RIP Terry Maloney, West County Ciders

Yesterday I saw a Facebook blurb from Aeppeltrow Winery that simply said, " Farewell, Terry Maloney. You will remain an inspiration. American cidermakers are all your scion and we will bear good fruit for you, forever." More info came in a quickly assembled Cider Digest this morning:

Subject: RIP Terry Maloney
From: Ben Watson
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 13:53:44 -0500

Dear Fellow Cider Digesters,

It is my sad duty to report the untimely death of one of the best-known and
best-loved of America's craft cidermakers -- Terry Maloney of West County
Cider in Colrain, Massachusetts.

Terry died in what can only be described as a freak accident yesterday
(Friday) in the basement cidermaking room at his home. From what I
understand, a piece of filtration equipment full of cider under pressure
"exploded" with sufficient force to knock Terry back, and he hit his head
hard, causing his death.

Already this morning (Sat), some of Terry's closest friends in the cider
community have been on the phone with one another, discussing this shocking
and unexpected event. In the course of time, I'm sure that we will organize
at least one memorial or tribute (and probably more) to this gentle,
affectionate man who -- as much as anyone -- was responsible (along with
his terrific wife Judith) for the modern rebirth of cider culture in the
US.

I first met Judith and Terry Maloney more than 20 years ago, and we almost
immediately became friends. The Maloneys came to western Massachusetts with
experience from California vineyards. The beautiful hill towns of Franklin
County, MA are a traditional apple-growing and cider-making region, so Terry
and Judith began a winery that focused on locally grown fruits like apples
and blueberries. Over the years, they have everything from unfiltered Farm
Cider (still one of my favorites) to artfully crafted cidre doux and a whole
range of distinguished varietals that included Reine de Pomme, Baldwin,
Roxbury Russet, Kingston Black, and the astonishingly good, copper-colored
Redfield, a signature product of West County Cider and an example of Terry's
skill as both a cidermaker and fruit grower.

In addition to making their own cider, Terry and Judith have been central
players in promoting craft ciders from all over the US -- as founders and
organizers of the annual Cider Days festival, which over the past 15+ years
has provided an ever-expanding showcase of the best American ciders. All of
us -- producers and drinkers alike -- owe the Maloneys our profound respect
and gratitude.

Those of us who knew Terry personally will always remember him as a
thoughtful, soft-spoken, cultured, but also passionate man, and will miss
him greatly. But Terry's death is also a loss to many in the cider world who
never met him -- he was a real pioneer who showed the way for so many of
today's craft producers. He willed be missed.

As I hear of any tributes or memorials being planned, I will try to pass
along that information to everyone.

Respectfully yours,

Ben Watson
Francestown, NH

This is sad news for all cidermakers, and for all of us as human beings. Terry was a real inspiration to many, myself included. I concur with those who ask that we raise a glass in respect, and continue to ply our craft in his honor.

Live today as if it's your last, it might be, and remember to leave smiles and good thoughts behind.

TB

Holiday break squarings way

10 cases bottles washed, three kegs cider bottled, three transferred to
vinegar tank. Vinegar tank all insulated and heater running. General
tidying (although it doesn't look it), airlocks topped, the cider room
is in pretty good shape right now.

Hardest part was deciding which three kegs to send to vinegar.

TB

Patience, people!

