You may not be aware of it but CAMRA BC isn’t just about craft beer, we also love craft Cider and this is the best time of year for it! Many people here in BC don’t think about cider much beyond trying the sickly sweet commercial varieties that clutter the liquor store, perhaps they tried it once as a teenager and then lost interest quickly. But these types of cider have as much in common with real cider as commercial lager does with craft beer! BC has some of the finest apples in the world and yet cider is an after thought, perhaps people tried imported cider like Magners or Strongbow but then decided to head back to the familiar arms of a west coast IPA. Well there’s some awesome ciders to try this year, so far I’ve had a delicious pumpkin cider (I’m not a huge fan of pumpkin in beer but in cider it works very well as the autumnal flavours play off each other), and a hopped cider that worked incredibly well.
Also leaping on the apple train, the local homebrew group, Vanbrewers, did a bulk purchase of over 1100 litres of unpasteurized apple juice last month – with these geniuses on the case I can’t wait to see what they’ve cooked up! I bought 23 litres myself and it’s now maturing nicely with some spiced pumpkin.
There are some great cider blogs that you should catch up on such as cidermonger and older posts from westcider.
Why not try to get out to a couple of the great cider events coming up this week?
This Thursday November 14th at Kitsilanos’s The August Jack there will be the first cider take over featuring ciders from Portland and Salem Oregon including Anthem‘s Cider and Perry as well as the legendary Reverend Nat‘s- Hallelujah Hopricot and Revelation’s Newtown Pippin. The Reverend Nat will be in attendance so let’s give him a big Vancouver welcome! No tickets needed just come by after 5pm and have your tastebuds blown away with the perfect food pairings at this great new venue.
The good Reverend is staying in the city so that he can appear again this Sunday, November 17th at Bitter tasting room where there’s the Triple Cask Throw-Down with dry cask ciders to sample, one of which is a sour cherry (sounds awesome). Again there’s no ticket needed, just drop by and have a try. There’s also an IIPA from Scuttlebutt in Everett in case the ciders are too much for you!
Get out there and try some of these great craft ciders, or better still have a go at making one! It’s the easiest thing in the world to brew and with winter coming quickly some nice hot mulled cider will keep you warm until it’s hop season again.
Adam Chatburn
President, CAMRA BC – Vancouver Branch
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