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Cider Digest #1397
Subject: Cider Digest #1397, 21 July 2007
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1397 21 July 2007
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
A different opinion on cider ("Bruce Nissen")
Re: San Diego competition results (comps in general) (Dick Dunn)
Re: Cider judging ("McGonegal, Charles P")
Winesaps in Ohio? (Tim Bray)
Re: Cider Digest #1396, 14 July 2007 (Stephen Wood)
improvement suggestions ("Timothy")
Packaging air pickup - Technical question ("McGonegal, Charles P")
"Gobbler" clarification digest #1396 ("shawn carney")
What is craft cider? (Dick Dunn)
Send ONLY articles for the digest to cider@talisman.com.
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Archives of the Digest are available at www.talisman.com/cider
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Subject: A different opinion on cider
From: "Bruce Nissen" <bruce@foxbarrel.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2007 11:49:59 -0700
Mr. Carney obviously has an opinion, which he has eloquently expounded in
the past few editions of the cider digest. I do not share his opinion.
Opinions aside, I do not appreciate the attack on my company by an
individual whom I doubt has ever tasted our products.
Allow me highlight a few snippets of Mr. Carney's most recent rousing and
roaring condemnation of the state of cider competitions and the woeful
inadequacy of cider judges and then I will provide another viewpoint.
"I do not enter competitions and probably never will"
A saying that come to mind is that those who can do, those who can't
critique. If you do not believe in the concept than why does it worry you
so? To me it's like democracy; if you chose not to participate, your voice
rings hollow.
"I was not blaming BJCP or the judges at the event."
This seems incompatable with the remainder of your post. For instance later
you say:
"Want to know why woodchuck and wyders win national cider competitions?
(other than the judges may enjoy a nice glass served over ice with a squirt
of raspberry every night)"
Now Shawn, unless you also enjoy a glass of cider over ice with a squirt of
Raseberry each night, I would have to consider that a condescending
criticism. By the way, I do want to thank you for not including Fox Barrel
in the above comment.
On the BJCP: "Instead every beer competition in the country was given a
license to judge cider with the flick of a switch. But of course it makes
it easy to grab a bunch of metals while the competition is low (which was
told to me once)."
If the pun was intended, bravo; however most competitions hand out medals.
Many, like the GLOW's competition are made of metal, making your pun more
enjoyable.
"From Chad's email It seems like he contacted juice (sweet cider) mills?
Didn't he know the difference between juice and cider? When you take on the
responsibility to run an event you take on the responsibility of doing a
good job."
This is one area where I truly disagree with your demeanor. I believe from
the remainder of the content of his email that we can gather that he
contacted hard cider producers, but this is irrelevant. He did something to
help promote cider by holding a judging. He did something, and therefore I
believe he deserves the cider worlds support, not to be disparaged by a guy
who lives three states away and has already stated that he will not help the
cause by submitting his products.
"People don't necessarily prefer a sweeter product. I can respond to the
above in one sentence - A crappy sweet cider sells better than a crappy dry
cider."
Hey, amazing, we agree on this point. I will add that a well crafted sweet
cider will cream a well made dry cider in the marketplace. I will admit
that I was shocked that you brought up cider economics in your post; it
seems far from your heart.
"These were the fine products that won, (what the heck is pear cider? Is it
similar to their "traditional English black cider" flavored with black
currents which oddly enough is similar to a drink consumed by collage
students in England that goes by the name of "Diesel" and "Purple Nasty".)
How is it going to help craft cidermakers who are trying to establish a
market for perry when crap like pear flavored cider win under the BJCP fruit
cider category. You may say "It's up to you to compete and make sure they
don't win" but if I did compete I would not be competing against them anyway
unless I made a fruit cider which I am convinced god would strike me dead if
I did. So, there is a gold medal pear cider and a gold metal perry. what
the hell is perry? a customer asks, well it's pear cider! So the fox barrel
pear cider is just as good of a product as the gold metal perry? Well
that's just @#*!ing great! That should be pretty confusing for customers,
but hey, when writing up the BJCP cider guidelines heaven forbid anyone get
left out of the fun. If someone wants to put crunchberries, dingleberries,
or bogberries in their cider to increase sales more power to them, I can't
imagine why they would have a strong urge to compete with it?"
