In particular, it is interesting that there is a suggestion that brewing alcoholic beverages was in part a way to fight cholera and other water-born maladies.
Not sure who is running the home brew ping list...
Ping!
Back in the 70’s and early 80’s we made a barrel of it a year. We were forced to quit when the 2nd cider mill closed. Now the wife use’s our 2 oak barrels for house planters.
Very interesting.
As a teen I made hard cider by adding yeast and sugar to those big glass jugs of apple juice.
“...there is a suggestion that brewing alcoholic beverages was in part a way to fight cholera and other water-born maladies.”
Yes, I thought of that once when I was reading a novel and realized that everyone was drinking “ale” all day, or tea, nobody drank water. Then I realized the water was probably pretty dirty, so you either had to boil it or ferment it to get rid of the germs.
Seems obvious that people got turned off to hard cider because of all the wasps hanging around it.
And in other news.. http://www.voanews.com/content/taste-for-hard-cider-grows-in-us/1483936.html
MIDDLEBURY, Vermont — More Americans are quenching their thirst with hard cider. In 2011, U.S. sales of the alcoholic beverage made of fermented apple juice were up 20 percent over the previous year, according to the U.S.-based Beer Institute.
There were about 5.6 million cases of hard cider sold in the U.S. in 2011. At the same time, mainstream beer sales are down.
I was aware that the Colonists drank gallons of the stuff but just recently discovered it for myself and I must say I’m hooked. I love Woodchuck Cider’s Granny Apple (please don’t post if Woodchuck’s a liberal company=-they’re from Vermont so I have my suspicions but they keep it off their Facebook page and they taste good).
I don’t remember ever seeing commercial cider but the home made stuff was common when I was a kid back in the ‘50s.
The small town I lived in had Halloween parties, held on our biggest parking lot. Two large wooden barrels were set up, one of apple juice for the kids and one of hard cider for adults. Once the cider took affect no one seemed to notice that kids would draw from the cider barrel.
Wait a second. I'm about as low class as you can get, and my poison of choice is a dry martini, classic, of the Bombay or Bombay Sapphire persuasion...three queen olives, of course.
I ferment up at least one batch a year.
I’ve brewed so much hard cider over the past years that I’m about sick of it...which is good because the apple harvest in NW Ohio was ruined this year by a late frost and generally unfavorable weather so obtaining the base cider is going to be expensive. I’ve got a dozen champagne bottles ready for bottle fermentation though so I may pay the price just to make some good sparkling cider. Oh, and if you haven’t tried Laird’s apple brandy and apple jack you ought to. That’s what cider was always all about. It’s much much tastier than corn liquor IMHO.
Ping the homebrewing list.
Interesting article on Hard Cider.
I don’t think I have ever had a hard cider. I would love to try it someday!
Below is a link to info on making a home brew cider. There as some very interesting comments below the article.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Home-Brew-Hard-Cider-from-Scratch/
“Beer is without question, like Pizza, Madonna, and fast cars, an icon of modern American culture.”
You lost me at “Madonna”
I don’t think one major contribution was mentioned in the article: Marketing.
Around 1840 or so I suspect newspapers were becoming more popular and affordable. With the influx of German immigrants I bet there were lots of ads featuring buxom Bavarian beer babes holding big mugs of frothy brew. That sounds silly but beer ads seem so much more alluring then cider ads.
Apple jack, beef jerky and barbeque baked beans would keep me happy most winter nights. If one of you brewers will invite me over I’ll bring the jerky.
PING
