Malaika Tyson is one half of the blogging duo Cider Soms, which was started as a way to introduce wine lovers to the world of cider. Created along with her husband Sean, the “Soms” blog seeks to uncover and explain the complexities of ciders in a fun way.

During an icy January week, over 1,000 cidermakers, orchardists, and enthusiasts descended upon Portland, Oregon, for the 14th Annual CiderCon. CiderCon, which started in Salem, Oregon, with only a few hundred attendees, has blossomed into the world’s largest conference for the hard cider industry. Registration was 20% higher than the previous year, with attendees pouring in from 40 different states, including Alaska and Hawaii and Washington DC, and 14 different countries.

Despite the multi-day ice storm, with congregations initially limited to the Convention Center and lobby (I heard it was coined “LobbyCon 2024”), the energy remained high. In chatting with people, I learned that Kelsi Paul, Cidermaster at Taves Estate Cidery, was excited to meet new people and liked that the conference offered opportunities to learn about lots of different topics. CiderCon veteran Gidon Coll (founder of Original Sin Cider) found, “It was enlightening to witness the level of enthusiasm for cider culture in the Pacific Northwest.”

Cider Share, the American Cider Association (ACA)-coordinated industry tasting, featured dozens of cideries from all around the world. Quince cider from Italian cider maker Floribunda was one of the crowd favorites. Cideries from the Northwest were located on the perimeter of the hotel ballroom and inside there were several “islands” of tables. The Northwest Cider Association also coordinated an invite-only special preview hour of Cider Share for wholesalers, buyers, media and influencers to sample cider from throughout the Northwest region.

The conference formally opened on Thursday, January 18, with the ACA’s CEO Michelle McGrath welcoming us to her home city, and ACA headquarters. McGrath highlighted the continued partnership with the Cider Institute of North America (CINA), who coordinated the conference’s production track, aptly named “Making Amazing Cider.” Connecting with Consumers in an Age of Endless Choice was the theme of the conference, and McGrath talked about how cider is a regional beverage, with many cidermakers growing their own fruit. 

The three keynote speakers were multigenerational orchardists Kaitlyn Thornton (Tonasket, Washington), Randy Kiyokawa (Kiyokawa Family Orchards in Hood River, Oregon), along with cidery owner Lara Worm (Bivouac Ciderworks in San Diego, California). Each speaker expanded upon the discussion of the conference’s theme. 

Thornton impressed upon the attendees to understand “what is your why” and the importance of storytelling. Kiyokawa discussed embracing endless choice to connect to the consumer and drive growth and subsequent success of the industry. Worm focused on elevating education, accessibility and sharing stories with a wider audience. I agreed with Worm when she said that cider has more depth and staying power than anything else on the market, but cider is one of the few beverages where consumers quit the whole category if they find something too sweet or too sour.

Following these short presentations, Zoe Licata of Brewbound hosted a panel discussion, investigating the state of the hard cider industry with a selection of cidery representatives from around the country: Aaron Sarnoff-Wood (2 Towns Ciderhouse in Oregon), Casey Baxter (Blake’s Beverage Company in Michigan), Shannon Edgar (Stormalong Cider in Massachusetts), Caitlin Braam (Yonder Cider in Washington) and Eleanor Legér (Eden Specialty Ciders in Vermont). The panel shared their individual takes on the state of the industry. Sarnoff-Wood discussed how national grocer access and visibility is one key driver of growth. Braam acknowledged that smaller cideries also have growth and stock challenges, especially if they want to work with other small businesses. 

Legér, whose cidery makes less than 25,000 gallons each year, talked about how small cideries are focused on restaurants, e-commerce and following the trends of natural wine making. Another trend discussed were low/no and high-ABV ciders. Baxter opined that better-for-you lifestyles and occasions are driving these trends, and while Blake’s introduced a light cider five years ago, it was caught up in the hard seltzer wave. Edgar shared some barriers for the high ABV, or imperial ciders, and noted that when Stormalong introduced an imperial cider, it got some traction but was going to continue to require big marketing pushes. 

After the speaker sessions, McGrath announced that Reps. Earl Blumenauer (OR-D), who was one of the recipients of the 2024 Apple Advocate Award, and Mike Kelly (PA-R) introduced the Bubble Tax Modernization Act of 2024 (HR 7029) to the 118th Congress of the United States. This garnered resounding cheers from the audience! The “Bubble Bill” will amend a carbonation threshold disparity for lower-alcohol wine, cider and mead made with fruit. 

Sonya del Peral (Proprietor & Manager at Nine Pin Ciderworks) sat in on the opening session and she agreed that the industry needs to continue to educate consumers. She was interested in attending the low-ABV panel — like Blake’s, Nine Pin launched a low-ABV cider several years ago and is now revamping the product. I also sat in on “An Introduction to Low-ABV & Non-Alcoholic Cider Production” moderated by Dave Takush (Head Cidermaker and co-owner of 2 Towns Ciderhouse). The standing-room-only crowd illustrated that there is continued and growing interest in this trend. 

There were 37 other educational sessions across several categories, including Crafting Amazing Cider, Doing Better Business, Exploring Cider’s Flavor & Terroir, Growing Bountiful Apples and Selling More Cider. There were also 12 sensory sessions, including a tasting with cidermakers visiting from Sweden and Norway. 

My favorite panel was “The Burden of Burnout.” Focusing on one’s own mental health is something that is often overlooked, especially in an industry so many business owners/operators and their staffs have to grind it out to be successful. As Ellen Cavalli, co-founder of Tilted Shed Ciderworks, said in her “How to Stay Small” panel: “Someone needs to have a day job.” 

The panel, moderated by Katie Muggli, (Founder and Executive Director of Infinite Ingredient), and featuring Maura Hardman (Marketing & PR Manager for Seattle Cider Company), Ben Calvi (COO at Vermont Cider Co.) and  Dr. J. Nikol Jackson-Beckham (Director of Social Impact at the Brewers Association), talked about how important it is to recognize burnout and what leadership’s role is in managing their team’s burnout. 

Hardman noted how it is easier to see burnout in others, but you need to self-identify to take care of yourself. Calvi acknowledged that burnout is hard to address in a manufacturing environment and how challenging it is for leaders to have a sustainable and durable company. 

Jackson-Beckham, known by many as “Dr. J,” discussed how many small producers’ business models are built on burnout, and a real challenge is finding a way to make the numbers work without burning people out. Dr. J also talked about how marginalized groups often come into work feeling they have something to prove and are personally invested in being hyper- competent in their jobs, further exacerbating burnout. Muggli also provided several useful tips and strategies for burnout management (“The antidote to burnout is engagement”).

Several panels also discussed the value in educating consumers while also being authentic to yourself. Julie Rhodes (Strategic Business Consultant at Not Your Hobby Marketing) discussed knowing your market audience (“North Face couldn’t just market to everyone who didn’t want to be cold”) while also recognizing that market launches can take time. In several of the sessions, panelists discussed making your mark, finding effective partnerships and figuring out how to avoid the “beer-ification” of cider, especially with distributors. 

CiderCon always brings in new attendees, including the nine recipients of the Cider is For Everyone Scholarship, and this year the CiderSoms hosted the Newcomers Networking Session, sponsored by Maletis Beverage. There were also several other networking opportunities, including a BIPOC Cider Professional Meetup and an Orcharding Meetup where attendees exchanged apple tree scion wood.

I sat with first-time attendees Jordan and Lesley Zehner of Incline Cider Co. during the Friday lunch session. Jordan mentioned they’ve gone to the Northwest Cider Symposium in the past, and that they’d been having fun at CiderCon connecting with a different group of speakers, and hearing different perspectives from all over the world. Lesley found that the conference sessions had common themes of low/no ABV and consistent marketing.

Scholarship recipient William Santiago (a bartender at Crafted Concoctions), wasn’t sure where he would fit in at CiderCon, but by the end of the conference he had found his calling. Santiago found, “A sense of purpose of what I can do, and what I can bring both to the [cider] side and to the cocktail world, which is where I’m coming from. Being here gave me the opportunity to brighten my horizons, make new contacts [and] try some new flavors and cider styles.” 

CiderSoms has been involved with the Scholarship program since the start and it really warms my heart and excites me when the recipients leave the conference with this kind of energy and clarity. 

The ACA also welcomed their new leadership. Josie Mielke of Urban Orchard Cider Co. and Shannon Edgar of Stormalong were newly elected to the Board. Christine Walter of Bauman’s Cider was elected Board President, a role previously held by Legér for the past three years. Sarah Hemly of Hemly Cider was elected Vice President.

 Overall, CiderCon was an amazing time. We always love making this yearly cider pilgrimage to make connections with our cider family, get to see people in real life that we’ve only seen online, and welcome newcomers into the cider community. There truly is no place like the “Con!” Sean and I can’t wait to host you all next February in Chicago for CiderCon 2025.

