Hard cider comes on strong as a WNC craft industry

Posted on by Gina Smith
Photo courtesy of WNC Green Building Council

Wine, cheese — and, of course, beer — aren’t the only artisan food enterprises in Western North Carolina that are growing by leaps and bounds. With the area’s already well-established apple-growing industry, hard cider is making a name for itself as well.

Within the past five years, eight new cideries have opened in WNC with more on the horizon, and several existing cidermakers, such as McRitchie Ciderworks in Thurmond and Noble Hard Cider in Fletcher, are expanding both their production and their facilities. Additionally, out-of-state cideries are looking to open WNC locations — Virginia-based Bold Rock Hard Cider’s new Mills River facility is coming online this summer.

Following in the footsteps of craft breweries, some local cideries, including Black Mountain Ciderworks and Urban Orchard, have their own tasting rooms, and a number of cidermakers offer tours and regular events for the public. And, like the WNC artisan cheese industry, local cidermakers now have their own festival – CiderFest NC.

CiderFestwas launched in 2013 as a fundraiser for the WNC Green Building Council with a plan to accommodate only about 65 attendees and five cideries, says organizer Nina Zinn, but it ended up selling a door-busting 425 tickets. Zinn projects that the 2015 event on Nov. 7 at the WNC Farmers Market will attract at least 850 attendees and 25 commercial cidermakers as well as cider hobbyists.

“We have decided we want this festival to be the premier hard-cider tasting festival in our region,” says Zinn, “and therefore we have chosen to grow slowly and sustainably.”

Tickets for CiderFest NC 2015 go on sale Sept. 1. For details, visit ciderfest.wncgbc.org.

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