Fuggled Virginia Cider of the Year

Turning my attention away from beer for a moment to finish up my booze review of 2025, we come to cider. Specifically, Virginia cider since that is the mainstay of my cider drinking world, and it would be disingenuous of me to have categories for outside of the Commonwealth.

Looking back over my notes for the year, I have also decided to cut back on the number of categories from last year. Out go "Flavoured" ciders and "Pommeau/Strong Cider", not because I haven't had any of those categories, but because I have really only had one of each. As nice as they were, and in the case of the Sage Bird Long Light superb, again it feels a little damning with faint praise to give them their own categories. So we have just the two:

• single varietal
• blended (including co-ferments)

Let's dive in...

Single Varietal

• Malus X Dolgo - Troddenvale, Warm Springs
• Virginia Hewes Crab - Big Fish Cider, Monterey
• GoldRush - Buskey Hard Cider, Richmond

Honorable mentions: Hazy Lady (Winesap) - Ciders from Mars, Staunton; Kingston Black - Sage Bird Ciderworks, Harrisonburg; Royal Pippin (Albemarle Pippin) - Albemarle Ciderworks, North Garden.

I mentioned last year that I could quite easily have had a category for single varietals of Virginia Hewes Crab ciders, but I wrote about that mass tasting for Cider Review recently. The highlight of that tasting, which features 6 examples from around Virginia is also the winner of the single varietal category, the one from Big Fish Cider over the mountains in Highland County. I described the cider as being "a pleasing blend of limes and lemons, set off by a green apple flavour that brings even more brightness" and that it is one "of life's most happy accidents" since the founder of Big Fish had intended to use it in blends, but it was too good not to shine alone. Every trip to Big Fish results in at least half a case of bottles clinking their way over switchbacks to Louisa County, and always, always, always their Virginia Hewes Crab is at least 2 of the 6. A cracking cider from one of my favourite cideries in the state.

Blends/Co-ferments

• House Cider - Troddenvale, Warm Springs
• Crab Apple Blend - Daring Cider, Stuart
• Maven - Ciders from Mars, Staunton

Honorable mentions: Foraged Cider - Troddenvale, Warm Springs; Cidermakers Choice #6 (Harrison and Dabinett) - Albemarle CiderWorks, North Garden; Crabbottom Pippin - Big Fish Cider, Monterey.

Back in November, I was privileged to be asked to speak on an author panel at the inaugural Cider Festival at the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton - one of my favourite little cities in the entire world, and a wonderful open air museum too. At the festival there were several of the best cideries in Virginia pouring their wares for visitors. It was a wonderfully civilised way to spend an afternoon. My blended cider of the year was available at the festival, and I made a point to stock up on a few bottles, that may have lasted little more than a weekend. Jocelyn Kuzelka is a cider maker of supreme skill, and it is her Crab Apple Blend that takes the accolades. It is a pretty simple blend, being 75% Virginia Hewes Crab and 25% Ruby Red Crab Apple - a variety that is only found in a single orchard. The blend sings with red fruit notes and a lovely floral character that makes me think of meadows in spring, and there is a delicate sweetness in the background that just keeps it from being too bone shatteringly dry (not that that is a bad thing in my world though).

A pair of quite simply glorious ciders to select a single winner from, and in common with my annual beery review, this is an "award" that comes with no financial gain, or even a certificate to print off and put up on the wall. Both ciders grace my wine/cider fridge regularly, and so it really is difficult to separate them, but given that Big Fish's Virginia Hewes Crab won out in my big summer tasting of single varietals, I am going to given them the plaudits. It is an absolute must buy whenever I head over to Highland County - a gorgeous drive in and of itself - as well as something I will pick up in local bottle shops, and there are few better ways to spend a sunny afternoon, regardless of season, than on the back deck with a bottle or two of Big Fish's finest.

Fuggled Virginia Cider of the Year

Ah...cider, in many ways my first love booze. 

In common with many Brits, or at least the Brits that I grew up with and/or know from my travels, our first sip of booze was cider, proper cider that is, you know with alcohol. Fun fact, under Virginia law there is no such thing as "hard" cider, just fermented apple juice with a maximum abv of 10% abv without "chaptalization" - which is the process of adding sugar to bump up the booze. So...go stick your "hard cider" nonsense where the sun doesn't shine. In Virginia, there is cider and sweet cider (cough, cough, apple juice, cough, cough), nothing hard about it really. 

