Not Your Father’s Hard Cider
Today it gets barrel-aged, Brett-o-mized and sake'd out
At the same time, don’t tell American crafters what they can and cannot do. In brewing, Germans make lagers. The British make ales. And Belgians make… divine beer, but they don’t make much that’s fresh and hoppy. “In America, there’s no bs tradition that you can only make this or that. Everybody makes everything,” Hall enthuses. With AB-InBev’s buy-out of Goose Island, he found himself looking for a new gig when he decided to apply that same craft approach to ciders. Look for Virtue Cider to appear on draft at bars and restaurants in Chicago this summer. Hopefully 750-milliliter bottles will hit sub-regional shelves next year.
Craft beer continues to grow by double digits annually, so even though cider is a tiny slice of the cobbler, 25 percent growth in the category is no slouch. Comparing beer to cider in many ways is like comparing, well… let’s just say there’s still bushels of room for growth. No one understands that better than some of the veteran craft brewers.
Boston Beer Co. hasn’t just grown into the largest craft brewery since 1984. In addition to their 40-something active Samuel Adams recipes, they just introduced three Angry Orchard brand ciders (Dry, Crisp, and Apple-Ginger). If you’ve ever seen Hardcore Cider, that’s them, too. Boston neighbors Harpoon Brewing began selling cider in 2000. In Olympia, WA, Spire Mountain opened in 1985 to remain the oldest craft cidery, and is made today by the brewers at Fish Brewing, meaning both their ciders and organic ales are tapped fresh at Fish Tale Brewpub. Across the border, where the cider market is more developed likely due to Canada’s Anglo culture, Tree Brewing in British Columbia just launched Dukes Cider.
In fact, even the top bananas in the beer business have noticed how this apple cart has wheels. MillerCoors’s craft and import division, Tenth and Blake, recently acquired Crispin Ciders from Minnesota. Anheuser-Busch is fabricating Michelob Ultra Light Cider.
Still, wineries are more apt to add cider to their portfolio than breweries. They already know that the product comes down to having impeccable, fresh fruit whereas brewers can buy barley from anywhere, anytime. Having said that, Hall would like to see more brewers get into ciders, and for good reason. Innovations in fermentation are directly attributable to craft brewers’ experimentation and flogging of tradition. Some of the new cideries are neither offshoots of wineries nor of breweries.
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Brian Yaeger
Brian Yaeger lives in Portland, OR.
I have a little bit of a problem. My boyfriend likes to drink beer but unfortunately I think he’s allergic to it. Every time he drinks it the next day he wakes up with red eyes, stuffed up nose and “worn out” and that happens even only after having 2 beers. And he drinks Coors light so that should tell you something. I think he’s allergic to the hops in beer so I’m telling him to try Cider. But trying to find Ciders that are NOT made with hops seems to be difficult. I know Angry Orchard says it doesn’t use hops, do you know of any more? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you
Most commercially-available hard ciders actually don’t use hops (if they do use hops, they’ll make a point of saying so on the label). You’re good to go with brands like Strongbow, Doc’s, Samuel Smith’s, Farnum Hill, Crispin Brown’s Lane (or Crispin Honeycrisp), if you can find them (it really depends where you are located). Angry Orchard doesn’t use hops, but I don’t think it’s that good – look harder for the good stuff (and don’t get that Stella Artois cidre).