On a recent, extremely hot day, I attended the Beerfest in Santa Rosa. Although there were hundreds of fabulous hand-crafted beers to quench my thirst, some of the most refreshing drinks I tried were the ciders.
The Ace-in-the-Hole Pub has live music every day, and is a great place to try all of the Ace Ciders. Photo by Joel Williams
By Joel Williams
Published: July, 2008
On a recent, extremely hot day, I attended the Beerfest in Santa Rosa. Although there were hundreds of fabulous hand-crafted beers to quench my thirst, some of the most refreshing drinks I tried were the ciders. I have wanted to review a local cidery for some time now, so I decided that July was the perfect time of the year to do it. The California Cider Company (CCC), located in Sebastopol, produces Ace Ciders and also features the down home Ace-in-the-Hole Pub, the cider version of a brewpub. (They carry a full lineup of craft beers too. )
Cider—often called hard cider in the United States—is generally made from fermenting the juices of various types of apples, although occasionally other fruits are introduced into the mix. Popular for centuries in England, cider used to be a staple beverage in the colonial United States because it was safer to drink than water. Ciders all but vanished stateside with prohibition, and only recently have they regained popularity.
Jeffery House, president of CCC, was born in the U.K. and began distributing imported English ciders to the Bay Area in 1985, right around the time when British and Irish pubs were popping up everywhere. House said that the sales to those establishments went very well, noting, An Irish pub without cider is like a Chinese restaurant without noodles. After 10 years of importing ciders, House decided it was time to make his own locally.
In 1995 he opened CCC and began to make Ace Apple Cider, which is California’s first commercially produced and distributed cider. House found that using pure apple juice from real apples grown locally—instead of cider apples, which are typically smaller crab apples—produced a superior product. He compares it to the wine industry and told me, If you put good fruit in, you get good stuff out.
The second cider produced at CCC was Ace Perry Cider, which is made by blending pear juice with the apple juice base, and then adding real vanilla from Madagascar. The result is an incredibly refreshing and clean, lightly sweet cider. Perry is CCC’s biggest seller by far. Next to water, House says, it is probably the most refreshing drink you can have.
The next twist that House came up with was adding honey to the cider. He uses a full 5 percent of local wildflower honey with 95 percent apple juice to create Ace Apple Honey. House claims that the people who like craft beers seem to gravitate towards the Honey Cider due to its complexity as well as its balance between the sweetness from the honey and the natural dryness of cider. I found this to be a very interesting cider that had more mouthfeel and a little less dryness than some of the other ciders. For those that want an even fruitier cider, the Ace Berry cider is made by adding raspberry, blackberry and strawberry juice to the fermented apple cider.
The Berry cider was the forth Ace in CCC’s hand, so where do they go from there? Enter the Joker. Ace Joker is the most traditional cider according to U.K. standards, and is very light in color, with an alcohol content of 8 percent (the others range from 5-6 percent ABV). House compares its characteristics to that of champagne because it is very dry and bubbly. I really enjoyed this newest creation; due to the dominant clean and crisp apple flavor, however, you really can’t taste the alcohol, meaning the effects of this Joker can creep up on you. Beware, the Joker can be wild!
The Ace-in-the-Hole Pub is great place to try all of CCC’s ciders while enjoying some pub grub and some of the best local music around. Ace Ciders are also available throughout the Bay Area both on tap at a number of bars and restaurants, and in 6-packs and 22-ounce bottles in stores.
Ace-in-the-Hole Pub
(707) 829-1101 3100 Gravenstein Hwy North, Sebastopol www.acecider.com
Joel Williams was a professional craft brewer for over seven years at several breweries. He earned a diploma in Brewing Sciences in 1996 from the world-renowned Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago.