Cheers!

• Photos: Brandon Buza

The post CiderCon 2024 Recap: Returning to Our Roots and Looking Ahead appeared first on Cider Culture.

Malaika Tyson is one half of the blogging duo, Cider Soms, which was started as a way to introduce wine-lovers to the world of cider. Created along with her husband Sean, the “Soms” blog seeks to uncover and explain the complexities of ciders in a fun way.

Brian Bolzan is Threadbare Cider House & Meadery’s head cidermaker. We first met Brian in Chicago at CiderCon 2023 and had a chance to get to know him better after spending a few days in Pittsburgh for the Barrel & Flow Fest. I was excited to learn more about Brian and how he got his start in cider. 

Malaika Tyson: How did you get your start into cider?

Brian Bolzan: I fell in love with fermentation from a pretty young age and grew really interested in homebrewing. I made beer at home for a really long time, and every fall I would make cider. My techniques started very minimally, like getting juice from an orchard, but that progressed to milling apples myself, or trying out different techniques with fermentation of apples and other fruit. A lot of my interests align with local geography, fruit varieties, agriculture and eliminating food waste. Being able to make those connections with people that are growing fruit was super-important to me.

What were you doing before working in cider?

My first job out of college was at a nonprofit kitchen incubator in Youngstown, Ohio. The concept was essentially helping small entrepreneurs start businesses around a food concept or a food product. I always had a strong interest in food production. My family tried to point me towards culinary school, but I realized that wasn’t something that I wanted to pursue. I ended up studying economics in college —  something completely different! But I wanted to use my knowledge and passion for ingredients and food to make an impact somewhere in the community and really found all those things with cider.

How did you end up at Threadbare?

I made the jump into professional brewing and working in a quality lab for a brewery. I then worked for Jack’s Hard Cider for three years. I learned a lot from the folks there and got a really good grounding for large fermentation, distribution, and managing a supply chain. I heard about Wigle Whisky Distillery opening [Threadbare] in Pittsburgh and interviewed over Thanksgiving weekend. I had a job offer that Monday and kind of uprooted our whole lives.

Threadbare is my dream job. I get to do what I love every day, which is great. We’re a pretty small, very tight-knit, production team. There’s three full-time people, myself and two others, and we’ve now created over 60 unique ciders!

What advice do you have for people getting into the cider industry?

First, I would say welcome and thanks for joining us. I think that the first big step to getting involved in cider is just putting yourself out there and looking to see what’s available. I think if I was getting started now in cider I would attend CiderCon, or enroll in a Cider Institute of North America (CINA) class. I was able to take an advanced cider and perry production course with Peter Mitchell at Washington State University. Even though I had been making cider for five years at that point, the class was a really transformative opportunity for me.

Also, go around and try cider. There’s so much great regional cider, so many styles and expressions, so figure out what you could do that’s unique to cider.

What is something that the cider industry as a whole should consider?

We need to address how we speak to our consumers. Their opinions are valid! We’re not a business if we don’t have drinkers at the end of the day.

At CiderCon 2023, a friend of mine said, “Be proud of everything you make.” And that really stuck with me because, regardless of what I make, it is my taste preference, we shouldn’t make anything if we’re not proud of it.

What are some of the ways you’ve reached your consumers?

We recently launched the Tree to Glass Cider House Tour and Tasting. We had eight people on our inaugural tour. It’s an intimate experience, with a tour and guided tasting. In the past, we would leave you with a sample at the end of the tour and say, “Now you can enjoy some cider.” But we learned that people want to feel more confident when they’re tasting cider, and by guiding them, letting them know that there’s not a right or wrong way to taste cider, and that all styles are equally valid, we’ve given our customers the confidence that they too can be an educated cider drinker. 

Are there any cidermaking pipe dreams you’re dying to make a reality?

Yeah, definitely. At the scale we work at we’ve never really been able to get a small-batch system off the ground. And sometimes when you work at bigger and bigger scales, you really don’t get to pick and choose as much of what goes in. I would love to find a way to have a little bit more room to experiment and let those experiments bear fruit in our tasting room with specific customers. I would also love to get our barrel program off the ground in a big way, like getting a lot more cider in oak barrels, and being patient and waiting to see what works.

Do you have a mentor in the industry?

Some of the people that have really helped me started in beer. The person who initially hired me at Flying Dog Brewery, Ben Chambers, had so many broad swaths of experiences in the industry. He really took a chance on me first and hired me into this industry 11 years ago. He was someone that really did help me to see that your first job or your first Ink link into the industry didn’t need to be your whole career trajectory.

Here in Pennsylvania, we’re a small but dedicated cider industry. Some of my peers that are cidermakers are Edwin [Winzeler] and Ben [Wenk] at Ploughman Cider, Scott [Topel] who used to make cider at Wyndridge Farm and Brian and Olga [Dressler] who own Dressler Estate. It’s been monumental for me to talk with them about common or different problems that we’re dealing with in fermentation, sales or any aspect of the day-to-day or big picture of this business.

I also look up to a lot of people, like Eleanor Leger of Eden Specialty Ciders or Autumn Stoscheck of Eve’s Cidery, who really laid the ground for us all. But the people that have really made this possible for me are those that are in the trenches doing it right alongside us and who have gone and started their own things, like the guys at Big Hill Ciderworks.

If you could have any superpower, what would you like to have?

That’s the hardest question you’ve asked all day! My superpower would be the ability to turn back time. I’m happy with all my choices in my life, but would like the ability to just enhance and do things better each time. 

To learn more about Threadbare, check out the cidery’s website, Facebook and Instagram pages.

• Photos: Threadbare Cider

The post Cidermaker Q&A: Threadbare Cider appeared first on Cider Culture.

There is no shortage of weird and wonderful ciders out there, and our love for them is well documented. As we’re scrolling through the Instagram cidersphere, perusing VinoShipper and delving into cidery’s websites, we often come across many eccentric ciders that make us smile: hazy pét-nats, plum jerkum, wild-fermented sidra, wine-cider hybrids, and so much more.

However, there are still some cider surprises waiting out there — unexpected delights that even reading their description makes us feel like, “Ok, we have to try that immediately.” That’s the feeling we got when learning about Greenpoint Cidery, an experimental project founded in 2015 by Nika Carlson. Drawing inspiration from natural wine, farmhouse practices, and the history of apples in America, Carlson’s production stands on a triangle of principles: local ingredients (she uses New York apples and fruit), traditional methods, and minimal intervention. Her ciders are joyful, inspired fermentations, and often incorporate foraged ingredients, like dandelions, wild grapes and mugwort.

Nika Carlson of Greenpoint Cidery

A Washington State native, she currently splits her time between Brooklyn and Hudson, New York. After hearing her on an episode of the podcast Disgorgeous, we were curious to learn more. And now you can learn more too, through this Cidermaker Q&A:

Cider Culture: Where did your fermentation journey begin?

Nika Carlson: I co-owned a bar in Brooklyn called The Drink, and an importer brought me some Spanish cider to try. I was blown away, and fell down the rabbit hole of what cider was and could be. A former partner and I subsequently planned to open a cider-focused bar, and a mead-making friend was like, “You should just make cider! It’s easy; I’ll teach you.” Ha. It proved to be a little more complicated, but here I am.

What were some of the people or influences who guided you along the way?

Big shoutout to Raphael Lyon at Enlightenment Wines, said mead maker who introduced me to fermenting. I learned a ton from him. When I started, I also looked to places like Farnum Hill, which really paved the way for the resurgence of heirloom apples and craft American cider; Aaron Burr Cidery and Andy Brennan’s emphasis on place and foraged fruit; and organic growers like Michael Phillips. I’m also curious about natural wine, but even more so in folk traditions in wine and cider making, and even beer. What were farm wives making? What are native beverages? What does history, written or otherwise, tell us about what people used to drink, and how where they lived influenced them? What does the land I inhabit look like through the seasons, and how can that be incorporated into what I make? Also just my palate, like, what excites me and tastes good to me?

What was one of the moments along your journey that made you feel like, “Yes, this is working, I can do this”?

A few years ago, I moved my trees onto a new property that some friends bought. It was … a big task, and I’m still getting those trees to produce at commercial volume. But once I was there, I think I came into my own as a cidermaker. I finally had some space to breath, literally and metaphorically. It’s a beautiful space that I feel incredibly lucky to explore, and I try to share that through my work. And I think people have really responded to that. I remember one day walking through the fields with a friend, picking mugwort, crushing it in my hands, and inhaling this incredible scent while talking about how this feathery, weed-y herb used to be a bittering agent for beer before hops where common. And thinking, “Oh man, I should try this with cider!” That’s a pretty common refrain for me. A smell or a sight or a story catches me and makes me wonder what could be.

