Rediscovering Cider

Rediscovering Cider

Rediscovering Cider. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report.

Apple cider. Something I am discovering and learning a lot about lately. It's not apple cider vinegar and it's not apple juice. John Metta with Maeve Cider in Hood River says cider can be quite unique.

METTA: I focus on on two kinds. A Spanish style, so those are sours which are really not very well known in the American market and another is a champagne style French cider so it's darker. It's got a lot of tannins but it's champagne style so a lot of ciders that are made now are almost more beer style you pour in a pint.

He says his ciders will be much more niche ciders.

METTA: Which means I'm not going to sell as much but hopefully I can help the market learn a little bit about better cider. If you think about the early craft beed industry the first craft beers were pretty close to Budweiser because no one was going to drink a hopzilla or some crazy edge case beer. We've moved the market over time so people can appreciate more flavors that deviate from the mean a little bit more.

A trip to the store will show you a nice variety of ciders from not only the northwest but from some of the big brewing companies as well. Metta says, bring it on.

METTA: I love it when Stella and Molson started cideries, I thought that's great because they're doing marketing for us. They're building the market for us and so from their perspective they don't want to miss the boat the way they do the craft beer industry. You know they turned their back on craft beer and then 10 years later they tried to catch up. So now they're jumping into cider very, very early.

That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.

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