[Editor's Note: Craft beer is all about local and regional companies led by creative people manipulating a few choice ingredients into a delicious alcoholic beverage, often best paired with various foods. With that in mind, we think it's time to welcome hard ciders to the Drink Craft Beer party! And, with hard cider, we're also welcoming the newest member of the Drink Craft Beer team, Sarah, our new Cider writer! Sarah has been a long-time cider lover and pushed for us to cover the topic for quite a while...we finally decided it was time for her to put up or shut up and, well, here she is so it looks like she chose to "put up." Drink Craft Beer co-founder Devon has been known to enjoy, and even sometimes brew, hard cider so this is a natural extension of interest for us. Please welcome Sarah, and hard cider, to the site. Cheers!]

Kicking off our coverage of hard ciders, we are proud to introduce you to Bantam Cider, a brand new cider company launching just last month out of Cambridge, MA producing what they are calling "Modern American Cider", starting with their first product, Wunderkind. Bantam was co-founded by Dana Masterpolo (Co-founder & Head Storyteller) and Michelle da Silva (Co-founder and Head Taster) after 18 months and many batches of intensive home crafted ciders and many plans for where they wanted to take this new cider works.

First two photos used with permission of Bantam Cider Company.

Drink Craft Beer: How did the idea to create a hard cider company come about?

Michelle: I always loved wine, my grandparents actually made wine for years and I was always involved in that process from a very young age so making cider wasn't that far off. We started trying that out, and the big appeal being that here in New England we have a lot of great apples available to us to take advantage of led pretty naturally to cider.

Dana: I piggybacked off Michelle's wine experience and loved the idea of being more involved in my community, doing something that was more creative and that's how I got brought into making these small batches with Michelle over the years. We started making cider and hit a point where we realized we were going to parties and you never used to see cider, but we hit a time where we were seeing people going for cider more & more. But we noticed the ciders out there were pretty limited and we thought there was an opportunity to make something in a new direction for the cider industry. We just want to open people up to the idea of having another option for a drink, when you want a change from beer, another option than wine.

DCB: With the growth of ciders overall, and larger players like Angry Orchard, what are your feelings about a bigger brand entering the field?

M: Because the market is so new, getting cider into the conversation more and more is the priority and as people start to drink cider more & more they start to develop preferences and palates and experiment. I think more cider in the market helps everyone. It's a market that people are starting to hear about, haven't been too many big brands, you have Woodchuck and a few others but there is a lot of room for various people to come in. So the more cider is in the conversation the better for all ciders -

D: The rising tide carries all boats, isn't that the saying?

DCB: How did you figure out what you wanted for your first cider?

D: When we were developing and fine tuning, we did a lot of blind tastings with 10, 15 friends and family and a big range of ciders. We were very deliberate in wanting blind tastings so no one had any idea what was our product, what was bottle, what was canned, and we found later that those that were "higher quality" weren't necessarily ranking that high and those six-packs made with concentrate weren't always the lowest. That was a big learning point to us. We made our decisions that we wanted to use real apples not concentrate, not adding sugar, no colors. People can like the taste of both, but we just wanted to approach from that way. And people really care that it is from real apples. We purposefully have it listed on the label "fermented pressed apples" so that people know, and people care. Our philosophy was to take that route.

DCB: Tell us a bit more about Wunderkind.

D: Our goal is to make a really amazing product, with great fruit and to find a local place. Because we are cider, we had to find a winery that would work with us for permitting reasons. Unlike beer, cider is not a clear recipe - you are dealing with fruit, with a product that changes a lot seasonally and so we want to be really active in the process. Thankfully we wound up at Westport Wineries which is also Buzzards Bay Brewery and were able to create it there. We were their first cider so they are very excited! Our first batch was about 1000 cases and our goal was to just get our product out there and eventually go up to larger batches. Our first batch went really well - and by really well I do mean everything imaginable that could go wrong did ha ha - but we got through it and we are excited that people genuinely seem to like it. We deliberately went into our first batch open and it took a lot to decide - you would be surprised how many different types and combinations of apples make such a difference. We wanted our first to be widely appealing and we went into this knowing we didn't want our first to be something so dry it fell off your mouth. We talked to local farmers to see which types are available year round and since this is something we hope to have available year round, we wanted to be aware of those limitations.

M: Being seasonal we have to be aware to plan our production, they can cold store certain types, but you want to plan so that come August you don't run out of fruit waiting for the fall harvest. It's not as delicate as grapes but much more affected than the grain base in beers.

Wunderkind is a mix of Cortland, Empire, Macintosh and green apples. There are thousands and thousands of varieties so the combinations are so much more varied than you would imagine. We work with local farmers in Western Mass and luckily those farmers we deal with most often have connections to other farmers that have other types of apples we use less often, heirloom varieties for example, and we can access those through that network.