Anyway, sermon over - the collection plate will be around momentarily - this year my first book was published by Arcadia Publishing, "Virginia Cider: A Scrumptious History", there's a link in the right rail to the Amazon page where you can buy said book. As a result of the research I undertook for the book, cider has come roaring back into my drinking world - I have always had a few bottles floating around the house, and I make my own from time to time, but today the "wine fridge" that Mrs V bought a couple of years back has been colonised by an ever rotating selection of great ciders from around the Old Dominion.

In trying to decide how to break down my review of Virginia cider for 2024, I figured that the basic classifications I used in the book would be my template, with an addition category for pommeau and strong cider. As such, I'll have a short list of three for the following categories, as well as any honorable mentions:

• Single Varietal
• Apple Blend
• Flavoured
• Pommeau/Strong Cider

I will take the winners of the categories and decide on the Fuggled Virginia Cider of the Year, so let's get started...

Single Varietal

• Malus X Dolgo - Troddenvale, Warm Springs
• Wickson - Albemarle CiderWorks, North Garden
• Kismet - Ciders from Mars, Staunton

Honorable mentions: 21 Bent Mountain - Patois, Charlottesville; Virginia Hewes Crab - Buskey Cider, Richmond; Dabinett - Blue Bee Cider, Richmond; Northern Spy - Big Fish Cider, Monterey; GoldRush - Buskey Cider, Richmond; Harrison - Albemarle CiderWorks, Charlottesville; Virginia Hewes Crab - Albemarle CiderWorks, North Garden.

We have an inordinate number of fantastic single variety ciders being made here in Virginia, and to be honest I could almost have had a separate category for just Virginia Hewes Crab single varieties. As it is, in selecting my short list I chose three ciders that every time I go to, or speak with, the cideries in question I ask if they are available. However, of those three, only one inspired me to add a tree to my little backyard orchard, and so the Fuggled Single Varietal VA Cider of the year is the simply magnificent Malus X Dolgo from Troddenvale. Made with 100% Dolgo crab apples from the mountains of Highland County, this stunningly blush cider looks glorious in the glass, and when you inhale the aroma you get Alpine strawberries, cranberries, and very little foreshadowing of the taste explosion that is about to go off in your mouth, this is a riot of acid with a healthy dose of tannins to bring it back from being like sucking excessively sour lemons. I have a bottle in the fridge that at this point is going to have to wait for a charcuterie project to be finished before opening, maybe a duck prosciutto...

Apple Blend

• Cidermakers Choice #6: Dabinett and Harrison - Albemarle CiderWorks, North Garden
• Crabbottom Pippin - Big Fish Cider, Monterey
• Malice - Winchester Ciderworks, Winchester

Honorable mentions: Charred Ordinary - Blue Bee Cider, Richmond; Farmhouse Dry - Potters Craft Cider; Charlottesville; Wild Meadow - Big Fish Cider, Monterey; Cidermakers Table - Big Fish Cider, Monterey; Crab Apple Cider - Daring Cider Co, Stuart; Comeback Kid - Lost Boy Cider, Alexandria

I still remember the first time I tried the winning cider in the "apple blend" category (I need to think of a better term, but that can wait). Straight from the tank in the cidery where it was aging after primary fermentation, a beautiful crisp early spring day, the sun was shining, and I had a sense then that when it was released I would be enjoying it often. That day was a couple of years ago now, and whenever Mrs V and I make the trip to Albemarle CiderWorks I hope that the Cidermakers Choice #6 is still available, The marriage of the American Harrison and Dabinett from the West Country of England is just about perfection in so many ways, Harrison brings a quince like character with gentle tannins which more than stand up to the astringent black tea notes of the Dabinett. The blend is a complex, multi-layered joy to drink - I think I need to stock up.

Flavoured

• Whitetop Spruced Cider - Tumbling Creek Cider, Abingdon
• Stocking Stuffer - Sage Bird Ciderworks, Harrisonburg
• Sinners Cider - Winchester Ciderworks, Winchester

Honorable mentions: Wassail - Big Fish Cider, Monterey.