What are some of the challenges you faced (are facing?) as a business owner? As a cidermaker?

Oh man. Money. Space. Time. Working alone. And those are all connected. I’m the sole employee of my business, so it’s a lot of work. I get help here and there, but I’m working the orchard and making the cider. And packaging it. And selling it. I’m a jack-of-all-trades, and I really enjoy the physical work and the creative freedom, but there are some things I enjoy more than others. Real talk? I am terrible at sales, and wish it came more naturally. I’ve also done everything on a really small budget, and I love a DIY, but being suddenly magically rich certainly wouldn’t hurt, ha.

Can you tell us a bit about your production facility? It’s in upstate NY, right? What is it like?

It’s in Hudson, NY, just outside of town. It’s a small space with limited equipment, and it involves a lot of tetris-ing of things. I’m working on getting more space, which will really allow me to increase my production volume. That’s a big goal for this year.

So many of your ciders include interesting ingredients and technique-driven experimentation. How did you develop this style? What do you think it allows the ciders to do or say, as opposed to more conventional ciders?

I think a lot of it has to do with my exploration of my own space, internally and externally. I’m a curious person, and I like to experiment. I like beautiful things, and I like to share. And I want to make people happy! So how do I convey to people the joy I feel at catching sight of secret wild apple blossoms in the spring? Or of walking down to the creek through a field of goldenrod and asters at the end of a warm fall day? How does that connect to our shared past? What does that make me want for our collective future? And how can we all look at our own spaces differently, and re-imagine how we want to inhabit them? I mean, none of that matters if it’s not delicious. Most of the time it is! And sometimes it’s not, so you figure out how to use it differently than you planned. Nature doesn’t really care about our plans or timeline. Anyway, I think it comes across in my ciders. Every bottle is a piece of that story.

Which of your ciders do you open on a special occasion?

I open one of the experimental bottles sometimes, but I’m also just as happy to drink my flagship cider, First Edition, which is the first style I ever made. I try to make sure each bottle feels like a unique experience, from the cider itself, to the bottle containing it, to the very experience of opening it. It should all be fun!

What kind of reaction do you hope for when someone tries your ciders for the first time?

I hope they’re surprised, I hope they’re satisfied, I hope they want to reach for more, and I hope they’re inspired to share it with people they care about.

What do you wish to do with Greenpoint Cidery that you haven’t been able to do yet? Do you have any future plans to share?

I’m just really excited to see what the future holds. This is a big planning year, and I’m laying the groundwork for expanding in a big way while also trying very hard to staying open to possibilities.

For more on Greenpoint Cidery, check out its Instagram and shop online (including its Mail CSA) via its website! While you’re there, check out the list of stockists where Carlson’s ciders are sold (mostly in NY State), and learn about Sail Freight, a delivery system via schooner (!) that’s available during the warmer weather months to communities situated along the Hudson River.

• Photos: Greenpoint Cidery

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Halloween is my favorite holiday, because I love celebrating all things spooky, ghostly and costumed. The candy certainly doesn’t hurt, either! Whether the candy comes from the pre-Halloween parties or it’s discreetly snatched from a sugar-crazed child’s hoard, you can enhance the candy experience with a skillful beverage pairing or two.

As a cider lover, I’m biased, admittedly, but I really do love cider as a pairing for these autumnal treats. Cider is such a varied category, it’s easy to find just the right cider for all different kinds of sweets. Here are just a few cider and Halloween candies to start our pairings with, but feel free to explore far beyond these brands and types. Have fun!  

Reese’s® Peanut Butter Cups: Embark Craft Ciderworks Whiskey Barrel-Aged Cider

I want a cider with real body to accompany any candy with peanut butter and chocolate. If I get any pairing right, it will be this one, because I eat Reese’s cups so often. They are my very favorite candy year-round. A strong cider pairing needs to incorporate body from some kind of barrel-aging. I like ciders that have spent some time in a spirit barrel, ideally a bourbon barrel. Embark Craft Ciderworks makes a Whiskey Barrel-Aged limited edition cider that is all treats and no tricks.

Twizzlers®: Virtue Cider Michigan Cherry Fruit Belt Cider

Fruit licorice, like Twizzlers, benefits from a complementary pairing: a modern cider with cherry or berries. Michigan Cherry Fruit Belt from Virtue Cider is a lovely option because of its balance and tasteful use of local cherries. This is a way to pair like with like, and use the fruity notes of a semi-dry cider to bridge the gap to a sweeter, chewy candy, like Twizzlers.

M&M’s®: Oyster River Winegrowers Wildman Cider

There’s something so special about M&M’s. Perhaps it’s the fact that this is the only candy that delivers both technicolor, bright hues and chocolate. I recommend pairing M&M’s with a dry, spontaneously fermented cider that uses only apples. Oyster River Winegrowers Wildman Cider will keep you and your guests haunting the cider table for more. What I especially like about this pairing is that the cider allows the sweet milk chocolate to play merrily across the palate, without turning bitter or sickly sweet. Wildman Cider, made with made with apples gathered from wild seedling trees, is unfiltered and made with native yeast fermentation that’s bottle conditioned with no sulfites added, which lends a tangy, feral quality, perfect for the spirit of Halloween.

Candy Corn: Stem Ciders Pear Cider

I know it’s already a controversial opinion to like candy corn, but this is the hill I will die on. There is a time and place for candy corn, and obviously it’s Halloween. Because this candy is such a delicate expression of sweetness, I want something that will blend with that. Pear cider is perfect, because it has sugars in the fresh pear juice that cannot ferment into alcohol, and blended with the apple cider, will maintain a very natural, fruity sweetness. Stem Ciders’ Pear Cider is blend of fresh-pressed pears and apples with notes of caramel and a crisp finish. The aromas and delicacy of this might be enough to sway even candy corn naysayers!

Mounds®: Portland Cider Company Pineapple Rosé

While Mounds aren’t my favorite candy, they are spectacular for fans of coconut and dark chocolate. Too few mainstream candies use dark chocolate, so this provides something fun for pairing. I want to push the coconut into a tropical vibe by choosing a pineapple cider like Portland Cider Company’s Pineapple Rosé. Pineapple goes with dark chocolate and with coconut, so this pairing is a no-brainer!

Red Hots®: Henney’s Vintage Still Cider

Wine pairings for candy sometimes suggest Red Hots with riesling, so I wanted to see how that could translate into cider. I think something off-dry and fruity, yet structured and still, would be perfect. I never like spicy with bubbles, so that means I’m looking for a still cider. Henney’s Vintage Still Cider provides all of that. It drinks smoothly and with rich sophistication, making it an enticing counter-balance to the spark and sharpness of cinnamon candy.

Sour Patch® Kids: Eden Specialty Cider Deep Cut Cider

Sour Patch Kids are a stand-in for a whole category of candies operating on sourness, sometimes to a fairly extreme degree. Being able to tolerate, or even enjoy, these candies was the measure of cool back in fourth and fifth grade. Now that I’m past those years, I appreciate sour candies in a new way, and to pair them, I want something similarly acid-driven in profile, and also wine-like. I think a high-acidity dry cider with a hint of wildness is the only way to go for sour candies. From the line of canned offering from Eden Specialty Ciders, Deep Cut is wonderful as a sour-candy pairing. It’s a great cider for any occasion, but it’s easy to appreciate its full-bodied, hazy texture when it’s contrasting with zingy Sour Patch Kids!

Bonus: Popcorn and popcorn balls are amazing with a spiced cider like Threadbare Cider’s Spiced Cider. Popcorn operates very much on texture, leaving room for more complex flavors in a pairing cider. I like a spiced cider with Halloween popcorn, so we can double-up on seasonal treats. Threadbare’s Spiced Cider is made with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and clove, so it delivers many notes of a mulled cider or apple pie, but via cider.

Kids may get trick-or-treating, but pairing cider with Halloween candy is a series of unearthly delights for the 21+ crowd!

• Photos: Dish Works

The post How to Pair Cider with Halloween Candy appeared first on Cider Culture.

The winter provides many opportunities to gather: Between the holidays, epic dinner parties and cozy indoor hygge vibes, there are creative ways to make the most of the dark, cold nights of the season. A special cider is the perfect festive libation to pair with hearty food and keep the conversation lively! If you like to add unique ciders to your cellar to pull from in celebratory moments, the Northwest Cider Club is right up your alley. This quarterly subscription curates beautiful small-batch ciders from makers across the Pacific Northwest, and delivers them right to your doorstep. It makes an amazing gift, and is a surefire way to ensure that you always have some really cool ciders ready to pop open and share with guests! 