This is where Shawn really drops the gloves. He offends Fox Barrel by
stating that our pear cider is crap. Through his statement is also
offending the judges at every event it has won including the 2006 GLOWS
event(I need to say here that I really appreciate the work that the
organizers of this event have done in really taking the time to train the
judges on how to judge ciders). He is really offending the "craft"
cidermakers whose ciders Fox Barrel beat in the GLOWS competition, and I
hope that he is offending you, the follower of this digest and presumed
cider enthusiast.
Shawn wants to define "cider" in such a way that it excludes nearly every
profitable cider organization in the world. Aside from the fact that it is
exceedingly self serving and arrogant, it is also foolish. Anybody that
wants to see the hard cider industry, sweet and dry, develop needs to be
embracing the whole industry, not creating division within it.
On a much smaller and simpler scale, I liken the current cider market in the
US to the wine market in the late 1970's. Then came Sutter Homes and other
companies who made sweet Chardonnay's and White Zinfandels. It created a
whole new set of wine enthusiasts who fueled the resurgence of the wine
industry in the US that is still going strong today. Nearly all new
consumers used these lighter style products as an entry point into the world
of wine. Some stayed with them, while many moved to more complex wines.
Regardless of your opinion of lighter styled wines, the industry as a whole
owes them a debt of gratitude for bringing new consumers through the front
door.
Fox Barrel Cider Company makes three high quality hand-crafted sweet ciders
using the English production system favored by Mr. Peter Mitchell. We also
produce dry ciders, although we have not let them out of the building for
judging yet. Both types of cider require skill to produce and a developed
set of both sensory and process tools to master.
I hope that this post sparks a lively debate on both cider styles and how to
grow the market to support all the folks out here trying to make a go of
making cider for a living. I also hope that we can as a group agree to
indulge in civil discourse. I would hope that Fox Barrel Ciders could be
considered "not to your taste" instead of "#$@%^&$ crap" and I would hope
that either opinion would be backed up by actually trying the product.
If you would like to disucss article content or cider market growth with me,
please give me a call at 530.346.9699 at the cidery.
Bruce Nissen
Fox Barrel Cider Company
530.346.9699
Join the Revolution!
------------------------------
Subject: Re: San Diego competition results (comps in general)
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 19:13:25 -0600
I respectfully disagree with the gentlemen from Cedaredge and Eden...:-)
(actually I agree with a lot of what Shawn said but would like to pick up
various points from his and Gary's msgs)
So, from Shawn's last note...
> ... It still bothers me when beverages like the ones entered win a
> cider competition, now adding in the magnitude of the event makes it worse.
(In case anybody missed that--it's the matter of awarding 3 medals when
only two producers entered, three products each.)
> I was not blaming BJCP or the judges at the event...
I was ready to complain that this wasn't a BJCP competition, but apparently
it was! Kinda sad.
>...I think it was stupid to make cider judging a category of BJCP...
Here, you're missing some of the history. Cider has been a part of the
American Homebrewer's Association competitions for a long time. Based on
a quick check of back issues of _Zymurgy_, the AHA National Competition
has had cider categories and an overall cidermaker of the year award since
1992. AFAIK, the BJCP effort grew out of AHA competitions. BJCP was
established and has tried to creat good definitions of the styles...the
situation long ago was truly sorry. BJCP has been working pretty hard in
recent years to get their style guidelines, judging, training, etc., in
line with the reality of good craft cidermaking. So while I agree they've
got a long way to go, I don't think it's quite right to blame the cleanup-
crew for the mess they found, unless they fail to clean it up.
