Tim Edmond – C-VILLE Weekly

Cider insider: Hard apple purveyors are juicing with unique ingredients

Cider is a traditionally straightforward beverage—whether it’s the soft stuff or the hard stuff, cider is made with apples and not much else.

Tell that to today’s local hard cider makers.

From spices to berries to citrus to hops, all sorts of adjuncts are showing up in cider these days. And much as craft beer drinkers can’t get enough of brews with wacky ingredients (Oreos and fried chicken f’real?), cider sippers are getting into the unusual too.

Locally, Andy Hannas, Tim Edmond, and Dan Potter are leading the charge at Potter’s Craft Cider.

“Tim, Dan and I all used to brew beer at home before we started making cider, and they were looking at starting a brewery before they wound up in the cider world,” Hannas says. “That was definitely a big source of inspiration early on. Hopped cider was the third product we made. They had a lot of beer ideas they were kicking around, and I had things in mind from my homebrewing days, so we started experimenting.”

With Virginia Cider Week set to flow November 9-18, start priming your palate with these three unique hard cider offerings.

Dirt Napple

The latest fruit of Potter’s experiments is a collaboration with cult favorite The Veil Brewing Co. Working with The Veil’s Dirt Nap Double IPA as a baseline, the team hit Dirt Napple with Citra, Mosaic, Galaxy and Nelson Sauvin hops before finishing it with lactose sugar, which doesn’t turn to alcohol in the presence of yeast. The result is a cider with some residual sugar (nearly all of Potter’s ciders are dry) and a New England IPA-like mouthfeel.

“It is obviously much different from the beer it was modeled after, but it was interesting to try one of our ciders and add some sugar,” Hannas says. “It is by no means a sweet cider like a lot of others out there, but to have something that finished not quite so dry was interesting. And it changed the way the hops expressed.”

The 6.9 percent ABV cider is still available in four packs at the Potter’s tasting room, though supply is dwindling. If you can’t grab one, be on the lookout for kegs around town as Virginia Cider Week approaches.

Big Pippin

Castle Hill Cider keeps it super traditional—except when it comes to Big Pippin. This sister line of ciders features four varieties: ginger and oaked spirits, hopped ginger, elderberry and cherry, and prickly pear and orange blossom. The beverages range from 6.9 to 11 percent alcohol and will be hitting shelves in 12-ounce cans by December, according to cider maker and orchard manager Stuart Madany.

“Adjunct ciders are generally at a lower price point and higher volume,” he says. “They’re made of what I’d call the better apples that are not cider specific—jonathans, yorks, pink ladies, and golden delicious.”

Blood Orange Cider

Bold Rock Hard Cider doesn’t hide its ambitions—namely, to make relatively sweet, drinkable cider for the masses. But that also means the cidery is willing to put just about anything into a hard beverage if it’ll attract a new fan or two.

Take Bold Rock’s Blood Orange cider, which blends blood orange juice and locally harvested Blue Ridge apples. The naturally hazy beverage, sitting at an easy drinking 4.7 percent ABV, combines the crisp tartness of cider with a zip of the trendiest citrus on the market. Blood Orange Cider is available in 12-ounce bottles at a variety of stores around Charlottesville, so cider lovers can get to sippin’ ASAP.

Revamped regulations: County hears proposed wedding ordinance

At a heavily attended June work session, which C-VILLE referred to as a “war on weddings,” the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors and planning commissioners discussed proposed regulations for events at farm wineries, breweries, cideries and distilleries. Though the county’s Planning Commission has yet to vote on these changes, the topic was debated at its September 13 meeting. And, once again, plenty of concerned citizens showed up primed for battle.

Senior planner Mandy Burbage presented the staff report, which followed up on several topics from June, such as a traffic management plan for events with more than 200 people, a curfew for outdoor amplified music, a one-time neighbor notification at the time of the zoning clearance and a minimum road standard for event eligibility.

Burbage says the latter was the “stickiest.”

Though several residents spoke out about the dangers of increased traffic on the county’s narrow, winding roads, on which these farms are often nestled, Burbage says staff can’t enforce any regulations without proof of a substantial impact on public health and welfare.

Through an analysis by the Albemarle County Police Department, staff has concluded that there’s no correlation between traffic accidents and events at those types of venues. So, according to Burbage, a minimum road standard is no longer on the table.

Monique Pritchard, who lives in the White Hall district, was the first to speak at the meeting. And she’s not buying that traffic from weddings and other events doesn’t pose a threat.

“Allowing event-goers or winery patrons to drive our back roads is a significant safety hazard for everyone involved,” she said.

Amplified music is another problem, she said. “I cannot think of a greater nuisance than blaring music at all hours of the day from an alleged winery next door.”

Bill Pritchard, speaking next, didn’t mince words: “Wineries don’t need outdoor amplified music to grow grapes.”

Staff recommended cutting the amplified music at 10pm for events, but after some discussion with the commissioners, they decided on an 11pm curfew.

At the previous meeting, several industry professionals talked about how their jobs depend on Charlottesville and Albemarle being a destination wedding hub, and some farm representatives said they use their spaces as event venues to help make ends meet. Potter’s Craft Cider-maker Tim Edmond spoke about the concept of grandfathering at the most recent meeting.

Potter’s, in Free Union, doesn’t yet have a tasting room or a space to host events, but that doesn’t mean its owners aren’t planning to in the future.

“We don’t want the rules to change in the middle of the game,” he said. “We don’t want to have to change what we’re doing.”

The proposed ordinance requires farms that host events to grow five acres of the crop that goes into their product, as well as ferment and bottle onsite, and have a tasting room with regular hours.

The next public hearing on the topic is set for November 1.