by Aaron Brussat

What did Newton do with that apple after it fell on his head? A smarty-pants like him could have used a different kind of gravity - specific gravity - to measure the sugar content of the apple's juice, added yeast to the juice, and watched that gravity disappear! Whereupon he could have proceeded to consume the gravity-reduced beverage and felt a little lighter himself. Now that's science in action.

But we're not here to tell Newton what to do. The core of today's rant is cider, and as many, ahem, dad apple jokes as I can squeeze in here. This will also be a prologue to the upcoming Cider Flight School on November 12; if you want to get deeper than this, get a ticket and join us!

In last year's Cider Issue, we went over the basic structure of cider: acid and tannin balance along with residual sugar's effect on the final product. Here's another branch of the tree:

The apple's origin has been traced to Kazakhstan. The fruit spread to Europe and the rest of Asia from there. If, like me, you're not exactly sure where that is:

Pretty close to home, as far as theories of human origins go, eh? Well, we're a long way from Kans... Kazakhstan, Toto. 

Apple DNA contains around twice as many chromosomes as human DNA (why they haven't taken over, I don't know), and reproduce naturally by seed, unnaturally by graft. You see, an apple seed will not beget anything resembling its parents. This is why there are actually thousands of named apple varieties, and undoubtedly millions more feral trees. 

Sean Kelly, founder of WildCraft Ciderworks here in Eugene, tells me that his crew picks from roughly 4,000 different apple varieties in our area alone. Many of those trees were seedlings planted in homestead orchards. These are literally in your backyards: Friendly neighborhood and the Cal Young, Coburg and Willakenzie areas are where some of WildCraft's fruit originates. 

In order to generate the never ending piles of Red Delicious apples at the grocery store, orchardists rely on grafts. These are stem cuttings of a particular variety that are spliced to rootstock and then planted. Grafted trees are clones because they come from wood of an established tree rather than seed. Over centuries, cider apple varieties have been preserved and proliferated by grafting.

Kingston Black, Wickson, Dabinett, Golden Russet, Binet Rouge, and many more are prized for their fermented juice, though biting into some of these is not the legendary flavor experience you'd expect. Overcoming these apples' sugary sweetness, elevated levels of acid and tannins elicit the original "bitter beer face" from the poor sap who sinks his chompers into a bittersharp apple. Once fermented, those elements contribute to each variety's unique character and complexity.

Ciders are typically blended from multiple varieties to achieve a certain flavor profile. Single varietal ciders showcase one type, but run the risk of being one-note in the same way that single-hop beers are less exciting on the palate than a custom blend. That, however, is not a rule, and there are plenty of examples to the contrary (WildCraft and Wandering Aengus make some good ones). 

Craft cider (known simply as "cider" until Angry Orchard came around - yep, I'm barking up that tree) is a much smaller industry than beer, and has seen quite a bit of shakeout in recent years. I'd speculate that some of that has to do with hard seltzer, along with the simple fact that cider is more expensive to produce than beer. Regardless, cider's heritage and history of regional styles and localized production is a rich topic to plumb - so join me at Cider Flight School at 6pm on November 12! $15 is a steal for a flight and some knowledge. Cheers!