You need to read:
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...
Perry, a cider made from pears, is positively etherial.
Growing and harvesting grain became much, much cheaper with mechanization.
Growing and picking apples remained labor intensive.
Storage of apples also became more feasible.
Free market at work.
Great flick, catch it on netflix if you can.
“Rumors of apple tree blights and diseases that killed the orchards and forced people to switch to beer are not backed up by any evidence.”
The author of this piece is incompetent.
Proper cider requires “bittersharp” and “bitter” apples (i.e., apples with a high tannin content). The tannins give body to the cider, and balance the sweetness of the alcohol. All of the bitter and bittersharp apples of which I am familiar are HIGHLY susceptible to fireblight, and most are susceptible to apple scab as well. In the U.S. it is difficult to grow them anywhere but the pacific coast states. It was, indeed, disease that killed off cider.
I’m a cider lover and an orchardist, and I’d be growing my own cider apples if I could.
I made hard cider once, broke the rules, and it still worked great. All you need is a cheap mini-refrigerator, in an outside closet or laundry room, unless you want your home to reek of fermenting apple.
I set the mini-fridge to 60F, then found an open plastic tub small enough to fit inside, filled it with apple juice and a couple of cups of table sugar, stirred. Then I closed the door and ignored it for a couple of weeks, checking every now and then just to see.
At a particular point, it tasted alcohol-y, so I turned the temperature of the fridge down to hard freeze. After a day, there was a big block of apple-water-and sludge ice on the bottom, and I could pour off the cider.
It worked! Got about a pint or so from a gallon or more of apple juice.
Good article. Thanks for posting!
You need to read:
I can highly recommend Woodchuck draft cider available in the grocery or liquor store case. We drink it all the time.
Beak & Skiff apple orchard in central NY opened a distillery, and makes a very nice apple vodka. Not "apple flavored vodka", but a good straight clean vodka made from apples (with just a hint thereof).
George Costanza is reported to be a hard cider kind of guy.
Wow. I LOVE hard cider. I’ve been drinking Strongbow’s on hot summer afternoons because it’s not sweet like Woodchuck. Very refreshing—delightful.
Hard cider makes an excellent hot buttered rum. Heat the cider and some brown sugar in a microwave...careful not to boil off the alcohol. Add to a mug with some Jamaican rum and a pat of real butter. Two of those and you don't care if it's 20 below and snowing.
“As a home brewer who brews both beer and cider, I found this fascinating.”
Have you (or anyone else on this ping list) posted links to good recipes or recipes of your own for making hard cider at home? I’d be interested in reading them and giving one of them a try.
i disagree, in the staunch beer city of St Paul, every bar has hard cider available and usually on tap. Perhaps its the Irish roots of the cities. I will drink cider on a hot day before i ever reach for a beer, just a bit more refreshing IMHO.
As a youth, I remember the signs posted in several of the local pizza joints in Connecticut:
“The consumption of alcoholic products other than beer or cider is prohibited on these premises.”
I had wondered why none of these pizza parlours offered cider as a drink.
Sounds like a fun project!
Sounds like a fun project!
It’s changed now. Lots of ciders out there.