Sip Northwest, Spring 2017
61 S I P N O R T H W E S T C O M Local makers embrace experimental practices BY TARA MORGAN O n a tiny gilded banner flickering across the top of REVEREND NATS HARD CIDERs Wooden Hellfire a boozy root beerbrown cider with hints of fig and bitter chocolate are the words The most unusual ciders no one else will make Thats no hyperbole Wooden Hellfire is crafted from Newtown Pippin juice thats boiled for 18 hours until its a viscous black goo then fermented for three to four months and aged in freshly dumped Old Forrester bourbon barrels for a year It tastes more like a port wine or Belgian quad beer than it does the fizzy fruity cider youll find on most supermarket shelves Which is precisely what cidermaker Nat West is aiming for unusual Over the past few years Reverend Nats Tent Show bottle club has produced small batches of everything from Bootylicious a milkshake thick Dominican rum barrel aged double tepache pineapple wine with toasted coconut and banana to Fuzzytown a Mosaic dry hopped soured imperial Newtown Pippin cider aged on kiwis and dragon fruit in red wine barrels And West isnt the only cidermaker experimenting with uncommon ingredients and processes Innovation as it turns out is one of the hallmarks of the Northwest cider scene PHOTOS BY CAITY ROCK OPEN TO INTERPRETATION Belly up at a West Coast cider bar like Bushwhacker Cider in Portland or Capitol Cider in Seattle and youll find an ever changing array of experimental concoctions like SEATTLE CIDER CO s Wild Raspberry Sour or SCHILLING CIDERs Sriracha Grapefruit I think theres a sense of experimentation in the Northwest that is unique says Colin Schilling owner of Schilling Cider A lot of us here feel embraced by our consumers and were highly encouraged to experiment more so than in Europe and more so than on the East Coast Joel VandenBrink CEO at Seattle Cider and Two Beers Brewing agrees While he characterizes the European cider scene as old school and loyal to tradition he says East Coast cider drinkers tend to prefer sweeter fruit forward ciders And Northwest cider consumers Theyre curious for whats new he says Cider INNOVATION
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