For councilman, fall is time to make your own cider

POTTSTOWN >> Ryan Procsal is a quiet guy for a politician.

Currently in his first term representing the First Ward, you wouldn’t know that the soft-spoken artisan is making booze in his basement.

Not to worry, it’s nothing illegal. He checked. “A family of two adults is allowed to make 200,000 gallons of this stuff a year,” he said as he poured himself a glass of his homemade hooch.

Procsal lives in a partially renovated Victorian home on Walnut Street with his wife Athena, a Pottstown School District art teacher, and their newborn son Asher.

And in the basement of that Victorian, amid the woodworking tools and central air conditioning ducts he installed himself, there is

a refrigerator with a small keg full of hard cider that he also made himself.

“It was a painting by Andrew Wyeth actually, called ‘The Cider Barrel,’” Procsal explained when asked why he decided to start making his own hard cider.

“I was like you know what? That sounds really cool. And Weak Knee (home brewing supplies on North Charlotte Street) was right up the road and they told me what I needed to make it and actually, it’s extremely easy to make,” said Procsal.

And extremely easy to drink — or so we’re told.

Procsal said one of the

“I was like you know what? That sounds really cool. And Weak Knee (home brewing supplies on North Charlotte Street) was right up the road and they told me what I needed to make it and actually, it’s extremely easy to make.” — Ryan Procsal, Pottstown Borough councilman

things that makes it easier is procuring ready-made cider from Bauman’s Fruit Butters and Cider in Sassamansville.

No peeling of apples is involved on his part.

“That would take a really, really long time,” Procsal said.

Then it’s just a matter of killing the wild yeast, adding some commercial yeast for fermentation, stirring, waiting, siphoning and pouring.

Oh, and it’s easiest to have a pressurized system to inject the carbon dioxide that gives the cider its fizz — trying to do it naturally can result in the barrel exploding.

“Apparently that used to happen all the time in the old days,” said Procsal, adding with a smile, “and that’s just a waste of good cider.”

EVAN BRANDT — DIGITAL FIRST MEDIA Pottstown Borough Councilman Ryan Procsal pouts himself some homemade hard ciders from his pressurized basement keg.

EVAN BRANDT — DIGITAL FIRST MEDIA Pottstown Borough Councilman Ryan Procsal enjoys a sample of his gala apple cider.