Cider is Fun! On Cider, Beer, and the Great Cider Divide

#CiderIsFun ~ Forget the Great Cider Divide, drink Cider, have Fun!

by douglas reeser, January 29, 2024

Cider is fun! This is a hashtag I've been using on our social media posts at the cidery, and represents the spirit that I want to promote around cider and life. Life is short, we should be having more fun. We should be laughing with each other more often. Drinking and laughing? Sounds right to me! Since I began conjuring fun in and through the cidery, I've begun to realize that I want that same aesthetic in my writing. How do I bring smiles to the faces of my readers?

Now, I don't want to be funny, as much as I want a sense of humor to be present in my writing. My primary training is through academia, specifically through the discipline of anthropology. I learned to write in a very specific way through that training, and for a pretty specific audience: academics. Needless to say, there is not usually much humor in academic writing. 

I did write regularly in less formal settings, with the idea of reaching a broader audience, but still, my writing was driven by academics. I'm not writing for that audience anymore, not specifically anyway. In fact, this project (la Cocina) is basically like starting from scratch in terms of audience - I only have a small number of readers at this point. And so, I think I have a chance to play a little bit with my style and content.

And really, why not seek to infuse some humor where I have struggled to do so before? I'm primarily writing commentary here, and largely about food and beverage. It's food and beverage people! While essential to our health and well-being, the topic is rarely deserving of such seriousness, devoid of smiles and even laughter. We generally enjoy eating and drinking, I want to enjoy reading about it too.

Which brings me to the topic that I want to write about this month, and it's something that is real, but deserves a bit of a snicker: the Great Cider Divide. It's the supposed schism within the cider world between adherents to the trope that Real Cider is only made with cider apple varieties, and another camp that sees cider as anything made with apples. Writing it out makes it seem even more absurd as a reality in the cider world, yet... the split exists. Sort of.

As a cider maker, I'm relatively new to the cider industry, and in some circles seen as an outsider - a former beer brewer transitioned into the cider space. This beer to cider transition was just criticized in the latest issue of Malus, a quarterly magazine all about cider and the industry. It's a magazine I love, and one I eagerly devour each quarter, even though some of it's articles make me feel like an imposter. 

To be fair, I hardly even drank cider before I started making it professionally. But I liked what I was discovering as a fermented beverage, and so did a bunch of the drinking public. So I kept making it! As a non-orchardist, I source my apples from a local orchard that grows apples for the eating market. That orchard also makes a sweet non-alcoholic cider that has won awards across the region, and one that, luckily, has just enough of what's needed to make an interesting fermented cider. But since I don't have an orchard, and I'm not exclusively using cider apples, and I come from a beer background, according to some in and around the industry, my cider is not very deserving of respect or attention. Worse, it may be giving cider a bad name!

Now, with my cidery open for over a year, I've already had a few experiences with the "Great Cider Divide." I've been warned by another cider maker to "watch my back" around some of the orchard-based cider makers in the region. I was told "they'll be nice to your face, but will talk big shit as soon as your back is turned." That was certainly disappointing to hear, yet a bit difficult to confirm as real.

I've seen more evidence of this divide in cider writing. Over the last couple of years, I've been picking up and reading as many cider books and publications as I can get my hands on. There are a number of books about making cider, and fewer that talk about cider as a beverage embedded in cultures around the world, and in changing times. There are also a handful of cider-centric periodicals, and through it all, the divide keeps popping up.

For instance, I recently read the book "The Cider Revival: Dispatches From the Orchard" by Jason Wilson. The book, in part, explores the identity that cider holds in the wider beverage world, written by another cider newbie, one who came from a background in wine. It is a generally enjoyable read, but Wilson keeps hammering certain types of cider, and elevating others.

Wilson's messaging throughout is that orchard-based cider made with traditional cider apples is good cider, and everything else is just a gimmick. "Instead of seeking out better apples, or taking more care in the cider making, some companies' "solution" is to roll out gimmicky flavors" (67). Sadly to me, it appears his feelings about such a divide was supported by other cider makers quoted in various parts of his book. Such messaging made for a frustrating thread in an otherwise enjoyable read. 

Really, I think the divide is one-sided. After all, people making "gimmicky" cider still see their beverages as cider. It's just that some other people sort of have a problem with that. But why? As a young industry in the US, cider is dealing with a bit of an identity crisis. Cider has been de-coupled from its long history as the preferred drink in the country, and is still in relatively early stages of development. The more recent cider revival was first led by companies like Woodchuck (1991), Angry Orchard (2012), and other manufacturers that largely make low alcohol sweet ciders, often made from concentrate with all kinds of sweet flavorings. I call it alcoholic apple soda, and admittedly don't particularly enjoy those types of beverages. 

Still, because I don't like it, or there may be a lower quality of ingredients, it doesn't mean it shouldn't be called cider. If it's made from apples... And I certainly don't think it needs to be the source of some industry-wide hand wringing about what cider is and isn't. However, because these types of sugary ciders are often the first and only example of cider that most people have, the impression exists and persists that cider is a sweet, sugary drink. This perception walks through the doors of our cidery every night, and it's the year 2024. 

Then there's the beer thing. Should breweries be making cider? Should cider seek a path similar to craft beer? Does an alliance with beer muddy the identity of cider? Writers and editors of Malus have shared concern and skepticism about being too close to beer. And in his aforementioned book, Wilson wrote: "I did not like the idea of cider closely following the craft beer model, with all its hype, gimmicky experiments, and manufactured scarcity of trendy limited edition releases" (96). 

The thing is, craft beer grew its market share, and essentially captured a big part of the passions of the drinking public. And craft beer was never static. Styles developed and changed regularly, as did the tastes and knowledge of the drinking public. We want more people drinking cider, right? Maybe gleaning from the beer industry isn't a horrible idea.

But what of cider's identity? The sheer range of varieties that cider can take has proven to be a challenge for people trying to define and promote the beverage while it is experiencing a new-found popularity. On one end of the cider spectrum, we have estate-grown apples fermented dry, and sold in 750ml bottles, and sometimes even still (non-carbonated). These and similar ciders are perhaps the most wine-like, both in how they are packaged, and in how they drink. They are also more expensive, and not as readily available, which often puts them out of reach to the general drinker.

I would place those concentrate-based manufactured ciders at the other end of the cider spectrum - packaged in 12oz cans, and relatively affordable and widespread. But recall, the spectrum is huge, and there is an incredibly diverse middle ground of cider. One of the main diversifying factors for cider is its ability to play well with other fruits. I'm guessing at this point, but it's probably safe to say that every fruit has been put into a cider by now, along with many herbs, plants, and other ingredients. And cider can be apple forward, or other-fruit forward, or something else-forward, and it can all be delicious. It's all part of an entire spectrum coexisting under the Cider Umbrella.

In the end, as cider makers, we should just want to see more people enjoying cider. We have just a 3.1% market share of the US alcoholic beverage market (and that has Sake in with cider!). Only a tiny fraction of drinkers in the US are drinking cider. And there is no good place to draw the cider line anyway. It's all Cider. Cider is an alcoholic beverage made with apples as its primary base of fermentation. Simple. It can have other fruits, other anything really. It can be bone dry or sickeningly sweet. It can be from heirloom apples or from concentrate. You don't have to like all cider, but if it's apple at its base, then it's cider. And remember, Cider is Fun! So go out, try new ciders with friends, and try to laugh and smile for a bit!