The Funk Ladder: Turning a Lager Loyalist Into a Scrumpy Believer, One Rung at a Time

Every cider lover has one: the mate who orders the same pale, gassy lager in the same pub every Friday, and who describes anything opaque as "off". You have considered simply handing him a pint of dry, tannic, still-slightly-fermenting Somerset scrumpy and watching his face fold in on itself. Resist. That is not conversion, that is assault with a beverage.

What follows is the ladder. Five rungs, climbed over an evening (or, more sensibly, over a month), designed to walk a lager drinker from comfortable fizz to a proper cloudy pint without a single moment of panic. It is not an education, it is a seduction. There is cheese involved. He will not notice the trap until it has closed.

Rule One: Start Lower Than You Think

The temptation is to open with the good stuff. Don't. The good stuff is wasted on a palate that has spent fifteen years being told cold and clean is the whole point. A dry, tannic, funky cider first is like handing someone a blue cheese before they've agreed to eat cheese at all.

So: short measures. Halves, or even thirds if the pub will do it. Nothing in a pint glass until rung four. And never, under any circumstances, say the phrase "it's basically like wine". He will hear "it's not a proper drink" and his guard will go up like a drawbridge.

Rung One: The Sweet Shop

Begin with the sweet stuff. Yes, the brightly branded, slightly syrupy, over-iced commercial cider that you would not be seen dead ordering. Order it anyway. This rung exists purely to establish a fact: cider is cold, cider is easy, cider is not a dare.

Keep it fruity if you must — berry-flavoured, pear-flavoured, whatever gets the sugar across the line. The sugar is the bridge. Lager drinkers are used to a drink that asks nothing of them, and rung one asks nothing of them. That is the point. You are not tasting yet, you are lowering the drawbridge.

Rung Two: The Gateway Blonde

Now the first gentle step sideways. A clean, medium, kegged cider from a decent-sized producer — the sort that comes from a well-known cyder house with a tidy website and a proper lab. It should be cool, lightly carbonated and utterly inoffensive. If he says "that's nicer than I expected", you have him.

Say nothing clever. Do not mention apples by name. Do not mention orchards. Just top him up and change the subject. The worst thing you can do at this stage is make him feel like he is being taught something.

Rung Three: The First Cloud

Here it comes. A bottle-conditioned medium from a farm, poured carefully so that a good inch of haze goes in. Warn him about the cloud before the glass lands, or he will think the pint has been through something unpleasant.

"It's meant to look like that," you say. "It's the apples." He nods, unconvinced, and drinks it. This is the rung where people fall off, so serve it cool rather than chilled — fridge-cold kills the fruit dead — and keep the glass small. A half is a promise. A pint is a hostage negotiation.

If he finishes it and says "yeah, alright", you may proceed. If he finishes it and says "it's a bit... thick", you retreat to rung two and try again next month. Tactical patience.

Rung Four: The Proper Pint

Now the real thing. Dry, cloudy, tannic, roughly six or seven per cent, served at cellar temperature rather than arctic — a West Country pint that looks like it has opinions. Straight glass, no ice, no lemon, no nonsense.

This is where the food arrives, and the food is doing a lot of silent labour. A wedge of mature cheddar. A pork pie. A decent ploughman's. Salty, fatty, savoury things that soften the tannin and make the whole enterprise feel like supper rather than a challenge. Avoid anything sweet, and absolutely avoid anything heavily spiced — chilli and tannin will square up to each other and he will blame the cider.

Expect him to describe it as "a bit dry" and then take another mouthful without being asked. That is the tell.

The Exact Moment It Clicks

Nobody clicks on the first sip. It never works like that. The click happens somewhere around the third mouthful of rung four, when the conversation has moved on — when he is mid-sentence about football or a leaking boiler or why the landlord has repainted the bar that colour — and he reaches for the glass automatically, without thinking about it, the way he reaches for lager.

That's it. That's the whole game. The funk has stopped being a flavour and become a pint. Say nothing. Looking smug at this juncture has cost more conversions than bad cider ever has.

Things Not to Say, Ever

• "Barnyard." He will picture a barnyard.
• "Phenolic." He will picture chemicals.
• "You can taste the orchard." He will picture mud.
• "It's a natural product." He will picture sediment and blame you.
• "This one's only seven and a half." He will order a second one assuming it is four.

The last point matters. Scrumpy punches well above its advertised weight and a lager-trained liver has no calibration for it. Book the taxi before rung four, not after.

Aftercare

Water before bed. A proper breakfast. A gentle text in the morning asking how his head is, phrased in a way that is definitely not gloating.

Then wait three weeks. Somewhere around the third Friday, your phone will buzz with a photograph of a cloudy pint in a pub you have never heard of, in a town you have no reason to visit, with the caption "what's this then?". That is not just a converted palate. That is a man who has started reading pump clips. Welcome to the orchard. He'll be wanting a wassail next.