This time around Christmas usually finds me straightening things up in
the cider cellar. With my day job generally off for a couple of weeks,
and the first of the 'oh yeah it's here' winter settling in, time can be
found to wash bottles, rack carboys, check airlocks, wash bottles,
bottle a little Christmas cider, wash bottles, you get it. Today I
cleaned six cases of bottles, racked and topped a bunch of cider, and
did some general tidying up. A little concerning was the 'big tank'
variable fermenter that I usually do keeves/sweeter ciders in. I knew it
was there, but just today got around to pulling the trash bag off the
(open) top and setting the sealed lid in place. This should be BAD...an
open top fermenter two months after squeezing, kept in a cold,
slow-fermenting area is a textbook oxidation case. Yes, the cider tasted
a little off, even acetic a bit. This may be the closest I have come to
unintentional vinegar making. Of course, I sell vinegar, and always
make extra cider so that my 'lesser liquids' can be converted for sale,
so that's not too bad...I just wasn't counting on an extra 12 cases this
year.
After dinner I visited the cellar again. Last year I had a similar
problem, but instead of forgetting to put the lid on, I failed to check
the seal, so the resulting 25 gallons of cider got pretty oxidized, and
tasted a bit acidic, a sign of volatile (acetic) acid buildup. I kegged
it up this past summer to make carboy/tank space, but planned on
pitching it in the vinegar tank this winter. As a quick test, I pitched
a pack of malo-lactic bacteria each in two kegs and set them in the
furnace side of the basement. ML bacteria convert sharp-tasting malic
acid to softer lactic acid, this technique is used in many wines.
Tonight I compared a snort of the pre- and post-ML ciders, and damn if
they both weren't pretty good. Not great, but not ready for the salad
dressing either.
Which brings me to my point. People often ask me about how long to wait
to drink their cider, and I tell them a year. The truth is, all sorts
of things can happen over time, and given a robust, tannic, balanced
juice blend, time is generally your friend in cider (or wine) making.
Rough flavors tend to mellow, sharp acids tend to soften, subtle notes
open up. Time will often help a funky cider, but if after a year it's
still off, open up the vinegar tank. This pertains generally to
unbalanced, maybe over sharp, sometimes slightly oxidized ciders. A
truly nasty one should be tossed at any time.
Even though I'm considered a big 'cider guy', I admit that I'm not great
with my precise cider analysis- ethyl acetate vs diacetyl and the like.
I like my customers, and friends, to feel that a good cider can be made
without a bunch of expensive words and equipment. Start with good juice,
ferment it clean and cool, minimize any messing with it, and enjoy in a
year. Works for me.

TB

Cider Season 2009 Comes to a Close

After a busy weekend, and plenty more cleaning up to do tomorrow, the
Lost Meadow 2009 Cider Season is closed, at least the retail end. I
still have my fermenting stocks to tend to (including my annual keeve
that I'll set up tomorrow), as do many of the smart/lucky folks who
stepped up to get their share.

The 2009 season by the numbers:

Weekends open: 8...definitely too many, next year we'll shave a few off
in September. I don't expect to decrease total production much if any,
just concentrate on those peak weeks.
Number of pressings: 42
Total gallons squeezed: 828
Fermenting blends: 55% of total, we'll bump that up next year
Profit (cash in - apples and expendable supplies): $1623. This doesn't
account for equipment, space, improvements, my orchard (or its apples),
trucking, or any other indirect/fixed costs.
Estimated wage/hour: ~$10, ignoring the above considerations.

Getting rich? Hell no, and a P&L sheet would have me losing money.
Having fun? Of course, that's why we do it. Tired and ready for a
break? You bet, we'll do it again next year. Looking forward to this
season's cidre, come spring? Of course.

Thanks folks,

TB

Last Call for 2009 cider

This weekends marks the end of the squeezin' season at Lost Meadow Cider
Mill, so if you want to put up a carboy, let me know ASAP, it will sell
out. I have a better selection of fruit than ever and will be making
some nice custom blends. $7 a gallon, $35 fills a standard carboy. I
can supply the carboy, stopper, and airlock as well with a little
notice. I'll also be finishing the sweet cider squeezes this weekend as
well, so anyone who wants to put jugs in the freezer should stock up.
For larger orders (3+ gallons) reservations are encouraged; I've been
selling out of sweet jug juice every week lately.