>...Nothing was gained, without full
> training for judges the competitions have been pretty poor. It wouldn't
> have taken anymore effort to start from scratch...
That's the trouble, there was cider competition going on all along, so
there was no starting from scratch. The sense of what you're saying is
right, but we just "couldn't get there from here."
Rather, what has happened is that the cidermaking community (that's us!)
became aware of what was going on with the AHA and the BJCP, and said,
"Hey, wait a minute, you guys are all screwed up!" And sure, the under-
standing of cider "over there" was pretty poor, but they're working on
improving it.
>...Starting out small with a
> few categories and a few competitions would have made more sense until the
> wrinkles were ironed out and the pool of qualified judges grew. Instead
> every beer competition in the country was given a license to judge cider
> with the flick of a switch...
Sorry, but that's just not the history of it. The BJCP standards came
along well after the AHA was judging cider and awarding for it. Fifteen
years, man...that ain't yesterday. (I'll let somebody else fill in when
the first BJCP standards for cider were written.)
>...But of course it makes it easy to grab a bunch
> of metals while the competition is low (which was told to me once).
The counter to that is: Don't respect a competition that doesn't have
integrity and established prestige! So what if somebody gets a Grand
Champion Premier First Prize in the East Paonia Wine Festival?..it doesn't
mean anything. Same with a lot of the early AHA cider winners--having a
national win doesn't mean anything. NOTE! It doesn't mean the cider is
bad! It means the win doesn't say much. (No sour grapes here! I took a
couple of national ribbons in AHA comps in 1984, and realized right then
they didn't mean $#!+ to a tree.)
How much does any competition among commercial ciders mean in the US?
When you've got real top-end producers like West County and Farnum Hill
not entering, because they just don't buy into the competition game
now (if ever), the competitions can't mean much. Really, what's the big
deal with competition? Marketing-gone-bad?
(So why do I fuss about competitions and style guidelines and all that
crap? See below...basically because people are going to compete anyway
so there might as well be some semblance of sanity to it.)
> >Gold: Fruit Cider - Fox Barrel Cider Co., Fox Barrel Pear Cider
> >Silver: Common Cider - Wyder's Cider, Wyder's Apple Cider
> >Bronze: Common Cider - Fox Barrel Cider Co., Fox Barrel Hard Cider
>
> These were the fine products that won, (what the heck is pear cider?...
...
> How is it going to help craft cidermakers who are trying to establish a
> market for perry when crap like pear flavored cider win under the BJCP fruit
> cider category...
On that point, Fox Barrel is at least doing it right by the categories.
A "pear cider" in the fruit cider sub-category means a cider flavored with
pear, which is NOT a perry (and not eligible for entry in the "perry"
category). Some other producers have been less honest in labeling their
products, fwiw.
>...You may say "It's up to you to compete and make sure they
> don't win" but if I did compete I would not be competing against them anyway
> unless I made a fruit cider which I am convinced god would strike me dead if
> I did...
Good point, that it's not valid for people to say "you can't complain if
you don't play". It has to make sense before entering will make things
better instead of worse.
>...So, there is a gold medal pear cider and a gold metal perry. what
> the hell is perry? a customer asks, well it's pear cider! So the fox barrel
> pear cider is just as good of a product as the gold metal perry?...
No, they're two different things. You're right, there's a problem when
people say "pear cider". It's the same construct as "raspberry cider" but
in the latter case people know it's not "cider" made from just raspberries.
The pear case is a tough one. It OUGHT to be solved by calling it "pear
flavored cider" (and "raspberry flavored cider", etc.), but adding that
word "flavored" sets off alarm-bells in people's heads that there's
something artificial going on.
[deleting Gary Awdey's comments about cidermakers offering sweeter products
because that's what sells]
> People don't necessarily prefer a sweeter product. I can respond to the
> above in one sentence - A crappy sweet cider sells better than a crappy dry
> cider.