The current Northwest Cider Club theme is “Winner’s Circle,” meaning that all of the ciders/cideries in both the Discover Box and Elevated Box were winners at the NW Cider Cup, an esteemed decade-old cider competition. There are some serious gems inside these boxes: stunning ciders made by extremely passionate people — truly the best of the best to pair with your holiday meals and BFF hangs. 

We were thrilled to chat with three of the cidermakers included in this installment of Northwest Cider Club; we hope that by learning their stories, you’ll be even more excited to try their ciders! 

Empyrical Orchard & Cidery

• Location: Snohomish, Washington
• Owners/cidermakers: Adam Wargacki and Elizabeth Lockhart
• NW Cider Cup 2023 Best New Cidery of the Year
• Cider in the NW Cider Club Elevated Box: Abstract, a single-varietal Harrison cider, cryo-concentrated and barrel-aged; 12.1% ABV

Excerpts from a conversation with Adam Wargacki and Elizabeth Lockhart:

We started making cider because: We had some early success in amateur cidermaking, and so we started an orchard project to support it. We planted our orchard of 1,000 trees, mostly European and American cider apples and some perry pears, about 8 years ago. Now about 30% of production comes from our own orchard. We’re new and not on a lot of shelves yet! – Elizabeth 

Our ciders are: Really rich and intense, aiming toward higher alcohol levels. Very sippable, and hopefully highly valued. Most of our ciders are wild-fermented, blended, barrel-aged and made in the champagne method. We want to push the quality of cider as high as it can possibly go. We want to make cider almost physically impossibly good. – Adam 

In the orchard, our philosophy is informed by: My career working as a biochemist, specifically in biofuels. In biofuels, concentration is key, and we’re bringing the same philosophy to cidermaking. We’ve borrowed from traditional, modern and even newer sustainable approaches to try to grow amazing fruit and make the most intensely flavored ciders we can. Our overall stance is the beauty of the orchard, and the cider is a byproduct of that. – Adam

Elizabeth and Adam Wargacki of Empyrical Cider

What it means to be NW Cider Cup Winners: It’s data for us. Our name is Empyrical; we have to have our ciders peer-reviewed. We couldn’t claim they were as good as they are unless the very best in the industry were tasting them and agreeing with us. We’re putting these ciders in front of the most knowledgeable cider enthusiasts in the country, and the feedback we’ve received has been incredible. That raises the bar for us, and guides us. – Elizabeth

Our cider in this quarter’s Northwest Cider Club box is: A single-varietal Harrison cider that we’re just releasing for this box! It’s traditional: very phenolic, leathery and spicy with some cinnamon holiday spice, not overly fruity like a lot of modern ciders. It reminds us of an Old Fashioned, with dark caramelized fruit and barrel notes. Like all of our ciders, the artwork and imagery on the bottle come from our pomological library, a collection of literature that we’ve been amassing and hope to make available to others soon. – Elizabeth

Pair Empyrical Abstract with: Light desserts or nuts and cheeses, or sip as you would an after-dinner cocktail.

Union Hill Cider

• Location: East Wenatchee, Washington
• Owners/cidermakers: Drew and Katja Handley
• NW Cider Cup Gold Medal in the Botanical Hopped category
• Ciders in the NW Cider Club Discover Box: Liquid Limber, a gose-inspired hopped cider, 7.8% ABV; and Wildwood, a wintry barrel-aged blend; 7.4% ABV.

Excerpts from a conversation with Katja Handley:

Our history with apples goes back: For 50 years! My husband is a third-generation orchardist, and his family has had an orchard here in the valley for half a decade. They grow fruit for culinary purposes, the fresh market, and in 2016, we started getting excited about cider. My husband and his roommate tried to make cider in a carboy in their closet, and it was undrinkable! 

An important part of our cidermaking journey was: Stumbling across Snowdrift Cider, which is also here in East Wenatchee. We became friends with them and learned more about cidermaking and cider-specific apples. From there, we planted new orchards and grafted some of our established orchards over to cider-specific fruit, like Dabinnet and Kingston Black. We have nine different varieties now. In 2018 we first started our company; it’s Drew, two of his childhood friends and my father-in-law running it. From there we’ve become bigger and started a tasting room. But we’re still very much just a family and friends making cider and sharing our craft and our love for these cider apple varieties.

We first started making our cider in: A little garage on Drew’s grandfather’s property where we lived. Once we outgrew that and built a shop to have more room for pressing and tanks, we transformed that little garage into our tasting room. Two years ago we put in a little stage and a tiered lawn, and started hosting live music, and then we built a bigger tasting room, with a lot more indoor seating. We’ve built a little community gem! People bring their kids and dogs, socialize and drink cider and eat food; that was our dream all along, to have this little spot where people can gather and be together. 

We enter cider competitions because: There’s so much work that goes into making cider, and recognition is always special and helps keep you motivated. It was our first year entering the NW Cider Cup and our hope was to gain some clarity on if what we’re doing is as good as we think it is. Judging your own product can get a little one sided. We were incredibly honored to take home a gold medal for our Liquid Limber, a personal and tasting room favorite. 

Our ciders in this quarter’s Northwest Cider Club Box are: Wildwood and Liquid Limber. 

Wildwood is our newest cider. It’s pretty different from what we’ve done before. Most of what we grow are bittersharp apples, which are more acid-driven, but this is made from bittersweets. The cider is barrel aged in red wine barrels for over a year, for an amber-colored hue and a well-rounded and layered flavor. It’s tannic, smooth and just a little sweet, with notes of dried apricot spiced wood and baked apple.

Pair Union Hill Wildwood with: Cheesy, rich foods, like risotto, chicken alfredo or other fall pasta dishes.   

 Liquid Limber is a cider Drew came up with when he was skiing with a friend. He thought, instead of limbering up, maybe you could just have a cider and then go skiing! It’s a cider aged on grapefruit, lemon and coriander and a touch of sea salt, hopped with Galena hops. It’s our winter seasonal that’s really fun, fresh, complex but also very easy-drinking. Inspired by gose-style beers, it’s the perfect balance of hoppy, zesty and a little salty.

Pairings Union Hill Liquid Limber with: Simple bold fare, like a burger and fries, prosciutto and goat cheese pizza or a pulled pork BBQ sandwich.

Swift Cider

• Location: Portland, Oregon 
• Owner/cidermaker: Aidan Currie 
• NW Cider Cup Bronze Medal in the Fruited Cider category 
• Cider in the NW Cider Club Discover Box: Swift Cider Blueberry, a refreshing, floral fruited cider; 5.1% ABV.

Excerpts from a conversation with Aidan Currie:

I had the idea to start a cidery: Back in 2011 when I couldn’t find any local cider in Portland. There were beautiful wines and craft beers, but no real craft cider on any of the bar taps around town. I thought, the Pacific Northwest produces 85% of North America’s apple crop but nobody out here is turning it into alcohol. I’d already started a root beer company in college, and worked at Deschutes Brewery, so I had a bug for fermentation and small business. 

In the beginning phases of my cidery: There was a lot of learning and scrapping it with small and limited resources. We grew into a bigger facility about five years ago, with larger tank capacity, and became a more distributed cider brand. 

We’re known for: Dry and semi-dry ciders made from apples and fresh-pressed or whole fruit. We’ve always tried to differentiate ourselves from the big cideries that use concentrates and very little fresh fruit. We like to experiment, too. For years we’ve been selling 3 to 5 main ciders, and up to 40 small-batch releases a year. 

My thoughts on cider competitions and awards are: These days, I get so many emails from cider competitions I’ve never heard of, it can feel like a scheme sometimes. But the NW Cider Cup, that’s the exact other side of the spectrum. They’re trying to do everything right, and they’ve gotten better with experience. They define styles that are common in the market, and do training to educate the judges. And the judging is really good; people take their time with it. For us small cider brands, even sending a few bottles to a competition is precious to us, so the judges honoring that effort and giving feedback is important! 

Our cider in this quarter’s Northwest Cider Club box is: Swift Blueberry Cider, which was an award-winning cider at GLINTCAP and the NW Cider Cup! People make a lot of fruited ciders with concentrates and sugar, but ours is made with Northwest blueberries for a real, fresh blueberry character, with a medium sweetness. It’s a clean fruit-forward cider, with blueberry on the nose, and a little bit of spicy, fresh jammy blueberry on the palate. We don’t add sulfites to our ciders which helps the cider develop in the can, so this actually ages well! Over time, you’ll see more jammy flavors and apple notes pop through the cider. 

Pair Swift Blueberry Cider with: A fatty fish or a straightforward steak; or sweet treats, like fresh baked blueberry muffins, or high-quality dark chocolate or chocolate truffles.