As I mentioned in my book, my taste in cider "doesn't so much veer to the dry side as it jackknifes like an 18 wheeler on I-81", and this fact makes ciders with added flavours something of a challenge for me. I have the same challenge in the beer drinking world, I like classic, you could say simple, drinks. That said, as I was researching the book I discovered many ciders with other fruit, vegetable, or even tree flavours that I really enjoyed. The other day I took my family, parents are visiting from the UK, on a little day trip to the Shenandoah Valley specifically to pop into some cideries. That Mrs V fell in love with the winning cider, made up my mind. Stocking Stuffer from Harrisonburg's awesome Sage Bird Ciderworks is simply Christmas in a glass. Flavoured with tangerines, oranges, juniper, and clove, the first time I stuck my nose in a glass of it I was transported, Anton Ego like, to being a kid making clove studded oranges as Christmas decorations, which my own kids had done just a few weeks previously. The oiliness of the citrus peels plays really nicely with the dryness of the base cider itself, so it doesn't become overly sweet, and the clove note is bang on point, present but not omnipresent as clove can so easily be. As long as Zach and co are making Stocking Stuffer, it will be part of our festive season menus.

Pommeau/Strong Cider

• Long Light - Sage Bird Ciderworks, Harrisonburg
• Firecracker - Blue Bee Cider, Richmond
• First Watch - Tumbling Creek Cider, Abingdon

Honorable mentions: Dark Night - Sage Bird Ciderworks, Harrisonburg.

Pommeau is on the verge of becoming something of an obsession for me, a blend of freshly pressed apple juice with apple brandy and then aged in oak barrels, it is a lovely night cap, aperitif, or even digestif, being about 18%. They are great on their own, but also blend with regular strength ciders nicely to make cider cocktails. The winner though of this category is not actually a pommeau, but rather a strong cider, although the cidermaker refers to it as a "sipping cider". When Mark the photographer and I drove down to Abingdon in the far south west of Virginia for a booking signing event at Tumbling Creek Cider's taproom, Justen brought over a bottle of First Watch for us to try, and explained the production process. Taking inspiration from how maple syrup is made, Tumbling Creek reduced the pressed apple juice before fermentation, resulting in a 15% abv "sipping" cider that is so focused and punchy in its flavours it's all too easy to polish off a whole bottle, especially sat by the fire. It is the luxuriant drink that demands comfortable surroundings.

How on earth do I make this decision then? Four fantastic ciders that I am always more than happy to drink, and I recommend you all go and hunt them down, whether that's online or getting to the cideries themselves for them, as I would with every cider and ciderworks mentioned in this post, we really are spoilt when it comes to cider in Virginia. But I will insist on deciding on an overall Fuggled Virginia Cider of the Year, a prize unencumbered by financial considerations, and so the inaugural winner is Cidermakers Choice #6: Dabinett and Harrison from Albemarle CiderWorks - a stunning cider from the cidery that I consider both the standard and flagbearer of real cider in Virginia, and even beyond.

Cidery of the Month: Blue Bee Cider, Richmond

A couple of posts ago, I produced a list of what I think are the best 7 ciders I have had in the last 12 months, many of them discovered as part of my research for my book, "Virginia Cider - A Scrumptious History", which you can pre-order by clicking the cover in the right rail there.

As I pondered the many, many ciders that could have made that list, seriously people Virginia is a hotbed of great cider at the moment, I decided that I needed to highlight more cideries on here, especially as cider becomes even more of a regular tipple. There would be but one rule, that I have to have visited said cidery in the month in question, any way...onwards.

I mentioned in the post about the 7 best ciders that my recent visit to Blue Beer Cider in Richmond was off the cuff, and also the first time I had been since meeting with co-owner Mackenzie on a dreich November day when the building was still an empty shell. For those curious about the name, Blue Bee is named for the blue orchard bee, a native species of bee that is a more efficient pollinator that the invasive honeybees imported from Europe by the early colonists.

