When I first got into cider—and I mean really got into cider around 2016—I considered that artisanal, full juice cider could only be made from proper cider apples. The kind of apples that had names like Bulmers Norton and Tremletts Bitter and, if eaten raw, would deliver the kind of acidity that would cause your teeth to curl into spirals.

You couldn’t possibly make proper cider with eating apples, I pondered. This lower echelon of fruit must surely be reserved for lowest common denominator cider producers; the kind that boils the juice down into concentrate, mixes it with even more sugar, dilutes it with water, and then force carbonates it so that it can be served, by the pint, to the masses. Or so I thought.

I have since learned when it comes to any alcoholic beverage, this breed of snobbery gets you absolutely nowhere—all drinks are valid and have their place, after all. And some of the best cider in the world is made using sweet, deliciously succulent eating apples. Chief among them: the noble Discovery.

First cultivated in 1949, Discovery’s story began when Essex fruit worker George Dummer planted pips taken from the Worcester Pearmain variety in his garden, thought to be pollinated by another variety called Beauty of Bath. The tale goes that the young tree was left unplanted, and was exposed to frost, with only a light sack covering for protection. Fortunately it survived, and eventually came to the attention of Suffolk nursery keeper Jack Matthews, who took grafts of the tree and continued to develop the variety.

““There’s something amazing about going into the orchard and seeing that first fruit.””

— Sam Nightingale, Nightingale's Cider

Initially, Matthews tried to market the new variety under the names 'Dummer's Pippin' and 'Thurston August’ before eventually settling on the name Discovery when it was made commercially available in 1962. Its popularity blossomed over the next two decades, largely due to it being one of the earliest varieties to bear fruit, with picking beginning in late August, and typically running to early October.

“There’s something amazing about going into the orchard and seeing that first fruit,” Sam Nightingale, owner of Nightingale’s Cider in Kent, and bona fide Discovery enthusiast tells me. “It has this lovely aroma, and when I pick those first apples of the season I think: ‘this is what it’s all about.’”

Producing mid-sized fruit (about the size of a child’s fist), once ripe, Discovery takes on a sun-blushed hue of vivid pink. When fresh there’s even a soft pinkness to the juice, too, but with exposure to oxygen and natural light this can quickly fade. The aroma is what makes it such a captivating variety for many, especially as it’s often picked in late summer while the air is still warm, lending it gentle, strawberry-tinged aromatics.

“I always describe Discovery as having a fresh fruit salad vibe: strawberry, raspberry, melon, orange and the like,” James Metcalfe at London-based cider distributor The Real Al Company tells me. “It’s also one of the few eastern county apple varieties that works well as a single variety cider.”

When it comes to taste, the best way to describe Discovery is by saying it’s the most appley of all apples; it tastes like the ideal of how an apple should taste. If I was being a little more descriptive, however, I would tell you it has a fruit quality like biting into a just ripe, sun-warmed strawberry, with a sweetness akin to freshly spun candy floss. There’s a gentle acidity, that’s a little citrusy with a tang not unlike lemon sherbert. Qualities that, while making it such a popular eating apple, also give it defined characteristics when it’s fermented into cider.

“I don’t think many ciders taste like the actual apple they come from, but you can [taste it] with Discovery,” Sam tells me. “Once it's found its feet and it's a finished cider you get all these aromatics from strawberry to rose, and it has this beautiful bright acidity to it.”

For cidermakers like Nightingale’s, Discovery—affectionately nicknamed ‘Disco’ by some producers—provides a level of excitement not unlike the Gamay grape variety does for winemakers. Both are harvested early, and are pressed immediately to produce the first juice of the season. Winemakers have long taken advantage of this, and use Gamay in the production of Beaujolais Nouveau (going as far as to having an entire day dedicated to its release each year on the third Thursday of November.) Some cidermakers, such as Herefordshire’s Little Pomona, have had a little fun with this, and around this same time release 750ml bottles of a cider called Disco Nouveau, made using the first juice of the apple season.

Discovery is more than just a seasonal variety at Nightingale’s, though, where it’s been used to produce some of the core ciders at its orchard and cidery in Tenterden, Kent since 2012. One example, launched in 2017, is a still, medium cider using a blend of Discovery and the vibrantly hued Red Love variety, which used in small amounts gives a delicate pink blush to the finished product.

““I always describe Discovery as having a fresh fruit salad vibe: strawberry, raspberry, melon, orange and the like.””

— James Metcalfe, The Real Al Company

In 2020 Nightingale’s added a new cider to its range, a single variety Discovery cider, carbonated, and sold in kegs and cans. Called Wild Disco—due to it being fermented with nothing but the wild yeast that lives on the apple skins—for me it’s the perfect example of how the natural characteristics of this variety shine through when made into cider. Wild Disco also demonstrates wonderfully how continued maturation and malolactic fermentation (the process of malic acid being slowly broken down in the softer, more citrusy lactic acid) influences the flavour of naturally fermented cider as it ages. Those strawberry, candy floss and sherbet characteristics are all here, but there’s also a subtle, grippy funk right at the end of each sip—the untamed wildness to which its name refers.

“We quite often blend between vintages,” Sam tells me. “You want a little bit of that maturity from an older vintage, combined with the youthful character of the younger juice. It’s my go to can of cider—people remember it, there’s just something about the name.”

Being a producer that relies on an early variety like Discovery is not without its challenges. The variety’s flaw is its very short shelf life, requiring the fruit to be pressed or eaten ideally within two to three weeks of being picked. (Although Sam disputes this, telling me he has had some juice in tank for almost five years that “tastes great”). Due to its inherent perishability, however, in recent years Discovery has fallen out of favour with national supermarket chains, whose buying power dictates the majority of eating apples grown and sold today.

“[Discovery] is kind of out of vogue,” Sam says. “It’s very much about what are the brightest, shinest, crispest apples, and what’s going to last the longest. Especially now in the current climate with the cost of fruit production versus what supermarkets want to pay for them. It’s disgraceful.”

The good news is that the popularity of Nightingale’s ciders is increasing, in part thanks to finding favour in modern beer venues looking for high quality, delicious cider that is also accessible to its typical clientele in terms of both flavour and price. In 2022 the cidermaker produced 40,000 litres, and looks set to expand on that in the year ahead, especially as Sam is about to package what he describes as an “exceptional harvest” from the 2022 season. He also managed to convince one local grower to supply him with Discovery apples exclusively—thankfully, before they decided to grub up the orchard and replace it with a more supermarket friendly variety.

“There’s so little of it about… I guess it's always going to be a niche,” Sam says. “I think there’s going to be less Discovery unless more people want it.”