There is so much more to explore in the winter Northwest Cider Club boxes! Head to the Northwest Cider Club website to get the full deets, and don’t forget to join the club by November 9 to ensure delivery in plenty of time for the holidays.

• Bottle/can shots: Northwest Cider Club
• All other photos: Courtesy of their respective cideries

The post The ‘Winner’s Circle’ Boxes from the Northwest Cider Club Are for Pairing & Sharing appeared first on Cider Culture.

Many of us probably share this experience: as a kid, walking around the woods or a little patch of farmland, coming across a gnarled old tree heavy with teeny tiny apples, and excitedly picking one to try. However, usually, that first bite is instantly spat out, as your tender young taste buds are flooded with an intensely unpleasant sourness or cotton-y mouthfeel. Crab apples, one quickly learns, do not make good snacks.

They do, however, make really good ciders. Crab apples (sometimes spelled “crabapples”) can be a hugely important element of a cidermaker’s tool kit. Why, though? The TL;DR of it all is that they provide potent little pops of acidity and tannin, the two flavor/texture elements can be tricky to develop in cider. Crab apples are, as we’ve learned, like glitter: A little goes a long way, but when you get it right, the “wow” factor is undeniable!

Some varieties that you might come across in hard cider include Wickson, Dolgo, Columbia, Hewe’s Crab, Chestnut Crab and Geneva Crab.

Crab apples are small trees of the genus Malus, and are native to Asia and North America. What separates them from apple trees are the size of the fruits: technically, a crab apple tree grows fruits 2-inches or less in diameter, while a regular apple tree grows fruits 2-inches or larger in diameter. They’re not really farmed, and they are considered more of an ornamental tree, but are often used as rootstock to graft other apples onto.

Crabs were likely included in some of the first American ciders, largely because of their versatility. Troy Lehman, the owner of Big Hill Ciderworks, right smack in the heart of apple country in South Central Pennsylvania, notes that in the 19th and early 20th centuries, a crab apple tree was part of pretty much every farm.

“The actual reason the farmers planted them way back when was for jellies and jams, because the pectin content in that fruit is just so high,” he says. “Crab apple trees are also great pollinators because their blooms are so prolific.”

Lehman, who planted a cider apple orchard on his farm in 2011, he did not plant crab apple trees, despite knowing that they’d grow very well. It’s all about the process of harvesting — it can take 10 times as long to pick a bushel of crabs versus a bushel of culinary or cider apples.

“I didn’t want to grow them for commercial sales, for sales to other cider makers, because harvesting them is so labor-intensive,” he says. “If I’m being honest, it wouldn’t be worth my time to pick them for what I’d get paid.”

However, he does appreciate what crab apples can bring to the table in terms of making fantastic cider. All of the acidity and tannins that make crab apples so gnarly to eat out-of-hand make them a powerful balancing and brightening agent for ciders. For Lehman, though, their greatest strength is in the tannins.

He harvests Manchurian crab apples (“just an incredible little apple,” Lehman says) for Big Hill’s Manchurian Cider, and has since planted some Dolgo apples on his farm for a single-varietal Dolgo cider. Like the English bittersharp and bittersweet apples he grows, crab apples have unique flavor profiles and levels of acidity and tannin.

“For me, if a crab apple doesn’t have tannins that are off the charts, I’m not interested, because I can get acidity elsewhere in apples that are easier to harvest,” he explains.

Neither of the crab apple ciders that Big Hill produces are particularly big sellers, compared to their modern ciders, but Lehman sees a different value in continuing to make them.

“We only make the Manchurian cider every other year, 500 gallons at a time, and we sell it to people who are really into cider online and at farmer’s markets. Plus, stuff like crab apples ciders keeps me interested and having fun.”

Across the country, at Dragon’s Head Cider in Vashon, Washington, head cidermaker Jeren Stoneman makes one single varietal crab apple cider in the brand’s lineup of traditional English-style ciders: Columbia Crabapple. Some crabs are best for showcasing on their own, while others shine better as blending agents.

“The Columbia we make into a single varietal because it has very high acidity, which we can temper with certain yeast strains, and beautiful aromatics and a bright, tropical flavor that we want to showcase,” he says. “On the other hand, the Puget Spice crab apple that we grow has more aggressive tannins and higher acidity,  and that one is more of a blender that I might use for a cider that’s lacking a little pizzazz.”

Stoneman echos Lehman’s statement that as a crop, crab apples can create some logistical issues.

“They’re such tiny apples, and are difficult to pick,” he says. “Also, on our belt press, there’s an elevator that goes up to a grinder and drops the apple mash into the press, but when you start working with smaller and smaller apples, you can lose some through grating or small holes in the machines, which is sad.”

One interesting thing about crab apples that Stoneman has noticed is how differently they grow and express flavors depending on the geography. He grew up in Humboldt County in Northern California, where the Wickson Crab was originally developed by plant breeder Albert Edder (locally the variety is referred to as Edder’s Champagne). When he moved to Vermont earlier in his cidermaking career, Stoneman noticed that the East Coast Wicksons were not what he was used to. In California, the longer growing season meant that the Wickson crabs developed a high sugar content and made aromatic ciders weighing in at 10-12% alcohol. In Vermont the shorter growing season meant Wickson ciders with much lower alcohol content.

“It seems like overall, the Wicksons didn’t like growing in Vermont, because they’d crack and sometimes you’d lose portions of the crop due to rot b/c of the wetness,” he says. “Back in Humboldt County, Wicksons love it there, the branches look like grape clusters. If you’re growing crabs in the region they like, they thrive and are resilient.”

If you’re looking for some crab apple ciders to try, here are a few to keep an eye out for: ANXO Cider Crabapple Ciderkin, Albemarle CiderWorks Virginia Hewes Crab, Haykin Family Cider Snowdrift Crabapple Cider, Liberty Ciderworks Wickson Crabapple, Ploughman Cider Rosedale, Farmstead Cider Bitter Local, Tandem Cider The Crabster and Wheel Line Cider The Leveler.

• First four photos: Big Hill Ciderworks
• Second two photos: Dragon's Head Cider

The post Apple Academy: Crab Apples appeared first on Cider Culture.

Malaika Tyson is one half of the blogging duo, Cider Soms, which was started as a way to introduce wine-lovers to the world of cider. Created along with her husband Sean, the “Soms” blog seeks to uncover and explain the complexities of ciders in a fun way.

Ian McGregor and Orion Bellorado are the founders of Farmstead Cider, a Jackson Hole, WY-based cidery making ciders with Wyoming and Rocky Mountain-grown apples. I first encountered these folks at CiderCon in Chicago (’21) and I was excited to learn more from Ian about more, including how their ciders help with human-animal interactions.

Ian McGregor

Cider Culture: I’m not that familiar with cideries in the Rocky Mountain Region. What can you tell us about the region?

Ian McGregor: We are a budding  community, as we’re the only cidery in the state. There is a cidery in Idaho and one in Montana, too. I’m honestly itching for that to change. I love the community behind cider.

How did you get your start in cider?

I started out in wine making. I worked for a bunch of different wine cellars over six years and also worked in different vineyards and diversified farm settings, including managing a 100-acre farm for 3.5 years in Healdsburg, California. I was enthralled by the wonders of fermentation and growing things, but I was intimidated by the level of capital and competition in the wine industry. I also decided I wanted to be near family, so I moved back to Wyoming and started an organic farm.

Are there a lot of apples in Wyoming?

When I was growing up in Wyoming, I thought nothing grew here except for kale. But when I got back to Jackson, I started to notice crab apple trees growing everywhere I hadn’t noticed before. I also discovered all types of sweet apples that I didn’t think grew in Wyoming.

 Is that when you decided to start making cider?

Not quite. Initially I was really interested in seeing how different apples grew in this cold climate. Then my business partner, Orion, and his wife registered for (and received) a little basket fruit press in 2016 that would squeeze out maybe a gallon of juice. Both of our wives are from the northeast and have vivid memories of apples being part of autumn traditions. So in the fall, we found a few free trees and started pressing some apples. We did a couple batches of fermentations as well as a sweet cider, and had some low key fun with it.

Orion Bellorado and Ian McGregor of Farmstead Cider, photo by Ryan Dee/Sharp Eye Deer

Why did you decide to take your cidermaking commercial?

That winter we went to a dinner and the lead large carnivore biologist for the Park Service was also there. We brought some of our ciders and started talking about picking apples locally. The biologist told us that there was an issue with apples in neighborhoods all around Teton County. The vast quantity of apples in certain areas are a nuisance for the residents because the bears come and eat the fruit. They told us there was some funding for projects that help mitigate bear and human conflict. And since apples were one of the main contributors, there would be an opportunity for a grant if someone could pick and remove the apples.

That’s really cool. So did you get the grant?

