Because the saying goes, you possibly can take the chef out of the kitchen and put him in a cidery — however you possibly can’t take the kitchen out of the chef when he’s crafting cider.
A minimum of that’s the case for Andy Hannas, the cidermaker at Charlottesville, Virginia’s Potter’s Craft Cider. He labored in eating places in Richmond, Virginia, for a decade earlier than he found his ardour for fermentation and started working in cider. “I obtained actually into fermenting meals,” he remembers. “Sausages, pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi….”
That led to homebrewing beer. Amongst Hannas’ experiments within the kettle was a Pho-flavored Hefeweizen, “Hephoveizen,” that included Sriracha in a single out of each 5 bottles — only for enjoyable.
Finally homebrewing beer would lead him to cidermaking, but his method to taste would keep the identical. “I’ve a multi-pronged method to creating cider, particularly when considering all over to meals pairings,” Hannas says. “I ask myself, ‘what flavors do I wish to showcase?’ ‘What’s going to I wish to pair that cider with?’ ‘Do I would like the apple selection or mixture to be stand alone, maybe be varietal pushed?’
“Once I’m occupied with varietals, my method is extra like a winemaker,” he continues. “Once I’m manipulating apple mixtures, for instance, I attempt to tackle the mindset of a craft brewer.”
Hannas walks us by a few of Potter’s Cider types with meals pairings for every.
Farmhouse Dry
“This cider drew me to the corporate and the Potter’s model,” Hannas says. It’s crafted with a mix of Pippin, with a Sauvignon Blanc fermentation protocol to drive the fruity character of apple, and Virginia Winesap apples, with an aroma-enhancing fermentation protocol and particular yeast to drive most of that. Farmhouse Dry, Potter’s flagship cider, is an effervescent ‘desk cider’ that works in a lot of totally different pairings.
“When you’ve acidity and bubbles [like in this cider], go together with intramuscular fats on a grill,” Hannas suggests. “Say, a closely marbled pork or duck with a giant fats pores and skin layer. That, with the extreme fruit aroma of the cider and carbonation, you virtually don’t want a sauce.”
Flemish Bitter
This one is a cider impressed by Hannas’ ardour for Belgian beer. He ferments it with a yeast and micro organism mix known as Roselare, the home tradition from Rodenbach, ages it in a wine cask for a yr, and finishes it with bitter cherry purée. Pair it with cheese and charcuterie, he suggests.
“Pairing fermented meals with fermented drinks is at all times enjoyable,” Hannas says. “There’s a lot of ‘funky’ fermentation character in mixed-culture bitter drinks, so go together with yeast, micro organism, or lactic-fermented sausage or a cool cheese with a bloomy rind. Or perhaps a foie gras or nation pâté with recent pink currants that may echo that acidic fruit pop of the cider. The liver-y mineral richness brings one other layer.”
Add some walnuts too, he says. “The cider ageing course of creates delicate nuttiness, which may be accentuated with walnuts. Now, in my thoughts, I’m again in Belgium consuming ester-y drinks and consuming bizarre cheeses.”
Passionfruit Mosaic Cider
This cider is Potter’s summer time seasonal. Its one-off nature and tropical fruit additions fall into the ‘craft beer method to creating cider’ facet of what Hannas does. “Arising on summer time, I don’t have an enormous collection of apples to work from,” he says. “Fermenting on ardour fruit juice helps us take advantage of out of what we’ve obtained left from prior yr’s harvest. And, it provides acidity and large quantities of aroma. Dry hopping accentuates the character of ardour fruit.”
Hannas pairs this 5.5% canned crusher with ceviche. “Richer scallops or tuna distinction towards acidity or tropical fruit,” he says. “Add some fruit and herbs within the marinade, like grapefruit, cucumber, and pink onion for extra cider taste steadiness and good texture. Then Thai basil and cilantro to amplify the dry-hopped characteristic of the cider, bringing in these greens.”
Hannas’ chef-minded method to creating cider yields not only a distinctive lineup of ciders on faucet at Potter’s Craft, but additionally an impressed meals menu crafted with pairings in thoughts. Discover extra of Potter’s Craft Ciders and the total tasting room menu at potterscraftcider.com/ciders.
