And Along Came a Cider

LIKE BITING INTO one of those crisp fall apples, sipping a great cider is a burst of sweet-tart orchard juice on your palate.

Apples are the taste of autumn and harvest time. (Pumpkin spice is just a fad!)

It was only a decade ago that cider started nudging its way back into our collective consciousness and national brands like Angry Orchard appeared.

Beer may always be more popular, but traditional ciders are grabbing more attention in Colorado, following in the footsteps of the state’s roster of craft breweries and distilleries. Local cideries and tasting rooms have opened, most bars and restaurants offer several ciders and liquor stores have shifted shelf space from endless ales to showcase locally produced ciders.

Colorado’s apple cidery corps has steadily grown to include about 18 producers across the state, according to Brad Page, founder of the Colorado Cider Guild.

However, the ancient traditional beverage of cider is suffering from some significant misper- ceptions.

“The cider industry has catered to this mass market that likes beverages that are light, fruity and fizzy,” says Page who is also owner of 10-year-old Colorado Cider Company in Denver.

The mass market prefers its beverages very sweet.

“A can of Angry Orchard hard cider has 28 grams of sugar. That’s like a Coke. The semi-dry cider at Colorado Cider has 5 grams and in the craft market that’s considered kind of sweet,” Page says.

Part of the problem is that we think cider is the same as beer. “Cider should be treated more

POUR AN APPLE: BoCo Ciders has more than 12 ciders on tap at its North Boulder taproom.

like wine because it’s all about the fruit and the area it’s grown in,” he says. It’s the terroir French winemakers talk about.

The taste of a cider from an orchard can widely vary from year to year. “There’s a flavor difference between a Kingston Black cider apple grown in New England, Michigan or Colorado,” Page says.

Like wine, ciders are ideally enjoyed with food. “Ciders are more on the white-wine side of the palate,” Page explains. ”The acid level in some of these Colorado ciders is pretty bracing so they go well with rich, fatty foods: Spanish cheeses, salumi, and seafood.”

At his Colorado Cider Co. tasting room in Denver, more than 20 ciders on tap and in bottles are available. This allows visitors to do vertical tastings—different years of the same cider—to snip and sip the nuances.

“Cider in Colorado has come a long way in ten years. People are making some very good ciders in in the state that are winning awards in the national competitions. We’ve etched out a little bit of a reputation,” he says, pointing out the competition from cideries in big apple areas including the Pacific Northwest, Michigan, Virginia and New England.

Why are Colorado ciders getting noticed? The makers are growing and pressing the heirloom varieties of cider apples that are less sweet and high in the tannins that yield great flavors after fermentation. The British call them “spitters” because they don’t taste very good raw.

Growers around the state, particularly in Montezuma County, have launched an effort to replant them.

“It’s an incredibly long-term project. We need to grow these apples in quantity so we can play around with them in ciders,” he says. It takes eleven pounds of apples to make a gallon of cider. Page is doing his part to bring back old apples by planting 4,000 trees in his Western Slope orchard since 2013.