Now that Blue Bee are back up and running in their new location, very conveniently placed close to I-64 for those us who don't live in Richmond, it was great to see the spruced up interior, with comfortable seating, high tables, and a beautiful bar space. I will be honest, I don't recall how many ciders were on tap the day that we swung by, but they offer both flights of 4 ciders as well as cider by the glass. Mrs V decided to do a flight, while I grabbed a glass of Harrison, one of the workhorse cider apples in Virginia.

Even though I am primarily a beer drinker, in common with most Brits I know cider is always something we are happy to delve on into, and single varietal Harrisons are often a delight. Blue Bee's weighs in at 8.5% is decidedly dry - yay, I love a bone dry cider - with a subtly tannic character that give the cider beautiful structure and a lingering finish that practically demands you drink more. In terms of flavours, I mostly got tropical fruit with some zingy orange peel, which put me in mind of my mum's pastry recipe for our Yuletide mince pies, if you've never zested citrus peels into short crust pastry for sweet pies you are missing out.

Next up was another single varietal, this time an apple more associated with the West Country in England, Dabinett. Rather than repeat myself from the previous post I have reference a couple of times, here is what I wrote about Dabinett:

"The star though for me was their single varietal Dabinett cider, made from the eponymous bittersweet apple from the West Country in England. Pouring a golden colour, the nose was spicy with hints of vanillin, weird reference here perhaps but my kids are big fans of vanilla and cinnamon yoghurt, and that was what popped into my mind straight off the bat. That sweet spiciness carries on it the taste realm as well, but joined by some heavily hitting apple flavours - think apple pie made with wildflower honey. Being a bittersweet, the tannins add a lovely structure and depth to the cider that stop it from being overly zingy in the finish."

By this point I was deep in conversation with Mackenzie and fellow co-owner Taylor, Mrs V had joined us and the conversation and cider was fairly flowing. It was almost like being in the most convivial country pub you can imagine, though being in very urban Richmond. I continued to work my way through the draft offerings, and in my time honored approach not really taking any notes, but just reveling in the aromas and flavours of good cider. It never ceases to amaze just how much diversity there is in something as seemingly simple and ubiquitous as the apple, and likewise that so few varieties are available in the store, and the majority of them overly sweet to my taste.

One thing I have discovered by virtue of the research side of writing my book is that I love pommeau, a mix of apple brandy and freshly pressed sweet cider, so of course I was going to try Blue Bee's two offerings. Firecracker is made with Gold Rush apples and infused with ginger, while Harvest Ration harkens back to pre-industrial times when an agricultural worker's pay was partially paid in cider and brandy, the former to keep you hydrated, the latter to deal with the aches and pains of a hard life. It was while sipping on the Firecracker, which in and of itself is stunning that I had a mad idea, and thankfully the folks at Blue Bee were willing to let me try...putting a measure of Firecracker in a glass of Harvest Party, a blend created by their cider club. It was an absolute knock out, and when the heat of Virginia finally dies off (hurry up please), you bet I'll be creating it as a nightcap to hopefully rain sodden days.

Having stocked up with bottles of more single varietals, including a Yarlington Mill that I am particularly looking forward to tucking into soon, we headed home knowing that when we make it down to Richmond, Blue Bee will certainly be high on our list of places to visit.

House Rules?

Blimey, it's been a while since I posted, these things happen from time to time, you know how it is...

Anyway, a few weekends ago I was touring cideries as research for a book I am writing about the cider industry in Virginia, scheduled for release next year. One of the places I visited, with my long time collaborator, photographer, and all round good bloke, Mark, was Troddenvale Cider.

Troddenvale Cider is located on the historic Oakley Farm, owned and run by husband and wife duo, Will and Cornelia. The farm is set in some of the most glorious countryside that we have in Virginia, deep in Bath County, among the valleys and mountains that form the Blue Ridge. To say I reveled in the drive from Lexington to Warm Springs would have been an understatement.

Coming from a wine background, Will and Cornelia approach cider from the viewpoint of it being the highest expression of the fruit that they press, and as such they are insanely patient as their pressings ferment and age in wooden barrels for months, and even years at a time. Their orchard, just a few years old but already producing apples for the press, contains several French and Spanish cider apple varieties as well as many of the American standards.

