocean and have cool temperate maritime climates.
Cider can of course be made with any variety of apples, but in these three regions apple varieties have evolved which are specifically intended for cider production - they have high levels of tannins which give "body" to the resulting cider, but which make them very unpalatable to eat fresh.
Good quality cider is almost always made with a blend of different apple varieties, using bitter, sweet, and sharp flavour components. It is quite common to mix in regular cooking and dessert apples to lend extra flavours.
If you are in an area with a hotter continental climate (with average summer maximum temperatures routinely over 30C) then you might want to consider using apple varieties that can withstand warmer temperatures, but still have good juice qualities. In this case rather than using European varieties you might want to seek inspiration from the very different "hard cider" traditions of North America, where dessert and crab-apples are widely used.
We have a good range of traditional English and French cider varieties, as well as a number of mainstream apple varieties with good juice qualities that lend themselves to cider production.
This variety description was researched and written by Orange Pippin staff. Last checked: 2024.