Trouble is, people actually DO prefer a sweeter product more often than
we'd like. They SAY they like dry, but it turns out they like a bit of
sweetness. (Why? Perhaps because every blasted commercial prepared food
has sugar added? No, that couldn't be it.)
In fact, the received wisdom is to make a somewhat-sweeter product but
label it "Dry"!
> Want to know why woodchuck and wyders win national cider competitions?
> (other than the judges may enjoy a nice glass served over ice with a squirt
> of raspberry every night) Because national cider competitions were started
> premature in the US. There isn't that much good cider here yet, and most
> people (even judges) don't know the difference...
You're right! Cider competitions WERE started prematurely. But what can
we do? I mean seriously, clean up the mess right now, what-can-we-do?
Competitions are like industrial standards--they're either too soon or too
late (and often both at once). The reason is that they're expected both to
lead and to follow. Competitions need to lead in order to guide new
producers to quality; they need to follow in order to adapt to evolving
understanding of tastes and styles. People want a competition as soon as
there are two potential entrants, and they'll have one! (See the San Diego
thing!) But it takes years to get a credible competition with reasonable
standards and competent judges.
Also, the difficult lesson: People are going to create competitions even
if they don't know what they're doing!! Even if you absolutely don't want
competitions and are convinced they're the work of the devil, if you just
ignore them they won't go away. If every good, sensible person ignores
them, the bozos will set them up and run them...AND the press will report
the winners as if it means something. Sigh...
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider judging
From: "McGonegal, Charles P" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 08:26:42 -0500
In CD #1396, Shawn Carney observes in part:
>>
Because national cider competitions were started premature in the US.
<<
I disagree. If anything, the interest in participating (mostly from
non-commercial producers) and in the results (mostly from commercial
producers and concerned sidra-philes) demonstrates that cider
competitions are late in blooming.
I don't think they are premature - but immature. They need development,
experience and practice.
I believe that competitions (for commercial producers) are marketing
tools. They are chances to exhibit your own products, and also to do
education and outreach to a very targetted group - consumers and media
who are already interested in cider. Through them, cidermakers spread
the word to an even bigger audience. As such, it's in the interest of
commercial cidermakers (even those who don't enter) to try and make sure
that competitions use quality and style standards that reflect our
production values. The journalist sitting at a table with a bunch of
cider-geeks may have more readers than any given cidermaker's entire
customer base - let them come away with an impression of cider that we
approve us - that furthers our (as a community) goals.
I do two things to this end - and they are written into my business's
goals and annual plan. I participate in competitions by entering, and I
participate in the development of competition and judging practice by
engaging with the organizers - both conversationally and by judging. I
prefer competitions that use a broad, grass-roots judging pool - I think
it meets the PR goal better than to use an expert panel - but I don't
limit myself to them. I acknowledge the erratic results we are
currently seeing with non-expert pools.
To commercial cidermakers: What's in _your_ marketing plan to better
cider awareness (of better cider) nationally?
Charles McGonegal
AEppelTreow Winery
PS: How about a discussion of those industry production values and goals
I mentioned above? Any common ground among us?
------------------------------
Subject: Winesaps in Ohio?
From: Tim Bray <tbray@mcn.org>
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:11:44 -0700
Greetings Ciderians,
I got an e-mail from somebody looking for Winesap apples - he lives in
Chillicothe, OH and would like to buy a bushel when they are available.
Says he used to get them in stores but now they've disappeared.
Anyone have any suggestions?
Cheers,
Tim in Albion, CA
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1396, 14 July 2007
From: Stephen Wood <swood@povertylaneorchards.com>
Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 07:47:27 -0400
For the most part, I'm with Shawn Carney on the competition subject, though
I'm annoyed at his implication that my canteloupe/bacon cider
(Honeycrisp/Jonagold/McIntosh/Red Delicious, 13.5% ABV, 34.29 g/L returned
sugar, and just a dash of aspartame) is anything but pure, artisanal cider.
