Join us for this practical hands-on course. Our expert instructors will guide you through various brewing techniques, harnessing the richness of the years wild harvest. Over three dynamic days, you’ll craft a diverse array of beverages, including three styles of cider, Crème de Mûre, Elderflower and Meadowsweet Champagne and Mead from local honey. You will also create two of your own craft Gins with foraged botanicals, and explore the unique flavours of your own Wild Blackberry Rum and Hedgerow Whisky.
Forage & Ferment
Course Dates:
Saturday 18th – Sunday 19th September 2027 & Saturday 6th November 2027 – South London Woods, Near Surrey Hills
Course timings:
9.30am – 5.00pm
Cost:
Super Early Bird Price: £395 (Full payment required by end of March)
Early Bird Price: £445 (Full payment required by end of May)
Full price: £495
Deposit: £50 (Non refundable)
Course Numbers:
Maximum of 10.
This course needs a minimum of 4 people to run. We will inform participants by the end of July if we have not reached these numbers & a full refund will be given.
Minimum age 18. For obvious reasons all participants must be 18 at the time of the first day of the course. We will be asking for ID is your lucky enough to look under 25.
Buying for someone else? We can send out a gift certificate for this course. Because it only runs once a year and has minimum numbers the voucher will be for a specific course and therefore come with the same refund terms as a course. As for a gift voucher you’ll receive a PDF voucher by email to print at home or forward to the lucky recipient — a simple, sustainable way to give the gift of skill and connection. Or you can upgrade to our gift pack, including a card, a bookmark and a voucher for a more tactile gifting experience.
Fruits, Flowers & Ferments
More about the course:
This experience is not designed to just equip you with the knowledge of how to repeat the various drinks we make on the workshop itself. We will give you the knowledge to continue and develop your foraging and brewing journey, giving you the confidence to mix and match try new things and experiment with a baseline knowledge of the scientific processes involved.
Over the first weekend you will be taken on a slow walk to identify and gather the foraged ingredients. Harvest your apples from an old orchard before washing, chopping, pressing, and juicing them. Create hot infusions of base sprits as mixes for your gins. Setup the demijohns for the ciders and champagnes. Explain the science behind what is happening inside each bottle you’re going to produce & provide reference material to take your brewing and foraging journeys further. We will also discuss the legalities of brewing and foraging.
Returning four weeks later for the final stage, your ferments will have had time to convert their sugar into alcohol, and it’s time to strain, bottle and condition them. Expect some minimal taste testing at this exciting stage.
At the end of this exciting experience you will be taking home:
– 3x 500ml bottles of cider
– 250ml Crème de Mûre, blackberry liquor
– 750ml bottle Elderflower Champagne
– 750ml bottle Meadowsweet Champagne
– 750ml bottle Mead
– 2 x 150ml bottles Homemade Gin
– 150ml bottle Wild Blackberry Rum
– 150ml bottle Hedgerow Whisky
– Skills and knowledge that last a lifetime.
Invest in this extraordinary experience and embark on a journey of flavours and skills.
For this incredibly special experience we have partnered with Rupert Loch from Feral Science. He is a former vintner (wine maker), scientist, bushcraft instructor and all-round lovely and fascinating person. Rupert has been involved in making wines professionally on three different continents, as well as teaching secondary science and now mostly shares the ways in which bushcraft can be used to teach science out of the classroom.
Berries, Blossoms, Bubbles and Booze
We run a number of Foraging Courses throughout the year, allowing you to discover the range of resources available across the seasons.
Spring Foraging Course, Late Spring Foraging Course, Autumn Foraging Course, Autumn Foraging and Preserving Weekend and Wild Alcohol & Foraging Workshop.
