Fresh apples sustain healthy cider industry
Sourcing local and sharing resources fosters growth within hop-growing sector
Ontario’s apple orchards aren’t just supplying grocery stores with fresh, local apples — they’re also fuelling the booming cider industry, just as hop farms are finding a market for their grains from local brewers.
Jim Clark, president of Thornbury Village Craft Cider and Brew House, believes this is helping to revitalize rural areas. Located in the Blue Mountains, Thornbury Village Craft Cider House produces premium apple cider in a newly renovated century-old historic apple processing facil- ity. The cider is traditionally crafted in small batches from locally sourced, pressed apples, from the surrounding 7,500 acres of apple orchards.
“For us it really is about the craft and the local story,” Clark said. “There’s a lot of new entries into the market in both cider and the craft beer business. There’s a movement toward local across the board — we’re seeing it in food, wineries, tourism, staycations. That’s great for our industry, but the real craft story is (creating) really small batches by hand as opposed to multinational mega-breweries.”
This approach also allows them to do what mega-breweries can’t, like creating small-batch crab apple cider. “We have the potential to be creative and innovative, and people are looking for those brands,” Pratt Siddall said.
The cidery supports local apple orchards, just as brewers are supporting newly emerging hops farms. Nicholas Schaut, owner of Bighead Hops, started with a half-acre south of Meaford; local brewer Charles MacLean of MacLean’s Ales bought it all. Since then, Bighead Hops has expanded to three yards and 11 acres of certified organic hops, and built a processing facility with a pelletizer. Pelleted hops are considered an industry standard, providing uniform delivery and longer storability.
“Thanks to the Greenbelt Fund we were given support to acquire a pelletizer to bring it to market,” Schaut said. “We avail it to a number of hops growers who can’t acquire the equipment at this point.”
While there’s healthy competition, there’s also a remarkable sense of co-operation, he said. “I love healthy competition, but it’s supported and cross-pollinated. This different way of doing business is something we also found very attractive. One of the perks is we all get to sit down and have a beer together.”
The goal of his farm is to foster growth in the community and within the hop-growing sector, and to liaise with brewers, which allows them to discuss beer — including new varieties, new aromas and new styles.
“It’s not like I’m selling hops into a vacuum, I’m selling hops to someone I’ve sat down and had a beer with,” Schaut said. “When you’re buying an Ontario local craft beer you’re buying into supporting the local economy — that economy is vibrant, it’s strong, it’s interconnected, and we provide support for each other.”