Michelin Apple Trees

Malus domestica Michelin

If the art in cider-making is in your blend of apples, then Michelin should be part of your brewing palette. Although classed as medium bitter sweet, the small, green apples actually taste surprisingly sweet but still possess the astringency of an apple with lots of tannin. Its juice is aromatic, dark and very plentiful because the apples are incredibly juicy. Each tree will bear lots of fruit on upright branches meaning that you will always have room to squeeze in a Michelin tree. Even better, the fruit drop when ripe so no ladders or harvesting paraphernalia is required. But do remember that the sooner you juice the apples once picked, the better.

A Michelin Star

You would not want to make a cider purely from Michelin but it is a great apple to put into the mix. Bearing in mind the traditional ratio of a third each of sweet, bittersweet and sharp cider apples to make a cider, you can now have some fun choosing which sweet and sharp apple trees to combine with Michelin. The added advantage of this is that you need a pollinator for Michelin to crop to full potential anyway so have a look at our list of UK grown Cider Apples. We can recommend Frederick as a suitable sharp apple because it is in the same pollinating group and crops at the same time as Michelin. For the same reasons another bitter sweet, Sweet Alford would be good. Read up a bit on the subject on our pages dedicated to the Chemistry of Cider Apples

Features

• Height: bushes to 3m. Half standards to 4.5m
• Use: Cider. Very juicy medium bittersweet.
• Pruning: Spur bearer
• Pollination: Partially self fertile
• Picking: October-November
• Apple colour: Green
• Pollination Group: Group D

A Morsel on Michelin Apples

The Michelin apple was around in France in the late 1700s. (One must not forget that the French have a good cider-making tradition too!) As a general rule cider apples remain local to where they were bred but for some reason Michelin was introduced into England in 1872 and became popular for its ability to produce buckets of juice that could be used to bulk out some of the less prolific croppers like Kingston Black. Once here, Michelin has not looked back and is now more famous for being a tyre and a restaurant critic....evolution is an amazing thing!