You've been warned,

TB

healingsgreen.com: World's Best Apple Cider: Terry Bradshaw: Lost Meadow Cider Mill

blog post from Monday October 19:
healingsgreen.com: World's Best Apple Cider: Terry Bradshaw: Lost Meadow Cider Mill

Terry Bradshaw makes the most incredibly wonderful apple cider. A glass of his cider, sipped yesterday, was so far beyond anything that I have ever experienced that language fails me in creating a description. His blends leave anything else calling itself cider akin to mouth wash. If in Montpelier, Vermont in the fall on the weekends his cidery is a destination and offers an experience of a lifetime. http://www.lostmeadowvt.com/

Posted by healingsgreen.com

Ashmead's Kernel apples are deliciously ugly -- latimes.com

Ashmead's Kernel apples are deliciously ugly -- latimes.com

Posted using ShareThis

Juicy Times for Hard Apple Cider (Washington Post)

By Greg Kitsock

Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, October 14, 2009

"Last year, they had a great crop of Kingston Black," home-brewer Rick Garvin says as he plucks purplish-red fruit from one of 3,000 semi-dwarf apple trees at the Distillery Lane Ciderworks in Jefferson. "It makes a nice, balanced single-variety cider."

Garvin, a McLean resident, meant hard cider -- the alcoholic kind. In America, we have to use an adjective to distinguish it from sweet cider, which is fresh, unfiltered apple juice. But in England, where every 12th pint slung over the bar contains cider, the term always denotes strong drink.

Some of the best apples for making hard cider are not the kind you find in a supermarket. Rob Miller, who owns the orchard, says Kingston Black is a bittersharp, a variety rich in acid and tannin. You wouldn't want to bake such apples into a pie; a bite of the fruit leaves a dry, woody sensation in the back of the throat. But the juice "makes a thick cider on the side of a sweet syrup; it ferments well," he says.

The juice is what brought two dozen members of the Washington area home-brew club, Brewers United for Real Potables, to Miller's farm on an early September outing. They planned to use his cider press to smash their newly picked apples into pomace and squeeze out every last dribble of juice, which they would tote home in glass jugs and plastic buckets. Dosed with packets of yeast and allowed to ferment for a few weeks, the juice transforms into a lightly effervescent, pleasantly tart alcoholic beverage that our colonial forbears likened to champagne.

Hard cider is a potent reminder of America's bucolic past. "Johnny Appleseed was actually planting apples for cider," says Dave Fredlund, district manager for Green Mountain Beverage in Middlebury, Vt. John Adams, our second president, regularly downed a tankard for breakfast to settle his stomach, Fredlund says. (That must have been quite an eye-opener; in early America, cider often was blended with spirits to keep it from turning into vinegar.)

During the 18th century, American adults imbibed an average of 34 gallons of hard cider a year, according to W.J. Rorabaugh's book "The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition." Cider consumption plummeted rapidly in the 19th century, giving way first to bourbon whiskey, then to lager beer and soft drinks. It didn't help that cider's popularity was strongest in the countryside, where Prohibitionist sentiments held sway.

After a century and a half as an anachronism, hard cider is staging a comeback. Since that BURP member outing, Miller has had 25 to 30 other home-brewers drop in to buy the juice. (It's available at his farm, 10 miles west of Frederick, and in pasteurized form in half-gallon bottles at the South Mountain Creamery in nearby Middletown.) Sales of commercial cider are up 14.4 percent so far this year, making it the fastest-growing segment in the alcoholic beverage industry, says industry analyst Bump Williams. Miller sells only fresh fruit and juice, but he intends to apply for a winery license that will allow him to market his own hard cider.

Fredlund estimates that Americans consume 4 million cases of hard cider a year. That translates into about 290,000 barrels, the output of a large craft brewery. But that's still a major step upward from the paltry 145,000 cases sold in 1990.

In 1991, the Joseph Cerniglia Winery (as Green Mountain was originally called) phased out its high-alcohol apple wine sold in Mason jars in favor of a lighter, more accessible beverage. Cerniglia decided to package his new Woodchuck brands in six-packs and kegs, and reduce the alcohol content to a more beerlike 5 percent by volume.

Woodchuck set the pattern for its imitators. E.&J. Gallo introduced its Hornsby's brands in 1995, and several breweries followed suit, including Boston Beer Co. with its HardCore line and, more recently, Harpoon Brewing Co. with its Harpoon Cider.

