Move over beer, sippers want cider

Crazy for it or just curious, drinkers are choosing 'hard juice'

Now the size of small apricots, the apples growing at the McMenamins Edgefield property in Troutdale are just at the start of their farm-to-glass journey.

The 16 heritage estate varietals grown there — with industrious names like Breakwells, Brown Snow and Summer Rambos — will mature throughout the summer and be harvested by September.

They’ll then head to Ryan’s Juice in Hood River, the facility that blends, mills and cold-presses them with other estate varietals into pure apple juice.

The juice then is brought back to Edgefield and stored in 5,000-gallon tanks, where the Edgefield’s winemakers — who double as cider-makers — begin their labor of love.

They’ll ferment the juice, then add the juice blend back, filter it, carbonate it and, finally, fill kegs that go out to 58 of their properties across the state every day.

So it goes, the quest to quench the thirst of local cider devotees as the craft beverage explodes in popularity each year.

If there is a granddaddy of cider, it’s McMenamins, one of the first cider makers in the Pacific Northwest in 1992.

They were experimenting with apples long before there were cider bars, cider weeks or dozens of local cider brands sold in six-packs at the grocery store.

“It’s been a bit of a roller-coaster ride,” says Clark McCool, manager of distilleries for McMenamins. “This community gets it, for sure.”

Thanks, in part, to the flourishing artisan scene, abundance of fresh local apples and produce, and insatiable thirst for meaningful connections to the land in food and beverage choices, Oregon’s cider boom continues its rapid ascent.

Here’s a look at some of the growth:

• Oregon’s 4th annual Cider Week, June 18 to 28, has expanded to encompass the whole month. It’s a showcase for Northwest cider on special menus, happy hours, tap takeovers and other events.

• The Northwest Cider Association, which sponsors Cider Week, formed in 2010 with just a few members. It’s now grown to include 70 cider-maker members, including nine in Portland: Alter Ego Cider; Cider Riot; Hopworks Urban Brewery Cider; New West Cider; Portland Cider Company; Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider; Swift Cider; Square Mile Cider Co.; and McMenamins, in Troutdale.

• Between 2010 and 2013 — cider’s golden years, if you will — U.S. production shot up from 10.5 million to 37 million gallons per year, with exponential growth each year.

There isn’t hard data on production in Oregon or the Pacific Northwest, but industry leaders have begun efforts to collect that data.

“Oregon has an incredible cider community that rivals anywhere in the world,” said Sherrye Wyatt, executive director of the Northwest Cider Association. “This is the best time for everyone who’s either cider crazy or cider curious to taste and learn what this rapidly growing industry is all about.”

Wyatt says she expects her membership to grow from 70 to 100 by the end of the year.

She knows that because she works with a group of “cideries in planning,” who take workshops and courses on

cider making that are constantly full, with waiting lists.

Wyatt says she’s developing an industry toolkit for the startups: “Some of the veterans are getting a little worn out with all the phone calls. It’s complex to learn so much.”

And with all the growth comes an evolution.

The Northwest Cider Association also has a trial orchard underway in Mt. Vernon, Wash., with several unique varieties of apples being grown for testing.

In the meantime, Wyatt says, local cider makers are looking forward to a new federal law that would change the definiton of cider, called the CIDER Act. Co-sponsored by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, it would raise the alcohol by volume content limit from 7 percent to 8.5 percent, include pears, and raise the carbonation limit before it’s taxed as a champagne, at $3.40 per gallon.

Blumenauer spoke about the CIDER Act at the national conference of cider makers — nicknamed “CiderCon” — earlier this year in Chicago.

In February, CiderCon 2016 will be held in Portland for the first time.

Edgefield’s history

At Edgefield’s winery in Troutdale, the pomegranate cider is a deep golden hue and the cherry is a sparkly garnet. When people see you carrying it around the pub, they’ll inevitably get the question: “What’s that?”

That’s exactly why the McMenamins team decided to start a seasonal cider program last year — to raise awareness of the beverage, which is now approaching 10 percent of their alcohol sales.

That’s a far cry from two decades ago, when founding partner Mike McMenamin first purchased some old

cider-making equipment from a small maker in McMinnville on a whim. There was a “grundy” tank and in-line carbonator — but it wasn’t put to use for a while. “We put it in a corner; it stayed in the corner,” McCool says.

It wasn’t until two men came along in 1992 that they pulled the equipment out of storage and came up with the original cider recipe.

Rich Cushman, the company’s consulting winemaker, and Kevin McCarver, the assistant winemaker, made the cider with an apple concentrate at 7 percent alcohol by volume, like a fruit wine, and it was poured in a wine glass.

The next incarnation came in 2009 when cider maker Davis Palmer came on board.

He reformed the cider with fresh juice, and brought down the alcohol level and sweetness. They started pouring it in pint glasses in 2004, with hopes to sell more. It worked. “We were selling it as a wine, but it’s more in the beer category,” assistant cider maker Nate Wall says.

Then two years ago, McMenamins began the next phase in the evolution, with their seasonal cider program. So far they had only been offering one cider, now known as their “regular” cider.

They did trials with raspberry apple juice from Ryan’s, took it around to folks, and people loved it, McCool says. So they made a couple batches, tested it slowly, and finally decided to convert one tap at each of their locations to the rotating seasonal cider.

That opened the door to a brand-new level of experimentation, but nothing too “crazy,” McCool says. Each still has a base of fresh-pressed apples, with fruit from Oregon, Central Washington or California.

The first year saw a hop cider, spice cider and cherry cider. Last year brought a ginger pear (Ginger Perry) with fermented Anjou pears, a slightly tart pomegranate, the cherry and a blackberry.

McCool expects that rotation to roll into next year. “We’re expanding the category,” McCool says. “People want an alternative to heavy beer.”