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Cider Digest #1395
Subject: Cider Digest #1395, 7 July 2007
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1395 7 July 2007
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
New Cider House opens! ("Dan Wilson")
Thinning ("Richard Anderson")
Cider Competitions ("Richard Anderson")
San Diego County Fair Craft Brewers Competition ("Awdey, Gary")
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: New Cider House opens!
From: "Dan Wilson" <slyboro@capital.net>
Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2007 23:55:56 -0400
This past weekend (June 30) marked the grand opening of Slyboro Cider
House in Granville, NY (south of Lake Champlain on the Vermont border).
We're very excited and had a great turnout. With no farm wineries of
any kind for miles around, and our concerns about marketing this
uncommmon product (familiar theme, eh?), we had no idea how this venture
would start out. But the ciders were very well received, and after
years of planning, spending, building, spending and fermenting and
spending, it's great to be up and running, and to be joining the ranks
of all of you commercial cider pioneers. Very gratifying to have
friends, neighbors, tourists and vagabonds all celebrating and enjoying
the fruits of our labors, and walking out with bottles and cases.
We currently have three ciders; a semi-dry sparkler, a dry still and an
ice cider. The sparking cider, called Hidden Star, won double gold at
last months Eastern International Wine Competition, and the ice cider,
Ice Harvest, won gold. Another drier sparkler is in bottles waiting for
labels. Made 850 cases from the 2005 crop, with 2006 cider still in
tanks. Our tasting room is a circa 1935 wooden cold storage room
attached to our Apple Barn. We finished it to retain its atmosphere and
augment its early farm-industrial look. We'll soon post pictures on our
farm website, hicksorchard.com.
Please come visit if you're in our beautiful neck of the woods. We love
to talk cider. We've learned so much reading CD over the years, and
attribute a large measure of our early success to the help we've gotten
from many of you. Vive le cidre!
Dan Wilson
Slyboro Cider House
------------------------------
Subject: Thinning
From: "Richard Anderson" <baylonanderson@rockisland.com>
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 13:50:21 -0700
In thinning, size and number of fruit are the outcome. It depends on the
variety, some varieties seem to require very little thinning others having
so much fruit that branches break in late season. My advice is to keep the
fruit small, 40 to 60 cm for the best cider. Think about wine grapes, often
the best wines are made from very small berries. The same for cider, more
skin less flesh. Big juicy commercial apples with lots of water and nutrient
provide lots of juice but not always a good cider.
There is another reason to thin and this is to mitigate the biennial
characteristics of many English varieties, here thinning seems to help if it
is done within 30 days of bloom.
Hand thinning is dull work. Chemical solutions have drawbacks, it is a hit
and miss fix for small orchards with many varieties using either organic or
non-organic spray applications.
If you are hand thinning then thin to two-three apples per cluster and 3-4
inches between clusters.
------------------------------
Subject: Cider Competitions
From: "Richard Anderson" <baylonanderson@rockisland.com>
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 14:20:27 -0700
What a great subject. Unfortunately when it come to cider competition,
judging a hit or miss situation. Wine judge and Beer judge crossovers but
seldom experienced Cider judges. First off, a judge has to understand what
the basic faults are (flabby, oxidized, mousy, off-flavors) and then move on
to what make a cider good or great. I recently attended a tasting session
with Peter Mitchell from the UK, he points out things I could not begin to
identify and I have attended several of his presentations on sensory
evaluation of cider. Judging cider requires a lot of skill.
Let's not be too hard on BJCP. They have stepped up to the plate; have a set
of standards in place. I think two of the most pressing issues with BJCP
judges are; understanding and adhering to the existing standards, and
working with the judges. The second part is a big task, there are a lot of
judges and few qualified to work with them on. I think the thing to do is
keep up the lines of communication between the cider community and BJCP and
look for opportunities in helping them with setting up and judging cider.
------------------------------
Subject: San Diego County Fair Craft Brewers Competition
From: "Awdey, Gary" <Gary.Awdey@mittalsteel.com>
Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 12:13:06 -0500
In CD#1393 (June 27, 2007) Tim Bray wrote:
<Quote>
On the Homebrewing Digest, someone posted the results of the 2007 San
Diego County Fair - Craft Brewers Competition.
>Cider:
>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
The last time I tried Wyder's it was clearly a glucose wine/alcopop,
with a strong "Jolly Rancher" flavor. Is this some other Wyder's?
<End of Quote>
Also, Shawn Carney wrote in the subsequent Digest, "I will hold back my
opinion of cider falling under the jurisdiction of BJCP, but you can use
your imagination."
Seems like opinion isn't really being held back here, just the specifics
behind it.
It seems as if one competition is being singled out to illustrate how
questionable competitions may be and the BJCP is being implicated as
part of the reason. That's quite an extrapolation. Certainly not all
competitions are of equal stature (as Shawn's mention of the Bath & West
Competition clearly and appropriately suggests). Credibility of a
competition is difficult to achieve and easy to lose. One example of a
competition that seeks to make its results count for something is the
Three Counties International Cider & Perry Competition. This year there
were no bronze medals awarded for either of the two perry categories,
though apparently not for lack of entries. This demonstates a
commitment to protecting the integrity of the award. No cidermaker gets
rewarded simply for showing up on the day of the competition.
Eventually the press picks up on this and gives credit where credit is
due.
If one feels inclined to judge a competition by the winners then it
makes sense to look at a few different things. How many ciders were
actually entered, and by whom? What were they? How was word put out to
cidermakers? If Foxbarrel and Wyders were the only cider entrants in
the San Diego competition then it should hardly be surprising that they
took the cider awards. Assuming word was put out through channels
likely to reach craft cidermakers who might possibly be interested (I
don't recall seeing an announcement in the Cider Digest), then the next
logical question is whether or not competition promoters provided
evidence to craft cidermakers to that cider judging would be credible.