Today, Green Mountain is the Anheuser-Busch of the U.S. cider industry, accounting for 52 percent of domestic sales, by Fredlund's reckoning. Its Woodchuck ciders tend to be aromatic, rounded and fruity, dominated by the sweet, fragrant McIntosh apple. The 802 Dark and Dry (named after Vermont's area code) has caramelized sugar added for extra body and color. Woodchuck Granny Smith is made entirely from the tart green apples of the same name. Green Mountain also markets pear and raspberry ciders, in which other fruit flavorings are added to an apple base, as well as a spiced cider in the fall and an oak-aged cider in winter.

European imports offer a drier, more complex alternative. Samuel Smith's Organic Cider from England is a pale straw gold, crisp and thirst-quenching, almost like a champagne. The Normandy region of France is noted for its fruity, bubbly, low-alcohol ciders. Organic Etienne Dupont has an apple blossom aroma, a tart and fruity flavor and a spritzy carbonation. By contrast, most U.S. ciders are lightly carbonated. Jaime Schier, Harpoon's quality control manager, explains that if the CO2 exceeds 1.2 volumes per liter -- less than half that of beer -- Uncle Sam levies a "crippling" sparkling wine tax.

Cider occupies a no-man's land in terms of federal regulation. Technically, it's a wine. But due to a loophole in the alcohol code, labeling authority for lower-alcohol varieties defaults to the Food and Drug Administration instead of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. That's why bottles of cider, unlike beer or liquor, contain a nutritional information panel that lists the content of fat, sodium, carbohydrates, sugars and proteins.

Woodchuck is typical in that its label notes the presence of sulfites, preservatives that can spark an allergic reaction in some drinkers. But Fredlund says some of the antioxidants that abound in fresh apples remain in the fermented drink. He also notes that ciders contain no gluten, a gummy protein found in grains such as wheat and barley that can be dangerous to sufferers of celiac disease and wheat allergies.

Four weeks after BURP's apple-picking excursion, the home-brewers' ciders are bubbling away. Cider is easier to make than beer; you don't need to steep the raw material in hot water to break down starches into sugar, nor do you have to add hops. Garvin, however, has dissolved 12 pounds of clover and thistle honeys into five gallons of cider to create a hybrid beverage called a cyser. Rather than add ale or wine yeast, fellow home-brewer Bud Hensgen of Arlington has allowed airborne microorganisms to ferment his cider; a sample drawn from a plastic jug with an airlock is tart, faintly apple, with a hint of clove.

In 1997, Congress passed a tax relief bill that reduced the excise tax on cider (the non-sparkling kind) to 22 cents a gallon, on a par with microbrewed beer. That windfall, plus renewed interest, has spurred the opening of farmhouse producers such Foggy Ridge Cider in Dugspur in southwestern Virginia. Owner Diane Flynt grows more than 30 kinds of apples ("they're not dessert apples; they're ugly and hard to grow") rich in the tannins, acids and sugars needed to make good cider. Her products include Pippin Gold, a blend of cider and 80-proof apple brandy from the Laird & Co. distillery in Scobeyville, N.J. She recommends soaking peaches in the cider and serving them with pound cake.

At the Albemarle CiderWorks in North Garden, Va., about 10 miles south of Charlottesville, owner Chuck Shelton cultivates 80 varieties of heirloom apples, including several strains that date to Thomas Jefferson's day. One of Shelton's three ciders, Jupiter's Legacy, is named after Jupiter Evans, a slave who was entrusted with bottling the cider produced at Monticello.

Shelton hand-bottles his ciders in 750-milliliter corked champagne bottles, borrowing his bottling apparatus from Flynt. They're available only at the cidery's tasting room, although he hopes to self-distribute eventually. Shelton describes his ciders as resembling "a very dry white wine," with minimal or no sugar added to adjust the taste.

Albemarle CiderWorks opened in July; Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (D) paid a visit to the tasting room on July 13. "He stayed for an hour and a half," says Shelton. "I had sent him a trial pack of my ciders. I thought he'd put it in a trophy case, but he must have tried them, because he mentioned that he liked one in particular, the Royal Pippin."

Cider claims another convert.

Beer columnist Greg Kitsock can be reached at food@washpost.com.