In anticipation of the upcoming CiderCon 2023 in Chicago (it’s so quickly, y’all! January 31 by way of February 3), we needed to introduce you to 4 of us from The Windy Metropolis’s native cider neighborhood. Every of them have, in their very own methods, been working for years to ascertain Chicago as a tremendous cider metropolis.
We’re excited to share extra of their tales with you, and go alongside some insider’s tips on issues to do and locations to go when you’re visiting Chicago!
Round Chicago, Brian Rutzen is affectionately referred to as “Cider Brian” — for the previous 12 years, he’s been one in every of craft cider’s largest champions and hype males.
However the place he first encountered cider, apparently sufficient, was hanging with craft beer individuals. Within the early 2010s, Rutzen would go to buddies in Madison, Wisconsin, to volunteer at The Nice Style of the Midwest (an enormous and long-standing beer pageant), and some months later, he would journey again to go to a thank-you celebration for all of the volunteers held on a farm.
“The native homebrew membership would have a truck of apples, and we’d spend the entire day crushing apples and making uncooked juice to ferment at residence,” he remembers. “We’d take the juice residence, ferment it after which carry our ciders again the subsequent yr and commerce.”
These selfmade ciders had been Rutzen’s first eye-opening experiences with ciders.
“The primary time I made cider it was the most effective one I’d ever had. I puzzled why there was no bottle of this on cabinets or in bars?” he says.
He started getting into his DIY ciders into competitions, like GLINTCAP, and started to satisfy and work together with different individuals within the Midwest and Michigan cidermaking trade and communities.
“I noticed a possibility to attach these guys on their farms with individuals who didn’t know that cider like that existed,” Rutzen notes. “At first, it was the product, then it was the individuals, then it was the farms and cideries … all of it was proper there below the floor ready to be explored and shared.”
In 2011, he started performing some advert hoc gross sales and brand-repping in Chicago for Michigan cideries, like Tandem Ciders, in addition to internet hosting an ongoing cider salon. He developed a popularity as being an enormous cider cheerleader, and that’s when the “Cider Brian” nickname began to stay. After dabbling with the concept of beginning a cider distribution firm, he switched gears after connecting with an area restaurateur at a vacation celebration.
“I instructed him: ‘Chicago wants a cider bar, why don’t we’ve got that within the metropolis?’” Rutzen remembers. “Per week later, he referred to as me up and instructed me that they’d simply purchased an empty house and needed to speak about it with me.”
That vacant house is what turned The Northman, Chicago’s first cider bar, which opened in 2016. Rutzen was employed because the bar’s cider and beverage director, and that’s the place he met Ambrosia Borowski (who we’ll meet in a second).
Although The Northman’s major location closed in 2020, its Chicago Riverwalk beer and cider backyard remains to be going sturdy (seasonally). Rutzen remains to be frivolously concerned, although he’s turned his focus to a different cider enterprise, which is internet hosting personal cider tastings across the metropolis. Normally, he meets with teams of 15 to 30 individuals, opens a bunch of ciders and talks concerning the historical past and science behind them.
“It places me proper again the place I began, educating and getting individuals enthusiastic about cider,” he says. “My entire job is to hyper cider!”
Brian’s Chicago Recos:
- Clark Road Ale Home for late-night drinks: “It’s a 5-minute cab experience from the lodge, and is open till 4 a.m. It’s principally beer, however they do have a wise cider assortment, with regional and nationwide manufacturers.”
- Reggie’s Music Lounge for stay music: “They all the time have 1 or 2 good ciders on faucet. It’s a stable blues bar — nothing fancy — however a legendary music house.”
- Sleeping Village for a terrific cider choice: “That is one other music venue that has most likely 10 ciders on faucet; costly, imported fancy ciders like Etienne Dupont and totally different Basque ciders. But it surely’s not a flowery joint; it’s extra of a hipster lounge.”
Ambrosia Borowski is a Chicago native, who began their cider journey as a reluctant restaurant wine skilled. “The wine tradition is unquestionably not the cider tradition,” they snigger. “It may be pretentious and classist, and as somebody that grew up blue collar, the pretentious simply wasn’t for me.”
After they found cider, which shares a lot with wine — a deal with fruit, harvest and meals pairings — however in a less-pretentious and extra inexpensive approach, they had been hooked.
“It was a no brainer for me to come back over to the joyful aspect!”
After shifting again to Chicago in 2012 having loved adventures elsewhere, Borowski was working as a bartender and actively searching for out the native cider scene.
“I used to be like, Chicago is the most effective city on this planet — there must be cider right here!” they bear in mind. “I used to be listening to NPR, and heard an commercial for the primary Chicago Cider Summit, so I purchased a ticket and dragged my greatest good friend with me. We went and I used to be in heaven.”