D: Some are much drier, some are more full bodied, some much thinner. Here in New England, we were amazed- you go in the grocery store and you see some available, but we were shocked to see how much aren't pretty enough to go on store shelves but are perfect for something like cider. Macintosh is a really popular apple but it's really nice that we can use fruit that is there, they have it, it just might not be pretty enough for shelves.

DCB: Any suggestions for food pairings with your Wunderkind cider?

M: Ooohhh! Love this question! Cheeses are great obviously-cheddar and brie in particular, even goat cheeses. Sooo good. It goes great with Thai or Indian - any spicy foods really. Salmon is a nice one too believe it or not. Cider is great to cook WITH too - a great marinade. Good to cook with pretty much any sort of pork, especially if you are sauteing a dish with some cider in there you get amazing flavors. We haven't tried baking yet, but want to try it in some cornbread maybe? Cider is shockingly versatile.

DCB: What's something interesting you would tell someone who doesn't know your cider, or cider in general even?

D: We both agree that we hope to get people to enjoy it in a wine glass or a tulip glass. But there are different ways to drink cider too, you can make it different.

M: It's a great champagne alternative, makes a great Mimosa or Kir Royale.

D: I like to drink it much like a Hefeweizen, you know how you put a slice of orange? It tastes just like a cava sangria without putting any effort into it at all! I spent some time in Spain and used to get this cava sangria over there that I could never recreate. Same thing here, you put a slice of orange in your cider and it totally gives a new spin & it tastes JUST like the cava sangria I used to have! Experimenting some more, it's actually really great with a sprig of mint in it too. You wouldn't think but it brings out a whole new set of flavors.

[Disclaimer: I tried the orange in cider during this interview and it was a totally different flavor but AMAZING - I think that will get a lot of quality time in the warmer weather.]

DCB: What to expect next?

D: As soon as you get your first product on the shelves people start asking "what's next?". We do have some things in the hopper, I think our first priority is to get another few runs of Wunderkind but trust us, we have plenty of ideas.

DCB: Big thanks to Dana & Michelle at Bantam Cider for sharing with us!

Bantam Cider will be doing tastings this weekend, so be sure to stop by & tell them Drink Craft Beer says 'Hi!'
Friday February 3rd 2012 - Ball Square Fine Wines & Liquors (in Somerville) 5-7pm
Saturday February 4th 2012 - City Feed & Supply (in Jamaica Plain) 2-4pm

Bantam Wunderkind Cider [Cider Review]

Bantam's Wunderkind Cider is the inaugural offering from this self-described "tiny company." Coming in at a very approachable 6% abv, the label describes this as a Modern American Cider so I'm curious to see how exactly they define that. Pouring out this cider it has a good amount of carbonation with a finger and a half of fizzing light head that quickly dissipates into a constant flow of singular small bubbles coming up from the bottom. Even minutes later the pace of small to medium bubbles is still a crowd heading for the top with only the slightest bit of delicate white foam ringing the glass. Wunderkind has a very light hint of color, very clear with only the faintest touch of young straw color; a yellow tending more towards the green family than browns.

Coming in for that first sip, you still have that carbonation coming up at you, and you get a whiff of honey right off the bat. Bantam uses a flower-blossom honey in with their fermented pressed apples and sparkling wine yeast and that flower-blossom honey is what comes up in the nose well before you get that punch of crisp apple fresh scent. Pulling up that first sip you know right away that this is going to be a crisp, juicy cider.

Those little bubbles cut through the honey flavors bouncing around your mouth and really meld the crisp apple flavors with the smoothness of the hints of honey. Honey can be a very cloying flavor but this one toes the line of adding to the recipe instead of coating over your mouth. Wunderkind has four or five types of apples mixed in and you really get the juicy sharpness of those Macintosh and Cortland shining through. This cider is right up my alley so I can see myself enjoying one of these 22 oz. bottles myself one night or bringing it over to share with a friend. I had the luck to try it with a slice of orange as suggested by the creators so that is something strongly suggested, especially as a way to change up your cider for those warm summer months.
* For more food & beverage suggestions, please read above.

Sometimes I wonder if the rarity of a beer makes me predisposed to like it. Do I subconsciously want to like a beer just because it was so hard to get, or so rare that very people will ever try it? Normally this would be a philosophical question left to the ages (or perhaps a good pysch experiment) but in the case of Audacity of Hops I can actually answer it. You see this beer started as a collaboration beer between Cambridge Brewing Company and Mayflower Brewing (and several other Massachusetts breweries) for the 2009 Craft Brewers Conference. Everyone who attended the event was given a bottle of this beer, and at the time it blew us away. But that bottling was limited to that very, very small run for the event. Sure it’s been on tap at Cambridge Brewing Company from time to time since then, but now it’s in 22oz bottles and I couldn’t wait to try it again. I have to admit, though, I had a bit of fear. Had I over hyped this beer in my head because it wasn’t readily available to purchase? In a word...NO.