Some competitions that utilize smaller panels of judges have taken to
naming the judges in advance of the competition so potential entrants
may weigh that factor when deciding whether or not to enter.
I wrote to Chad Stevens, Coordinator of the San Diego County Fair Craft
Brewers Competition & Festival. My note to him inquired about the
number of cider entries and touched on the chicken-or-the-egg topic of
the difficulty in getting credibilty for a new competition without
getting many entries and difficulty in getting many entries without
already having credibility. Chad sent this response (printed with his
permission):
<Quote>
The San Diego County Fair is run by the State of California, 22nd
Agricultural District. The town of Julian is in San Diego County.
Julian is known regionally for its apples/cider/pies.... The San Diego
County Fair is one of the longest running on the west coast, yet
provided no venue for this important agricultural product. I wanted to
create a venue that would provide an opportunity for these mills to show
their fine product to a segment of the buying public that wouldn't
otherwise be exposed (50,000 attendees per day, 1.1 million over the
month long Fair!) I called every cider mill in the area. Not one
responded. I called numerous mills throughout the west coast and in
Upstate NY and Vermont (Grandma was born and raised in Bridport,
VT...apples are more than JUST a fruit in my family) and received no
response. The only cider entries we received were as a result of two
local distributors who recognized an excellent opportunity to gain
exposure for their clients.
Long story short, I encourage future participation from the cider
community, you will be treated on equal footing with beer and mead as
long as I have anything to do with this competition and festival, and I
look forward to serving the cider community for many years to come at
what I consider one of the greatest venues you could ask for (third
largest Fair in the country). Get the word out, get your favorite
ciders to enter the San Diego County Fair Craft Brewer's Competition &
Festival next year!
<End of Quote>
In addition to entry in the competition, entrants had the option of
paying more and sending a keg so that it could be served by the food
service contracted by the fair and tasted by the public. It looks like
Chad has set out to do a good thing and is willing to back it up by
doing a substantial amount of work. This is something to be applauded.
Perhaps he could use some help in understanding what it takes to reach
cidermakers and convince them to enter the competition. I'd be nice to
see some constructive comments from commercial cidermakers about what
they look for when deciding whether or not to enter a competition and
what some of the important factors are that influence the decision.
An underlying criticism of the San Diego event is the suggestion that
the "apple Jolly Rancher" taste should be a dead giveaway of an
artificially flavored alcopop. There may be cause for disagreement
here. This is a flavor that may occur naturally in cider as a byproduct
of fermentation. Many people find it to be pleasant, especially at
moderate levels. When it occurs in a craft cider that does not have
"natural flavorings" on the label few seem to have a problem with it,
and many may even consider it subjectively desirable. This seems to have
been well demonstrated in the results of noncommercial cider
competitions. Consider also that small and medium scale craft
cidermakers are not incapable of making one-dimensional ciders. In
fact, some of the more pragmatic make a point of having the macro-style
sweet ones on hand in their tasting rooms as a part of their overall
offering because a substantial number of customers prefer them. I've
heard again and again from cidermakers who have learned the hard way
that what a cidermaker likes to produce in order to impress those who
really know cider (such as other cidermakers) are not necessarily the
ones that customers will purchase. When a cidermaker relies on income
from selling cider to make cidermaking viable then he or she must
consider what the customer wants. If a customer keeps coming back it is
more likely that a taste for the other ciders will develop in time.
Before blaming commercial competitions and the judging, consider that
these simpler ciders may be the ones entered against more widely
distributed ciders such as Wyders, Woodchuck, or Hornsbys.
When setting expectations for a competition try to imagine yourself in a
judge's position of not knowing who produced a cider. On one hand it
might have been a mega-macro cider made from a company whose idea of
blending is to use concentrate from both China and Argentina, sugar from
beet,cane and maize, and water that is both chlorinated and fluoridated
(hypothetical exaggeration used for the sake of argument). At the
other extreme it might have been made by a highly conscientious organic
producer who thins the entire crop of apples by hand, hauls them to the
mill by packgoat, and who quarters and visually inspects every piece of
fruit that goes into the cider but who, due to one reason or another
(new to the craft, too busy wheezing after discovering some of the
hazards associated with addition of SO2 in the organic-approved gaseous
form, etc.) does not anticipate everything that can possibly go wrong
during fermentation and bottling. Many would exercise a bias in favor
of the craft producer and against the macro. However in the context of
a fairly administered competition judging is blind. Judges have no idea
whose cider is whose. In a properly administered competition judges
don't even know whose cider is entered. It's not as ridiculously easy
as knowing that one entry is Woodchuck "Dark and Dry" and the other is
Oliver's Beanblossom and trying to tell which is which. If you think it
would be easy to judge in blind tasting then you might want to volunteer
to judge some time to see if you're as good as you think you are.
Contact me offline and I'll be glad to point you toward opportunities.
This is suggested respectfully as a self-check and useful experience for
any cidermaker or serious cider enthusiast, not just Tim or Shawn (who,
for the benefit of anyone who may not know, are both cidermakers
seriously dedicated to the cause of promoting craft cider). Looking at
a slightly different scenario and perspective, when a judge erroneously
blasts an entry as (what he perceives to be) an obvious alcopop and it
turns out to be made by a serious small-scale craft cidermaker don't
expect those comments to add to the competition's credibility or lead to
further entries by that cidermaker. Views expressed by judges are seen
as representative of the entire competition. In that context it is
much more objective and less insulting simply to describe how the cider
is experienced and to list the perceived strengths and weaknesses.
Gary Awdey
Eden, New York
gawdey@att.net
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End of Cider Digest #1395
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