Philly Cider Week co-founder dishes on all things cider

Philly Cider Week is back for its fourth year, with Amy Hartranft once again at the helm.

The co-founder of the week-long event grew up “obsessed” with cider — the non-alcoholic kind, of course. After a little over 16 years in the hospitality industry, she’s now an orchard-driven cider enthusiast.

Hartranft, who bartends at Middle Child Clubhouse, cut her teeth on sweet, mainstream ciders like Woodchuck and Strongbow — but then met Tim Kweeder, manager at Bloomsday Cafe. At the time, in 2011, Kweeder was the wine director at a.kitchen and introduced her to French and Spanish ciders that deepened her cider love.

In 2018, the two launched Cider Week to celebrate orchard-driven cider and highlight Pennsylvania-grown apples and cideries.

This year, Philly Cider Week will host more than 20 events from Oct. 23 to 30. The events of the week will begin with the “Cochon et Cidre” kick-off party, an indoor/outdoor collaborative pork and cider festival with live music at Royal Boucherie and Khyber Pass Pub. Then things wrap up with the “Carnival of Thirsty Souls,” a spooky street festival on 7th Street between South and Bainbridge Streets, featuring local cideries, artists, vendors and food options.

The full Cider Week schedule is online. You can host an event at your establishment for a $25 fee. Businesses are encouraged to sign up until Oct. 21.

The Inquirer spoke with Hartranft about all things cider — from its misconceptions to its diversity.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

The goal is definitely to connect cider drinkers, cider enthusiasts with producers. But the middle ground is us — the restaurant industry, bar managers and bartenders being able to talk about it. How do we serve it? How do we price it? Cider Week is raising the public’s awareness that cider is an agricultural beverage. It began because Tim Kweeder and I in 2017 started throwing a couple of cider events, which were very successful. And we thought,there are people that are excited about drinking cider.

It’s super simple — it’s fermented apples at its core. Occasionally people ask, ‘Do you have any cider beers?’ and it’s like, ‘Oh, keep that word out of there.’ It’s not brewed. It’s not distilled. It’s not liquor. It’s not beer. Ultimately, as wine is fermented grapes, cider is fermented apples. So process wise, it’s closest to wine. It runs the gamut of alcohol-by-volume (ABV) percentage. You’ll see 5 to 6% ABV a lot of times, but it goes up. Your average orchard-based cider comes in around 8%, which is really a great middle ground.

There’s this incredibly diverse beverage that gets chopped up in a lot of people’s minds as being just sweet. And that’s a totally valid flavor palate for people. I’m certainly not sitting here saying cider isn’t sweet, or can’t be sweet or shouldn’t be sweet. People like what they like, but to chalk it up to being just sweet is such a detriment to the vast diversity that the beverage has — as does the apple as an ingredient, a fermentable ingredient. They’re just as diverse as wine grapes and susceptible to all the things we talk about like terroir — the soil, the ocean, the air — all those things that affect orchards just as much as vineyards.

The more that people realize the diversity of the flavor profiles that exist and textures (like still versus bubbly cider),then you realize it really truly is a year-round beverage.

The way that cider is served is another facet of how we try to help bars and restaurants. I think a lot of people assume that cider has to be sold in a pint like they would sell a beer and that it can be cost-prohibitive because cider costs more. It doesn’t cost as much as a keg of wine but it can be close. The middle ground really is an 8 to 12 ounce pour based on the cost and alcohol percentage.

What makes any beverage category exciting — you love what you love. But for me, I think we really love to find something new, or find something that feels untapped — like when you travel and you eat something you’ve ever had before or that you find a place that’s not overrun by tourists. There’s so much in our daily lives that is consistent or monotonous or mainstream or run of the mill. I think that speaks to being on the cutting edge of something or experiencing something that is so amazing that you’re like, ‘why doesn’t everyone know how fantastic this is?’

It’s really hard to even feel there’s a boom because I’ve been so involved for at least five years now that it does not feel like there’s a cider boom. I feel like while we were hoping there was a cider boom, there was a seltzer boom — cider is so misunderstood that seltzer came and scooted past us. This brand new, non-historic beverage has scooted past a beverage that has sat outside the limelight — sat on the back burner of people’s awareness for centuries. (The growth is) a slow burn and hopefully an increasing one.

I think sometimes you try something and if it changes your life, you kind of chase that one thing for a while — like where can I get that again? I think find a cidery that really makes cider that speaks to your palate — almost all of them have a cider club that you can join for a very reasonable price and then you get monthly or quarterly shipments. It’s a really good way to taste through, taste through the seasons, taste through cider apple varieties they grow. A lot of folks that I know who have gotten into cider and felt like they couldn’t taste through a diverse array in town at bars, that’s a great way to do it cause it just comes right to your door.