Cidery - Day 573 (Yr 2, Day 208)

Asheville, NC

Yesterday, we visited a hard apple cider manufacturing plant / taproom, which is along the lines of a beer brewery, winery and spirits distillery, except that they make -- hard cider, something both Mitch and I enjoy very much.  It was an extremely eye opening (and mouth watering) experience for us.  The place we visited was Nobles (there are a few other cideries in the area).

For one, the only hard cider we've ever had has been the commercially produced stuff such as Angry Orchard or Woodchuck (I'd say Redds, but that's an apple ale, not a cider; the difference being ale is brewed and cider is fermented like wine).  One of the first things we learned, and were able to taste, is that the mass produced stuff adds a lot of stuff like flavoring and water to cut costs.  At Noble, they do their own pressing as well and nothing extra is added. Like a winery, they press their apples and then let them ferment in huge tanks:

Didn't quite get all the tanks in the photo. These are about 1000 gallons; another one was 2K gallons

Here is Claire, our "bartender"

Not sure how much more I can add about it except that they had about 10 different varieties ranging from very sweet (cider mead) to very dry.  All were delicious.  They fill "growlers" so we took home one filled with the Apple Champagne.  Enjoying the last glass right now! :)

On another note, a sign Mitch saw along his route: