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Craft Hard Cider Is On A Roll. How Ya Like Them Apples?
Hard cider is having a hot moment. Hotter still, if it's locally made and distributed. Over the past four years, the number of cideries across the country has doubled, from 400 to 800, according to The Cyder Market LLC, a small business that keeps statistics on the cider industry. [...] Wine has long had its connoisseurs. With the rise of the craft beer movement, drinkers have learned to appreciate the nuances of that brewed beverage, too. But cider, in many drinkers' imagination, remains an unrefined, blandly sweet drink, says Johnson. The reality is far different, he says.
[...] Hard cider's history in the U.S. goes all the way back to the Founding Fathers. During the American Revolution, many landowners had apple orchards and made homemade fermented cider using the cider apples that grew in their backyard, says Michelle McGrath, executive director of the U.S. Cider Makers Association. "Prohibition came and most of the cider apple trees were cut down in this country. But now, it's having a renaissance," she says. "It's coming back really strongly; it's taking market share from beer."
Nielsen's research says sales for regional cider are up 35.6 percent. McGrath says this is because local cideries have more varieties of cider that appeal to more sophisticated palates. In other words, cider seems to be going through what wine and beer went through years ago: people moving from drinking big brands to being more discerning, niche, and sometimes downright persnickety.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aclarke on Wednesday December 06 2017, @05:58PM
For a first attempt, I think it tastes pretty good and most people agree. Hopefully I can improve next time. I started getting more scientific about it by the third batch, for instance measuring specific gravity so I knew how much sugar to add before bottling. For reference, the alcohol eats the sugar, and since it's in the bottle, the carbon dioxide given off produces the carbonation in the bottle. Not enough sugar and you don't have much carbonation. Too much sugar and the pressure in the bottle gets too great and it off-gases through the pressure-release built into the lid, or you end up with undigested sugar, making your cider sweet (which I didn't want).
We gather our own apples every fall from our own farm and other neighbours. We take it to a local mill and have it pressed, then frozen in milk bags [wikipedia.org] and then they go in the freezer. We had a terrible apple crop this year, and I still had some hard cider left, and I was busy, so unfortunately this year I didn't make hard cider.