Yes, it was a three-year grant that we received in 2017. When applying, we told them we could pick apples in the problem areas, and asked them to help us pay for the labor to do that. We also told them that we’d try to start a business that could create an incentive to have these apples removed without taxpayer money. While we didn’t get a ton of money, it was enough to harvest the first year and we hit as many trees as we could in all these different areas.

We got permission from landowners and harvested a ridiculous amount of crab and sweet apples from abandoned, neglected, wild and otherwise ignored trees and we officially opened for business in 2019. Over time, we’ve built a huge network of people whose trees we pick apples from who are also a great customer base when our summer tourism sales end.

Is that why your slogan is, “Save Bears, Drink Cider”?

Yes. We are interested in the bear-human relationship; it’s mainly black bears where we live. We do have grizzly bears in Jackson and Yellowstone, but not in our actual town. But more and more bears have been able to expand their range as they’ve recovered well after previously being listed as an endangered species.

In 2020, there was a famous grizzly bear from Grandview National Park, Bear 399, who came out of her den with four cubs. She’s known in our area because she’s always lived so close to the town. She mostly stays near the park area, but sometimes wanders among traffic jams of people taking pictures of her. With four cubs, they learn to live on their own more slowly, and so with many mouths to feed, she expanded her range looking for food, not just hunting animals, but also hunting for fruit. In the fall of 2020, she came and brought her four cubs right through downtown Jackson. In the fall of 2021 she brought her cubs back into town and they were huge!

Everyone knew where she was and we were zooming around harvesting trees all over the place and trying to predict where she would be next. We never actually saw her, but one of the people who has a tree in an urban orchard sent us a picture of her shaking a tree with her four cubs all around it eating apples. When Bear 399 and her cubs came to town, our number of urban orchard signups doubled.

Since you’re community harvesting, how do you build flavor in your cider?

We figure out what brix and flavor attributes we want, and find those in the apples. We really got into learning about how to use crab apples because the bears forced us to harvest every single apple, not just the sweet ones. We started playing with all the different amazing crab apple diversity and it’s become our bread and butter to work with these overlooked fruits. We also identified some unique sweet varieties, like Yellow Transparent which was a common tree planted by homesteaders.

Do you use the same yeast strains for all your ciders?

At the very beginning we used champagne yeast. But it gets so cold here, that we found that when we used commercial yeast we had to heat the tanks and the equipment or the commercial yeast would shut down. We did a bunch of wild yeast fermentations and found they handled our 40-degree cellar pretty well. Even though fermentation was slow, the yeast wouldn’t struggle and kept ticking along. So since then we have become 100% wild spontaneous fermentation.

How many ciders do you currently sell?

We have between 7 and 10 ciders. When something sells out, we discontinue it. For example, we made a cider from a 130-year old orchard in Lander, Wyoming. We were able to get a really big harvest one year, but there hasn’t been much since and we just sold out in May.

We’ve named a bunch of our ciders after the neighborhoods in which we harvest, like the Kelly Street Cider. We also blend all bittersweets from different neighborhoods into our Bitter Local blend. Our Teton Pét-Nat has more of the dessert sweet apples and is a more accessible cider.

And all of the apples used for Farmstead Cider are from your general region?

We generally only work with orchards and fruit grown in Wyoming and in the Rocky Mountain region. We also started a little orchard of about 150 trees. I’ve planted a ton of diversity and we’ve grafted all sorts of different varieties. Last winter we had about 175 trees and 25 of them died from the cold and some others looked sad. We are still trying to find trees that can survive the winters which can get as cold as -20 degrees.

What rootstock did you graft the trees on to?

What a journey. During the first year, we had about a 40% success rate, and I learned a great deal about grafting. We used a lot of M-111 and Bud 118. The second year I did dwarf rootstock, which we will never do again. The trees only grew two inches!

Then I found a cool connection between the cider world and deer hunting. There is a guy in Pennsylvania at Blue Hill Wildlife Nursery who is interested in using apples to attract deer. He’s grown a ton of Dolgo seedlings and uses them as root stock to graft all sorts of wild trees he’s found in Pennsylvania. The Dolgo seedlings I’ve ordered from him have performed so much better than anything else we’ve used, which makes sense because Dolgo grows well in this area.

Last question! If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

I would want powers like Isabela Madrigal from Encanto, possessing the ability to instantaneously make flowers and plants grow.

To learn more about Farmstead Cider, and to keep up with bears, check out the brand’s website, and Facebook and Instagram pages.

• Feature photo: Ryan Dee/Sharp Eye Deer
• Other photos: Courtesy of Farmstead Cider

The post Cidermaker Q&A: Farmstead Cider appeared first on Cider Culture.

This post is sponsored by the Northwest Cider Association, who we thank for being a supporter of Cider Culture!

When you open a can or bottle of cider, no matter where you are or what you’re doing, you’re completing the final step in a long chain of events. Imagine a sped-up rewind, leading the cider in your hand all the way back into the orchard, to an apple hanging on a tree branch. Imagine the hands that tended to that tree and nourished its soil, which fed its roots, and, even further back in time, grafted that tree into existence.

One of the most poetic things about cider is that, whether or not you know the story behind it, there is a story in the liquid. And, even if you don’t have the foggiest idea about the land it came from, each sip contains an echo, an imprint, that connects you to the place the cider comes from, and the people who made it. 

As a way to further explore this topic, we’ll be looking at two cideries featured in the Taste of Place boxes from the autumn edition of the Northwest Cider Club. The cideries themselves are quite different from one another, but what unites them is their passion for translating a sense of place — a sense of home, truly — into their ciders.     

Puget Sound Cider Co.

Nick and Holly Coleman

Nick Hill and Holly Coleman didn’t set out to be cidermakers. They are antique dealers by trade, and own an antique shop in downtown Renton, in Washington State. It was the acquisition of an antique cider press, scooped up at some point along the way, that sparked their interest. Nick started making fresh-pressed apple juice for their shop’s customers, and in 2017, decided to try making hard cider.

“The history and tradition of cidermaking in our country was the hook that got me into it,” he says. “I wanted to make cider like they made it 200 years ago.”

After some initial experimenting and researching, Nick enrolled in the Cider Institute of North American program at the University of Washington for more specialized training.

When it came to starting their own cidery, a sense of geographical place was at the center of their brand identity. For one thing, the name, Puget Sound Cider, references their geographical location, reminding anyone who comes across their cider what corner of the world they’re located in.

The second component was the fruit. In a search for cider apples, Nick came across a farmer selling just that in Ellensburg, Washington, via Craigslist. They developed a relationship, and Puget Sound has been using those apples ever since. The farmer started the orchard 8 years ago, but in 2022, let Nick and Holly know that he was going to cease operations in order to spend more time with his family.

The duo jumped at the chance to take over the mature, 10-acre orchard.

“It was a golden opportunity to become an estate cidery,” Nick says. “We’re very familiar with the orchard and the processes, though I’ve learned a lot in the year since then.”

With no agricultural experience outside of helping out during harvest in years past, Nick has had to come up to speed quickly. For instance, as this fall will be their first time running harvest, they’re still trying to figure out logistics like where to procure apple bins, and where to store them. 

One thing that Nick can confidently explain is why this place is special as a growing site:

“The orchard is on the slopes of the Manastash Ridge, which is a small mountain range. The volcanic soil there is so fertile and has excellent drainage,” he says. “At our high elevation, around 1,800-feet above sea level, we get tons of sun, but it’s also very windy. There is also up to a 40-degree difference between day and night, which contributes to the flavor and intensifies the sugar content of the apples.” 

They’re currently growing 24 different varieties of traditional cider apples. One of those apples, which happens to be Nick’s favorite, is the Kingston Black, which is showcased in the Kingston Blend Cider in the Northwest Cider Club’s Elevate Box.

“I think it’s the best apple in the world to make cider with, and it does very well in our orchard,” Nick notes. “The combination of the higher altitude and temperature fluctuations, plus the nutrients in the soil, really do produce apples in our orchard that have a more intense flavor with heavier tannins than fruit from Western Washington.” 

Puget Sound Cider is currently building out a new cidery at the orchard in Eastern Washington, and maintaining the tasting room nestled in Nick and Holly’s antique shop. They also have plans to start a second orchard in Western Washington to grow some of the varieties, like Yarlington Mill, that don’t grow well in the Eastern part of the state. 

For a sip of Washington State terroir, check out Puget Sound Cider Co.’s Kingston Blend and its co-fermented Blackberry Cider in the newest Northwest Cider Club Elevated Box.

La Familia Cider

For José Gonzales, his wife Shani and their children, JJ and Jazz, the sense of place they are conveying through La Familia Cider Co. is of a different sort. Their ciders capture the flavors that they grew up with: the refreshing, bright, fruity aguas frescas that are ubiquitous in South and Central America.