A number of years later, Borowski received their resume in entrance of the crew opening The Northman, and was employed on because the cider bar’s basic supervisor.
“[Working there] was the most effective 4 years of my life to this point. It was superb that they allowed me and the crew a lot enter and autonomy,” they are saying. “We made a spot that customers might come to and share our love for cider in an unpretentious, laid-back setting the place everybody was welcome.”
Borowski remains to be closely concerned with The Northman’s Riverwalk location and is the Govt Beverage Director for the restaurant group that owns that location, The Fountainhead Group. However a great deal of their focus is now on the manufacturing aspect, as director of operations for the Northman Cider Co.
“Making cider means totally different challenges and totally different hours, and it additionally places you into an even bigger cog of world local weather and consumption,” they are saying. “It places your mind into an even bigger scope.”
Moreover, Borowski is the founding father of Chicago Cider Week, which started in 2017, and is going down this yr proper throughout CiderCon. They’re additionally an avid bike owner, and the crew captain for a charity experience for Staff MS. They co-host a podcast, Authentic Designated Drinkers, the place they talk about “each facet of beverage” from espresso to whiskey to cider to wine.
Ambrosia’s Chicago recos:
- Museums: “We’ve numerous free museums, just like the The DuSable, a Black historical past museum and schooling heart.”
- Discover totally different neighborhoods: “Downtown is a monetary district, and all the enjoyable issues are within the neighborhoods! Don’t be afraid to take the prepare someplace; get a CTA go and use the CTA as an alternative of Ubers and Lyfts, that are costly and take longer.”
The Tysons are maybe higher referred to as The CiderSoms, which is the identify of the cider weblog that they began in 2014. The couple, who’re each from Chicago, first found cider once they had been dwelling in St. Louis, Missouri, for work within the mid-aughts. They had been wine drinkers, however turned to cider once they needed to take pleasure in one thing a bit of extra informal.
“St. Louis was such a heavy beer city that folks checked out us as being snooty for bringing a bottle of wine to events!” Malaika says. “That’s once we first discovered cider, primarily as a result of it was being marketed like beer, but it surely wasn’t beer.”
After shifting again to Chicago in 2008, their world of cider grew. They started discovering manufacturers that weren’t out there in St. Louis on the time, like Advantage Cider and Seattle Cider Co.
“We discovered this burgeoning neighborhood, particularly with Michigan being so shut by and with the precise cider makers coming right here to introduce individuals to their merchandise,” Malaika remembers. “Then, when The Northman began off, we received shut with Brian and Browie, and their crew. It was a welcoming neighborhood, and we had entry to so many new ciders.”
As they explored these ciders, Sean and Malaika started to get questions from their buddies about what they had been attempting. They determined to make a weblog to gather and share their cider notes with individuals.
“As time went on, we determined that simply doing opinions wasn’t a great use of our platform, and that we needed to inform peoples’ tales,” Malaika says. “That’s how we began branching out, and since CiderCon is right here in Chicago each different yr, it gave us the chance to start out assembly the trade individuals with out having to journey for it.”
Between CiderCon and Cider Summit, the Tysons deepened their relationship with the bigger cider trade and neighborhood.
(Enjoyable truth: Malaika has been a contributor to Cider Tradition since 2020!)
Of their day jobs, Sean works for a corporation that helps regulate inventory market brokers, and Malaika is a patent legal professional. Actually, she’s main a workshop at CiderCon 2023 about logos and model safety methods! And, Malaika and Sean additionally helped to arrange the Bronzeville neighborhood tour.
“We’ve gotten extra visibility over time, with individuals beginning to know us and giving us entry to their orchards and areas,” Malaika notes. “I believe it’s the longevity — individuals know us and that we’re not simply out right here free of charge alcohol!”
The Tysons Chicago recos:
- Beverly Phono Mart: “This can be a actually cool report store. On the weekends they’ll often have a DJ and promote cocktails; it’s a enjoyable celebration environment. The homeowners are actually cool individuals; they like cider too! We all the time carry them one thing totally different to strive.”
- Open Outcry Brewing: “This neighborhood brewery has nice pizza, and so they additionally carry cider. It’s a extremely cute, chill place with good meals, and a bunch of board video games.”
- Juice @1340 BWS: “Juice is a wine bottle store, and so they have a few ciders. One among their homeowners was named one in every of Wine Fanatic’s ‘40 below 40’, and he’s curated a great quantity of attention-grabbing wines.”
Getting amped on CiderCon and your upcoming Chicago adventures? You’ll want to go to the American Cider Affiliation’s CiderCon web site for all the required data to assist plan your itinerary. And, when you haven’t registered but, there’s nonetheless time! Head right here to make it occur.
- Function picture: The CiderSoms
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