Interview with Lars Ringsrud, Cidermaker

A cider is born in East Wenatchee. (Photo courtesy of Snowdrift Cider Co.)

I've never liked beer. 

And if I hadn't spent time in London during college, that fact might've left me a lifelong teetotaler. But during that trip I discovered hard cider. Every pub had it on tap, and damn, was it good. 

Back in the U.S., of course, cider was thin on the ground, especially twenty years ago. That kind of made sense in Milwaukee, where I grew up, which is devoted to beer. But Washington is known for apples. When I moved here, I wondered: Where's the thriving cider scene?

In progress, it turns out. In the last few years especially a number of small cideries have sprung up throughout the northwest. (There's even a Northwest Cider Association.) And a few months ago I stumbled across what I believe is the best cider produced in Washington: Snowdrift, based in East Wenatchee. It's outstanding. I've been drinking it ever since, and it's a tough call to decide between their Cliffbreaks Blend and Wandering Aengus's Bloom as my favorite variety overall.

So I emailed Snowdrift's Lars Ringsrud to ask for an interview and find out more. 

You've grown apples for a long time, but you started making hard cider recently. How did you decide to enter that market?

Well our history in cidermaking goes back a couple decades, about as long as we've been growing apples. Peter would occasionally make homemade wines and ciders from the fruit here on the orchard. The wines would generally turn out pretty good, but the cider was never anything you'd actually want to drink--or even cook with for that matter.

Somewhere around 1998-2000 the apple market took a nose dive. We saw orchardists tearing out their orchards left and right because they couldn't get operating loans, and others would replant with Galas, Fujis, Pink Ladies, whatever the newest hot variety was, to try to stay in business, just to have to wait 3-7 years before they even got a crop. We were in the same boat where something had to change, but we went in a different direction.

Finally in 2004, WSU Mt. Vernon offered a "Principles & Practices of Cidermaking" class, and my dad saw it as a great opportunity to learn how to make cider the right way. Peter Mitchell, a cider expert from the UK taught the course, enlightened the class with a wealth of knowledge, and most importantly made us realize that all apples are not created equally.

What was involved in the process of going from "let's make hard cider" to having bottles show up at Whole Foods, Full Throttle, and other markets?

A lot of it was actually some version of, "this hobby's getting pretty expensive, we better see if we can sell a bit to pay for the tanks and the farming and all that." We're all perfectionists--so it would have been easy for us to just keep developing, perfecting, waiting, until we went broke. In 2006 we decided that we would go for it commercially, so we started grafting some of our trees over to cider varieties. In 2008 we started the state and federal application process, and in April of 2009 finally received our approval to begin.

Cider, at least cider from whole fruit, is a very specialty drink, with next to no representation out there. So we and other artisan cidermakers in the northwest are beginning to carve out a niche in the already-saturated alcoholic beverage world. We want to set northwest ciders up in a solid specialty position and build up some recognition around their quality. Since we had such small production this year, we took a look at those places that had the best alignment with such a niche--quality food, local focus, distinct flavors, etc. So we just connected with our ideal locations, let them sample our blends, and let the cider do the talking.

Take us through the process of making hard cider. How do you get from apples to the bottle?

The apples ripen anywhere between mid-August and mid-November, depending on the variety, and we try to leave them on the tree as long as they'll hang to make sure they're packing every bit of flavor and sugar in that they can before we pick them. Then we crush the apples when they're fully ripe. Some of the varieties benefit from macerating the pulp, which can enhance the flavor and give us richer color. The tannins go through a slight oxidation process which changes the aromatics that come through in the final, aged cider.

After crush, we press the pulp, or pomace, and get rich, sweet juice. We do some pre-fermentation varietal blending to get the right amount of acid, tannin and natural sugar in the mix for a healthy fermentation process. Just like with wine, we add sulfites to knock out any wild microbes that have come in on the apples, then after a day's rest we pitch it with champagne yeast and the magic starts.

After that it's a matter of waiting for the yeast to consume as much sugar as it can before the alcohol knocks it out, racking occasionally, and finally monitoring the maturation over the course of the next year or so to see when the flavors have developed into their full glory.