José is Mexican-American, and as a kid, his mom would often make aguas frescas, in flavors like hibiscus and tamarind, for his family to cool off with after long, hot days working in the berry fields. When José and Shani started getting into craft beer and cider, they looked high and low for any ciders that featured these sorts of flavors, but they couldn’t find a thing. Following an instinct that the flavors would shine in cider, José asked his mom to make him a batch of juices.

“We picked up those juices and mixed some with some Portland Cider,” he remembers. “As soon as we had a sip, we knew we had something.”

After a brief time working in the alcohol exportation industry, José decided to bring their aguas frescas-meets-cider vision to life. Jeff and Lynda Parish, the owners of Portland Cider Co., offered their facility for cidermaking and helped José procure Northwest-grown apples. Thus, La Familia Cider Co. was born, and launched on Cinco de Mayo in 2017. 

Though José and his family craved the fruity flavors of their youth, in the beginning, they didn’t find as much resonance in the larger beverage market.

“A lot of people didn’t know these flavors,” José explains. “Store buyers would see us as too niche, or put us in the Hispanic food section right next to the Corona, instead of the craft sections.” 

La Familia’s core cider flavors are apple, Jamaica (hibiscus), Guayaba (guava) and Tamarindo (tamarind). Though hibiscus is more mainstream these days, and Guayaba is now their best-seller, José notes that many people he encounters have no idea what tamarind is. On the other hand, he does sometimes talk to other Latin American folks or people of Southeast Asian or Middle Eastern descent who are surprised and delighted to find tamarind in a cider. 

However, over the past few years, distributor and store buyers attitudes have begun to shift and expand. 

“What’s opening the doors even more for us are all the discussions in our community about race — people want to be more open, they don’t want to be that gatekeeper that blocks a product because they don’t have a connection to it,” he says. “People are starting to see that this isn’t just a ‘Hispanic cider.’ It’s a great cider.” 

José was born in the US to immigrant parents, who came to the Pacific Northwest from Mexico to work in the agricultural industry. They are a part of a multi-generational movement of people from Central America to Oregon and Washington; the lack of workers due to World War II led to the creation of the Bracero Program in 1942, an agreement between Mexico and the United States that permitted millions of Mexican men to work legally in the United States on short-term labor contracts. It created a pipeline of agricultural workers who built the farming industry in that region, and José’s family is part of that story.

José, who started working in the fields at age 10, notes that the identity of La Familia, and to some extent, of himself, don’t fit into a tidy box. 

“Growing up in Oregon, I was always called Mexican, but when I went to visit my family in Mexico City, my cousins were like, ‘You’re not Mexican!’ That left us thinking, what are we?”

It’s this duality, in some ways the essence of the immigrant story — leaving a homeland and putting down roots in a new country and a different culture — that is embodied in La Familia’s ciders.

It’s also why José says that the clientele in La Famila’s Salem, OR taproom might look different than at other cideries.

“Now, there are so many American-raised people who have Latin American heritage, and they all grew up on the drinks our ciders are inspired by, so our taproom regulars are overall young and Latino,” he says. “Those are our die-hard supporters.”

For José, when he thinks of the “place” of Oregon terroir, it’s less about soil composition or elevation, and more about the people working the land.  

“We always think of the farm workers, and the connection between the agricultural and immigrant communities,” he notes. “Even today, we’re still just building awareness of the field worker who picks the hops and apples and fruits in the drinks that we enjoy … we hope that eventually that awareness will turn into acceptance and appreciation.”

To that end, La Familia has always donated a portion of its profits to organizations that help immigrants face legal challenges or cover DACA fees.   

“We started the company during the Trump administration when kids were being put in cages at the border. We thought what a blessing to use this name, La Familia, but it’s also a responsibility,” José says. “We knew that we had to do something to help.”

Find La Familia Cider’s Jamaica cider in the Northwest Cider Club’s Discover Box.

To learn more about all the Taste of Place ciders in the Northwest Cider Club’s fall boxes, or to purchase or become a subscriber, visit its website. The Northwest Cider Club is a generous sponsor of Cider Culture!

• Feature photo: La Familia Cider
• Bottle shots: Northwest Cider Club
• All other photos: Courtesy of the respective cideries

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For LGBTQIA+ Pride Month, we’re sharing stories of queer-identified cidermakers from across the country. In this Cider Culture feature, meet Scott Katsma of Seattle Cider Co.

Most cider lovers have an “aha” moment with one specific cider, a special pour that offers an eye-opening, mind-expanding experience into how exciting cider can be. For Scott Katsma of Seattle Cider Co., that was Sea Cider’s Prohibition, which he tried while working one summer after college at The Noble Fir, a bar in Seattle. Before that, Katsma had been more into craft beer, and was about to embark on a career in special education.

However, the magic of cider stayed with him, and a decade later, feeling burnt out from teaching, he jumped at the chance to get in on the ground floor of a brand-new cidery, Seattle Cider Co. That was fully 10 years ago, and in that time, Katsma has worn so many hats in the growing company. Currently, his title is Quality/R&D Manager, and his responsibilities are many!

We had a chance to chat with Katsma about his experiences working at Seattle Cider Co., and to learn a bit more about some of the products, including Seattle Cider Co.’s Love & Light Pride campaign.

Cider Culture: What were those early days at Seattle Cider like? Being part of a company at its start can be a wild ride…

Scott Katsma: Moving at breakneck speed rarely allows for proper planning or sustainability, which is unfortunate. Early on, it was all adaptation and problem-solving. You learn big lessons on the fly, and hope to implement changes as you go. We learned a lot of hard lessons quickly, but that just continued to allow us to improve, innovate and grow fast.

At the core of it, what we excelled at was pretty simple – making dry cider that we knew we wanted to drink that didn’t exist yet on the grocery store shelf. And we were unwavering in that vision. Not having a ton of craft cider options on the shelf also meant we were extremely free to innovate with other ingredients. From the very beginning, we just experimented with trying to co-ferment things, like fresh herbs, other fruits and teas, with apple juice – a technique that is now having a moment – and that gave us a lot of freedom to play. Ten years later, and with the rapid growth in both the RTD and the functional CPG space, there aren’t a ton of flavor or ingredient combinations that haven’t been explored, so it makes the task of coming up with something entirely new and fresh a thousand times more arduous. The early days weren’t too different from the past three years, however, it’s still just as wild a ride as ever. Yeehaw! 

How did you learn to make cider? What were some early victories and/or learning moments you discovered along the way?

More often than not, we became experts by trial-and-error. We learned to make cider, on a large scale, by applying what we knew about commercial brewing, and figuring out rather quickly that a lot of those things absolutely do not translate to wine fermentation. For example, harvesting and re-pitching yeast is a complete fool’s errand. After quickly switching to a dry wine yeast, we went through a couple years of massive growth and were largely stuck with using this yeast as our house yeast. People came to love this flavor profile and it became synonymous with Seattle Cider, despite the yeast not being exactly ideal from a nutrient or temperature standpoint. Knowing what we know now, it’s even hard to say that if we could go back and select a different yeast from the beginning that we would, because the one we choose also got us to where we are today.

I’ve also learned through community and collaboration. The cider industry is unlike any other and thrives on people who are generously open to sharing insights, experiences, and education. In addition to making some bad cider, I also have a group of peers, now close friends, to thank for a lot of my learning along the way.

What’s the first product you made for Seattle Cider Co. that made you feel like, “Hell, yes!”?

There have definitely been memorable batches along the way, but I feel like that feeling has existed from my very first day. My very first juice truck, my very first canning run, my very first time purchasing my cider out in the world and sharing it with friends and family filled me with pride and excitement. I feel very lucky to have been a part of something that we knew was exciting from the very beginning. Oh, and the Light Cider that we launched last year is extremely glug-able, and every can I drink is still a “hell, yes!” moment for me.

As the company grew, how did your role shift or grow?

My first official title was “cider monkey” because I was the only production/cellar employee, but that quickly progressed into becoming our Head Cidermaker in 2015. And then when we started building a hard seltzer brand in 2017, I took on all of the product creation and innovation roles that came with that and became the Director of Fermentation and Innovation for all our brands. Despite making quite a bit of cider, we’re still a super-small company with just over 30 employees, so out of necessity we are constantly shifting and growing to meet the needs of the moment.

What have been some of the most rewarding and/or challenging parts of the journey?

The most rewarding part has been the mentorship that has come with building and working for an industry-leading brand. Throughout the years, providing education and training to friends and co-workers in order to help them grow is super-fulfilling to me, and something I hope to continue to be able to do. Seeing someone start on our packaging line, giving them the opportunity to step into leadership and grow their skills as a fermenter, and to then become a head cidermaker, or start their own brand, is actually really fun and vastly outweighs the grind of finding someone new to start on the packaging line. Helping increase the quality and quantity of cider in the world only helps to elevate cider’s overall perception as a category. The more better cider in the world, the better for everyone!