I sat down on my couch and started filling my glass. Immediately nearly all my concerns were washed away as the citrusy aroma of hops poured out. Audacity of Hops is more than a clever name, the hop aroma leaps from the glass to let you know you’re in for some serious hop goodness. It pours a rich, hazy gold color with a fluffy white head that stays for a shockingly long time. Any tiny doubt of how good this beer is was eradicated in the first sip. A rush of grapefruity hops coated my tongue, instantly everything I remembered about this beer was confirmed. I let out an involuntary satisfied sigh as I put my glass down, a tell tale sign of tasty beer. This beer isn’t just about the hops though. There’s a fantastic balance of malt sweetness that follows up which then gives way to a perfect spiciness imparted by the Belgian yeast. If it sounds like I’m swooning over this beer it’s because I am. What started out as concern that it wouldn’t live up to my expectations resulted in the blissful realization that this amazing beer is now available whenever I want it, and that’s a great thing.

As I believe I’ve mentioned about twenty times on this site lately, 2011 was a huge year for beer in Massachusetts. We saw the release of so many new breweries that it was tough to keep up! One of those was Backlash Beer Company, a Boston-based but Holyoke-brewed beer that, with this release, counts three Belgian styles under their belts. The latest, a Belgian-style IPA, has come with a lot of hype on the back of Backlash signing a state-wide distribution deal that will expand their reach from the Boston-area to all of Massachusetts.

Clearly unfiltered, Declaration is a dark, hazy tawny beer! Crowned with one of the biggest, sturdiest eggshell colored heads I’ve ever seen, this brew stands a solid 2 fingers taller than the pint glass that is trying to contain it. It seems that the beer is much in line with the ethos of the brass knuckles on every bottle of Backlash. The real question, though, is does the taste stand up to the imposing appearance?

Citrusy hops and very-well-complementing Belgian yeast aromas are definitely getting us started in the right direction! I’m looking for the malt, but all I come back with is the spiciness of the yeast and those damned hops! They’ve seemingly Houdini’ed any smell of the base grains away...eh, to hell with it. Who needs malt in a Belgian IPA anyway?

I read on the Backlash Blog that they claim this is the hoppiest Belgian IPA they know of. Is that true? I don’t know...there are definitely contenders out there who I’d have to try at the same time to really know (after all, beer is super subjective based on the experiences going on all around you...that’s one reason it’s so great!). The important question, though, is: “Is this a good beer?” My answer! I sure as hell think so! I have a checklist (OK, I don’t actually have a checklist, but now that I’m thinking about it, here are the things I think make a great Belgian-style IPA): (1) Big hop bitterness, taste and aroma, (2) dry malt (3) Belgian yeast spice notes, (4) none of that oily hoppiness that many American brewers have put out lately...the Belgians are more sophisticated than that (they’re European after all). This beer nails that in spades! It’s bitter, but balanced, with a great hop taste and a funky Belgian/hoppy nose; it’s super dry; and it’s completely devoid of the oiliness that works in some American IPAs but not in this style (in my humble opinion). The conclusion? Delicious beer! And, luckily, Backlash just inked a statewide distribution deal in Massachusetts. That means all you people in Western Mass can finally find out what us Easterners were talking about (and what’s been being brewed in their own back yard).

Jeff’s Note: Normally I’m a big opponent of wax on bottles. It doesn’t make the beer taste better and it’s a pain to open. That said, Backlash founders Helder and Maggie hand dip each bottle, then hand stamp each, so I had to include that in the picture! Also, it’s really not hard to open. You guys are doing something right even with the packaging!

I bought a 22oz bomber of this craft beer at Craft Beer Cellar in Belmont.

I have a soft spot for black IPAs so when we heard Wachusett was launching an Imperial Black IPA as their latest beer, Jeff and I knew we had to go check it out. Black IPA as a style can mean so many things, sometimes it’s purely an IPA with some darker malts, other times a hoppy porter and in a few cases a hoppy stout. If the word imperial normally scares you off, don’t let it this time. At 7.3% abv it certainly comes in higher than the average IPA but it’s not a massive booze bomb like some other imperials on the market. In fact I tried to taste the alcohol in the beer and couldn't.

What you do get is an insanely smooth and balanced black IPA. There’s a nice hop aroma that comes from the use of Zythos, Falconers Flight and Calypso hops. Not familiar with those strains? Yeah we weren’t either, they’re new west coast strains. What we can say is they taste really really good, imparting both citrus and pine notes into the beer. This beer is also most definitely an IPA first. They use midnight and chocolate wheat malts, which turn the beer pitch black but don’t make it overly sweet or too roasty. The use of wheat also adds an incredible smoothness to the finish. Both Jeff and I kept commenting how easy the beer was to drink, which could be a bit dangerous because, while you can’t taste the 7.3% ABV, it’s still there. While there’s no doubt this is a very hoppy beer it’s also incredibly balanced, and in our opinion it’s one of the best beers Wachusett has put out. We were told the beer should be hitting stores starting today (Friday, January 27th 2012), so if you’re reading this go pick some up!

Check out some more pictures from our trip to Wachusett Brewing Company to try the Imperial Black IPA!