When the ciders are fully matured we blend again to create our main blends (Dry, Semidry, Orchard Select, and Cliffbreaks Blend), carbonate, bottle, pasteurize, label, and deliver the final cider to its excited recipients. We are also working on some in-bottle-conditioning for later release.

How do you decide which apples will make good cider?

We do a lot of single-varietal test batches. There are literally thousands of apple varieties out there, hundreds of which would make great components to a cider blend. We've tested maybe 20 or so, some of them are absolute rock stars of flavor. Cider apples generally fall into three categories: bittersweets, sharps, and bittersharps. In this case "bitter" really is used to describe the tannins that give you an astringent mouthfeel. Even then the bitter apples can have strong tannin or soft tannin. Strong tannin gives you that clean astringent feeling and sometimes a bitter taste in the back of your mouth, and soft tannin usually develops into incredible aromatics after some careful maturation. We blend between the styles to get a balance between flavor, aroma, sweetness and mouthfeel.

We can usually tell when we eat one which of these categories an apple falls into, but we always do a test fermentation to really get to know the apple. Some will produce incredible fruity, floral, or spiritous aromas, others can give you essences of bacon or barnyard. You definitely want to know what you're working with ahead of time.

Dry and semi-dry are standard hard cider varieties, but Orchard Select and Cliffbreaks are unique to you. What inspired each of the four varieties you have?

As you said, Dry and Semidry are kind of standard categories that people look for and we wanted them to be easy to identify. Our Dry is rich and complex though, a lot bolder than the baseline dry ciders out there. Semidry is slightly sweeter with great green apple, rhubarb and rich darker flavors.

Orchard Select is a profile that, as cidermakers, we really love. It's not quite dry, but not really sweet either. It's really apple-y with delicious summer fruit flavors as well, with a champagne-like pizazz.

Cliffbreaks Blend is this delicious cider that didn't really fit into any standard category. It's bold, moderately sweet, intensely fruity (melon, tropical fruits) and has a rich cider-apple tannin structure in the background that carries it a long way. Since it's something different, we gave it our own name. Our orchard is surrounded by bands of basalt cliffs with the Columbia River snaking between them. They make a stunning backdrop to the trees and we wanted to highlight our locale so we named this one "Cliffbreaks."

In the UK a lot of cidermakers are pushing single varietals, and we may release some in the future. There are one or two apple varieties that work well solo, but for the most part you can get a more complex cider by blending.

Are you planning to keep producing all four varieties, or will you be changing what's available over time and as you come up with new blends?

We've had incredible response to the four we have out right now, so we'll definitely be keeping them around as much as we can, but at the end of the day (or year) we're dealing with nature and she's always giving us different flavors to work with. Thankfully it doesn't matter as much if a June hailstorm marks up our fruit since we just crush it anyways, but one frosty night could freeze blossoms or the young fruit and knock out several varieties for the year. Cider trees are also notorious for being alternate-bearing, meaning you'll get a bumper crop one year and absolutely nothing the next year as the buds rest.

But it's also just a start. This year we're releasing a limited-quantity "Cidermaker's Reserve," a fantastic blend that we discovered as we were blending for the other four. And we are working on a burly, rich, dark cider blend to show off the depth of flavors that cider apples can produce. It'll be bottle-conditioned and available for sale at the cidery. We're also doing our first batch of perry this fall (just picked some of the pears today actually).

You grow pears, grapes, and cherries as well as apples. Are you going to be expanding to producing cider blends, or perry?

Well we'll always be geeks and be tinkering with things here and there, but our main focus is to let the character of the apples shine through in the finished cider. We still have a long way to go in understanding apples and perfecting how we blend them to maximize the intricacies of their flavor, so we've got our work cut out for us there. We didn't even want to "mess up" our Semidry blend by adding molasses and honey like we did, we just thought it might fit the judging criteria for a New England style cider, but then it won a Gold Medal at the Great Lakes Cider & Perry competition last December--and people love it!