Scott Katsma at the Northwest Cider Cup

What does being in a more R&D-focused position look like? You also mentioned that you’re responsible for innovating new products. How does that component work?

Quality for us means never-ending training and education. Constant empowerment and growth. It’s something that feels like we never have enough time for, but it is essential in our growth and evolution.

Developing new products these days takes so much alignment across all aspects of our business that it necessitates someone able to translate sales, marketing and budgeting inputs, and have it mean something on a product level. There are also larger questions of brand strategy to consider, and so most of my job involves applying these filters, while simultaneously overlaying production and operational constraints, with the ultimate goal of maintaining a playground for our brewers and cidermakers to be creative. For me, I’m always trying to make the one thing that me and my friends would want to drink, but a lot of that is also inspired by travel, other cultures and other industries. I’m a huge CPG [consumer packaged goods] nerd and am obsessed with trying every new drink or snack on the shelf.

Even though the cider industry has changed a lot over the past decade, there’s still not a ton of diversity, especially in production. It seems like Seattle Cider is working to center different voices and promote inclusion; can you talk a bit more about that?

When I started at Seattle Cider, our company was just a bunch of white 20-something-year-old boys, and I wasn’t even out to my family yet. So yeah, a bit different! Growing up, I was hyper-aware that I was different from others and hid that difference to avoid being targeted. And unfortunately, that was true, too, when I entered the craft beverage world in 2013. While both the beverage industry and I have made progress, it’s not enough, and the demographics of industry insiders do not match the demographics of our customers or the world we live in, and many groups are underrepresented or invisible.

I believe that by being more open about myself, I can also create more space for others who are different from the norm. I can welcome them, amplify their voices and empower them to be themselves in places where they have been shut out. My personal mission is to create spaces that my younger self deserved: to invite and encourage diverse perspectives and build a welcoming culture. At one point, our cidermaking team was 2/3 women and 2/3 queer. That felt good, or at least remarkably better; it was a positive change, but still not enough. It’s never a box you check one time, and we have a long way to go, especially in terms of racial equity. We as a company are actively working to represent all cider drinkers: developing our marketing assets, improving our hiring practices, amending our employee policies, etc. Getting it right is multi-faceted and a team effort, and we know that this requires listening, learning and doing better.

Let’s talk about the Seattle Cider’s Love & Light Pride campaign? Were you involved with this? If so, how and what was that process like?

When we were building the initial campaign for the launch of Light Cider last year, we really wanted to reprise some classic light beer tropes with a more inclusive lens. We envisioned a “lawn-mower beer” commercial that didn’t feature a white middle-aged man. We knew we wanted it to be lifestyle focused, but to also reflect the diversity of our customer base, such that everyone could see themselves enjoying this cider at the end of a day or hike. This was the vision for Light Cider from day one, to be as inclusive in our marketing as possible. So this year’s Love & Light campaign is a natural progression of the spirit of Light Cider and a very exciting encapsulation of how we hoped to represent the brand.

For the past 8 years, we’ve released different iterations of pride-themed packaging in the month of June to highlight the important work of our community partners, including the GSBA, Pride Foundation, Center on Halsted, Trail Mixed Collective; and this year’s partnership with the Queer Mountaineers for Love & Light felt like a natural fit in order to help support the work they tirelessly do to make our community more accessible to all.

Thanks so much to Scott for sharing his story and insights on the industry with us! For more about Seattle Cider, including info about its tasting room, The Woods, visit its website and follow along on Instagram and Facebook.

• Photos: Courtesy of Scott Katsma and Seattle Cider Co.

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For LGBTQIA+ Pride Month, we’re sharing stories of queer-identified cider makers from across the country. Meet Monique Tribble of Yonder Cider, via an article which originally appeared in Prohibitchin in September 2021.

Monique Tribble didn’t pick up the phone when I called for this interview. “Just finishing up a filtration. Call you back in 2 mins!” she texted before ringing me back, with a chorus of forklift chirps in the background. Two weeks after our conversation, she got married. Two weeks after that, Yonder Cider Co. (where she makes cider) and Bale Breaker Brewing Co.’s joint taproom in Seattle’s Ballard Brewery District opened its doors.

Needless to say, she’s been very busy—and that’s just how Monique likes it. “It has been wild,” she laughs. “We have done so much in a year, more than any other job in my life, with a smile on my face.”

As cider maker at sister companies Yonder and The Source Cider, the latter of which provides fruit, fermentation services, blending, and even canning for other cider brands, Monique is an integral part of a tiny team stationed in the heart of apple country. Although she’s now a bonafide cider head, only a few short years ago, she was gearing up for a promising career in wine. But her path to the vineyard, and eventually orchard, wasn’t exactly a straight one.

After growing up on the southern Oregon coast, Monique played basketball and studied communications in college before embarking on an Alaskan adventure to work for a fisherman. “I met a ton of people along the way,” she says, many of whom expressed curiosity about her journey to The Last Frontier. “They were like, ‘wait a second—you’re from Oregon, you went to college in the Willamette Valley, and you lived five minutes away from all our favorite wineries. Why aren’t you working in the wine industry?”

That question ended up changing the trajectory of her entire life. Upon her return from Alaska, Monique quickly got a job in a winery tasting room before transitioning into production. That’s where she really hit her stride. “It was the type of job where I knew I was going to have to get there at six o’clock in the morning and probably shovel for eight hours. I was like, ‘I don’t care. I love it. I love it. I love the smell of it, I love watching all of this, I love learning about it. I loved everything about it.’”

After a few years, despite her obvious passion for wine and growing experience in the industry, Monique found herself wandering in search of the perfect position. When an opening at the now-shuttered Wandering Aengus Ciderworks in Salem, Oregon became available—despite her over-qualifications, by both their and her own estimations—she took the job and made it her own. Within a few months, she moved out of the cellar and found herself as head cider maker.

“It was pretty nerve-wracking and terrifying for the first six months,” she laughed, saying she tried to read “every cider book ever made.” But once she found her groove, she blossomed and realized: “This is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life. I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

Her next landing pads were Seattle Cider Co. and Seattle’s Republic of Cider before meeting Caitlin Braam, Yonder and The Source’s founder who invited her to work at her new ventures, where Monique envisions remaining for the time being. “I see myself staying here. I have no reason to walk away from Yonder, anytime soon or ever,” she says, with a caveat that if the opportunity to launch her own business came along, she’d likely pursue it. “It’s always in the back of my mind,” Monique admits.

But when she looks to the future, both career-wise as well as with her wife, she’s already planning three steps ahead. “An ideal situation [would be] where I have my own thing down the road and I’m able to come stay at my home in Wenatchee and go skiing, then go to Seattle and sit on a boat and enjoy a glass of cider. That sounds like a good plan in the next ten years!” (Um, can I come??)

Luckily, her wife shares her “work hard, play hard” mentality, which Monique describes as a huge driver in her own life. “She’s an extremely hard worker. We feed off of each other, which is cool. It’s nice to have somebody who supports my dreams,” especially when those dreams involve waking up to a cup of coffee with a view of the water.

It’s no accident that Monique is where she wants to be. Throughout our conversation, even when she describes hardships or obstacles, she follows it up with a silver lining. I ask her: how does she stay so positive?

“I give all the credit for my positive attitude to my mom for sure. If it wasn’t for her, I don’t know what I would do,” she says. Growing up without a lot of financial resources was difficult at times, she admits. But it was her parents’ attitudes of gratitude that taught her to find the good in every situation, regardless of the challenges. “She always had such a positive thing to say to me to make me feel better, and it’s been happening my entire life,” Monique says. “Anytime I hit a wall or I run into something, I’m constantly thinking of my mom and what she had to do.”

The idea of thankfulness remains deeply ingrained in her everyday. “I have horrible days, but I can sit here and bitch about it or find something joyful in that day that I struggled to get through,” Monique says. That shared frame of mind is something she values at Yonder and The Source. She talks about the time-honored tradition of coworkers complaining to one another about their work. But the difference for her is that after a good vent session, “we’re smiling and happy. This is all worth it.”

For anyone hoping to find joy in life and work, Monique recommends knowing one’s worth. “If you get the vibe that you don’t feel valued, run for the hills. Find something better, something else. Don’t waste your time if you’re going home every night feeling bummed out,” she advises. “The feeling that I have now every day going home is like ‘That was a hard day, but I’m going to sleep feeling valued, and we’re going to wake up and try again.’ It feels really good.”

• Photos: Courtesy of Monique Tribble

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