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I have to say this before I get into this post.  Put your beer geekiness aside for a minute.  Bring it back by the end of the article.  We are going to be talking about ciders here.

I got a minute this week to sit down with Joe Heron, President of Crispin Ciders.  2011 marks a year of big expansions for the cider company, in both distribution and production.  Ciders don’t always get the beer geek people excited.  What Crispin is doing is a bit different from your average cider.  They are game changers.  We are talking the use ale yeasts, unique adjucts, and barrel aging. Yes, barrel aging.

Something I learned from Joe is that the art of cider is both easy and hard.  You need a lot of apples. Much like beer brewing, the better ingredients the better the product.  Apple & pears used in Crispin’s ciders come from Washington state.  They have the most sophisticated cold storage in the United States. (Why you can get apples year round.)  6,000 gallons of juice come to Colfax, California at a time, they first started with 50 gallons.  Ideally, cider is made from cider apples for their fermenting qualities, unfortunately they are rare & expensive.  Culinary apples (for eating) are used the cider these offerings. Lots of Granny Smith.