Like I mentioned, we're going to do some perry. Just this spring we got a handful of perry pear trees and they're in the ground now, but it'll be a few years before they have a decent crop. And perry is a whole other animal as well--the pear flavors are so delicate, so revealing, and the chemistry is so particular, that there's no chance of hiding off flavors like you can with wines, and even ciders for that matter. So you have to be incredibly meticulous with your process.

I have had some good ciders with cherry blended in, and I'm sure there are some fruits that would make for some great combinations, but I think for us we'll be sticking to just apples. There's a world of flavor within this one fruit and that's where our passion lies so that's going to be our focus for now.

Was it more difficult to come up with the varieties you decided to sell, or to cut through the red tape involved in becoming an alcohol producer?

Heh. Well it's definitely no small feat to get through the stacks of paperwork that the TTB and WSLCB have for you. Thankfully Peter was comfortable with government applications from his 25 years as a civil engineer for the government and was able to navigate through with no problems. But on the other hand we did spend 5-6 years learning how to make cider, doing tiny batches, taking classes, etc. We still are nervous every time we release a batch, wondering if people are going to like it or not, and are just now starting to become familiar with what each variety of apple can contribute to a cider.

How did you decide on the name Snowdrift?

The tip of the iceberg for us was when we were still just pressing juice for friends & family to drink fresh. One day on a whim, we pressed some of the tiny Snowdrift Crabapples we use as a pollinator in our orchard. We got this incredibly sour, high-tannin juice that was very apple-y, but you almost had to just drink it out of a shot glass. Even though it was so sour, we measured the sugar and it was at 24 brix - almost double what we would get from Golden Delicious! A couple years later we fermented some and it was interesting, with intense, bold tannin and acidity.

Another point of inspiration is that all the magic of cider happens slowly and quietly through the winter as the snow drifts around the resting trees out in the orchard. The cider is silent but it's hard at work on its own chemistry, maturing the aromatics and tannins into the complexities that we enjoy at the end of the process. It rounds out the year by making use of what was previously a dormant season, just like the cider operation fills out what our orchard has to offer.

You've obviously focused a great deal of care and attention on design, from your labels to your logo to your website. How did you decide on your look and feel?

In real life I'm a product and graphic designer, so I was really excited to pour on the love for a full branding project from name and logo to packaging and website. Like I touched on earlier, we're trying to carve out a niche and establish a name for cider--both for Snowdrift Cider Co. and for the cider industry as a whole. It was important for us to present an identity that was relevant for today without being too modern or trendy, and pay respect to the history of cider without being cheesy and dated. With cider already being overshadowed by the rest of the alcohol industry, we wanted to help it stand out from the crowd. We really love what we do and we want that to come through visually as well. Being your own client definitely has its pros and cons. You can pay that extra attention to detail when you have time, but on the flip side when you have actual paying projects you have to set your own projects aside. So while the packaging and visuals have been very well-received so far, we've got a ways to go still.

Your bottles are 750ml and cost between $12 and $17 (at least at Whole Foods), which puts you almost on par with a bottle of wine. I think they're delicious, but why should someone new to cider go for a bottle of Snowdrift rather than beer or wine?

Well, they're in for a treat if they do. And don't get me wrong, I love great beers and wines. But I really dig the complexity cider has. With our ciders, each sip gives you a taste of the very orchard that it came from. We grow our own cider apples and make our cider right here on the orchard. We definitely approach it with the same degree of care as many winemakers.

A lot of people are starting to look for something new, something different, and cider delivers that. In the events we've done this year, it's been fun to watch as wine-lovers and beer-lovers alike come up to our table, often completely unfamiliar with cider, taste ours and walk away loving it. We've got the flavor spectrum that can deliver something from very light for the lager- or white wine-lover to bold and rich for the double IPA- and red-wine lovers.

Full-flavored ciders bring a new aspect to food pairings--try it with cheese and you're in for a real treat. And while I'd rather just drink the cider and enjoy the flavor on its own, it does impart incredible complexity if cooked in a variety of dishes, from veggie stews and seafood to a whole host of desserts.