We call it "Dog's Breath," and some people love it as an early-morning
pick-me-up. If I had time, I'll bet it would win a few gold medals.
With respect, and for what it's worth:
Making cider with whatever cull dessert apples come to hand is like making
wine with Thompson Seedless grapes. There's a reason that they grow
Viognier instead of Thompson Seedless in (by way of example) the northern
Rhone. There's also a reason that nobody tries to make Condrieu by
concentrating the juice of Viognier and Syrah grapes grown in the northern
Rhone, shipping the concentrate to New Jersey, and rehydrating and
fermenting it there. And a reason that the vignerons in the northern Rhone
don't drive their alcohol up with extra sugar, or add cinnamon, raspberry
syrup, or chocolate to their Hermitage, Condrieu, Cote Rotie, Cornas, etc.
They don't even flavor up their plain old Cote du Rhone. The reason is that
they are making wine, not fruit punch. And, though they have some pretty
basic rules, they don't fuss very much about the definition of wine, or
about whether or not their wines are 'artisanal'.
They know that wine is the fermented juice of grapes, and that good wine is
the carefully and respectfully fermented and developed juice of good grapes
grown in good grape ground. Gosh, what's cider? Or perry, for that matter?
Perhaps we should learn from the old-world vignerons. Perhaps we should
expend less energy on defining artisanal cider, and more on learning how to
grow the best cider apples we can in our very different growing conditions
across North America. Perhaps we should fuss less about silly, premature
competition rules, and more about how to make delicious ciders that reflect
the fruit and the land that grew it.
We aren't making enough good, real ciders in this country to bother with
competitions. I don't want a medal; I just want to keep improving my
horticultural practices, my fruit, and my ciders. If we're going to chat,
argue and collaborate, let's do it over something real. Cider apples, land,
climate, and cider, for example.
Steve Wood
Farnum Hill Ciders
New Hampshire
------------------------------
Subject: improvement suggestions
From: "Timothy" <tboger111@earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 21:43:07 -0400
This fall will be my second year of making hard cider...I made 30
gallons last year and plan the same quantity this year....very strong
10-12%....my question is: Could anyone give me a suggestion as to how to
make it less harsh.....seems acidic too.....first several sips are
tuff...of course after several sips it gets easier......any ideas to
share? Tim
------------------------------
Subject: Packaging air pickup - Technical question
From: "McGonegal, Charles P" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 10:31:19 -0500
Any opinions on the importance of pre-evacuating bottles before
counter-pressure filling cider?
How sensitive is cider to air compared to beer or wine? Wine < Cider
< Beer ?
Charles
AEppelTreow
------------------------------
Subject: "Gobbler" clarification digest #1396
From: "shawn carney" <scarney88@hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 09:13:13 -0600
>easy to grab a bunch
>of metals while the competition is low (which was told to me once).
>they are "gobbling up medals while the competition is low" (sometimes your
>own strategy bites you
>in the ass).
The "you"s in my last posting did not refer to Gary Awdey. Also Gary is not
the gobbler I was referring to.
------------------------------
Subject: What is craft cider?
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 22:34:23 -0600
Tim Bray <tbray@mcn.org> wrote in the last digest:
> This leads us back to the question of definitions: what exactly is
> "Craft Cider?" I think Dick proposed the simplest and best: Fermented
> Apple Juice...
Not that the idea is original anywhere, but I think it was Terry Maloney
(West County), and not myself, who stated that most recently and clearly
here.
>...If you squeeze apples and ferment the juice, you're making
> craft cider, even if you add sugar or other adjuncts...
Whoa, Nelly! If you can add sugar or other adjuncts, doesn't that make
Strongbow a "craft cider"?!?
>...I suppose you
> could make craft cider from someone else's juice, but not from
> concentrate. (Is beer made from malt extract considered "craft brewed?")
To re-phrase or at least re-state a recurrent question from ukcider,
Why would a cider made from concentrate not be "craft" if a cider made
from apple juice plus glucose syrup is?
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1397
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