Their tasting room, and to be honest that term is simply insufficient for the delightful space where they serve their ciders, it really reminded me far more of a country pub, is a charming space that if we didn't have an appointment in Monterey, Virginia to get to, I could have happily sat in all day drinking their stunning cider. When time allows I will be taking Mrs V over the mountains for a tip.

While it is true that the single varietal made from Dolgo Crab Apples that is in the picture above was an absolute revelation - puckeringly dry, intensely fruity, with aromas of strawberry and cranberry, and it goes absolutely stonkingly with a West Country farmhouse cheddar (shock, horror, right?), I have been thinking about the "House Cider" since that trip.

More specifically I have been thinking about something Will said about their House Cider. Given their oenological background, Will lamented that the term "house" has come to mean the most basic wine on offer, something almost cheap and cheerful, but decidedly not excellent. His aim with House Cider is to be the exact opposite, to be the very best that Troddenvale puts out, and it is a magnificent cider, easily up there with the best being made in Virginia today, no I didn't take notes, I was too busy enjoying it.

This got me thinking about the concept of "house" products when it comes to beer. We quite often use the term "house beer" in homebrewing circles to refer to something that we brew regularly, but I don't recall a brewery, at least not in my neck of the woods, hanging their entire reputation as a brewery on a single "house" beer. Is it perhaps that modern beer drinkers are constantly on the hunt for the new, or is it a case of fear of missing out by not pushing every possible style out the door in case the crowds choose to go somewhere else?

I feel as though the concept of a "house beer" is distinct from flagship beers in the sense that flagships are often based on commercial decisions. Plenty of breweries come out the door with their flagship beers and as commercial reality bites they often change. Flagships are more often than not just the best selling beers a brewery offers.

Quite often in interviews with brewers, and I have done this myself, we ask the question "what is your favourite beer that you brew?" Invariably there follows some umming and ahhing, mutterings of chosen your favourite child, before a beer is chosen. Perhaps a better question would be "what is you house beer?" as in, which of your brews is the one that is the highest expression of you as a brewer, of the business that is your brewery? Which one would you stake your entire reputation on?

Scrumpy!

A while back, when Mrs V and I were training to walk the West Highland Way, at least one day a weekend you would find us out in the mountains with our good friends Dave and Ali traipsing along trails. One of those weekends, and actually an Ali-less hike, we started out from Milam Gap in the Shenandoah National Park headed for the Lewis Falls. Perhaps the most unexpected thing we came across during the hike were feral apple trees.

Before this area was a national park, the Milam apple was a local staple cash crop, and there are some fascinating pictures of apple, and 'sider', sellers at the trail head. As we hiked back to the car we agreed to return in the autumn and glean as many apples as possible with a view to making our own cider. Thus a few weeks ago we returned with a couple of bags to fill with feral apples, mostly fairly small and tart, but a few bigger, blander ones as well - I also picked some thistle heads for making cheese with at some point.

There was however a problem, we didn't have a press with which to get at whatever juice was in the apples. Eventually though Dave decided to invest in a hydraulic press and we got together to see what we could get. First things first though, I must admit that this was a small scale project, just a half bushel or so of apples, and they really didn't look promising, as you can see.

Given the small scale of the project we decided not to worry too much about how we were going to grind the fruit, preferring to pound the apples to a pulp using a 2x4 and an aluminium brew pot.

The important part of this run was to test the press, and as you can see from the following pictures, it was a resounding success.

Once we were done, we had about a gallon and a half of fresh pressed apple juice ready to just sit around and let whatever wild yeast was on the apples do it's thing, and with it plans to increase production on the next run!

Said next run came a week later. Dave had been out walking his dogs around the Crozet area and noticed orchards with lots of dropped apples on the floor. Having inquired as to the ownership of said orchard he learnt that it was possible to glean fallen apples for a pittance, and thus we set a date and time to meet up and gather what we could between the three of us. Again Ali wasn't able to join us, but studying for her PhD defense was an acceptable reason.

Over the course of a couple of hours the three of us managed to glean about 4 bushels of fallen apples, gathered into burlap coffee sacks that weighed down Dave's car to a rather worrying extent.

We headed back to Dave's place to test out his even newer bit of kit, for he had built a grinder!

Having a grinder made short work of turning the shit ton of apples we had gathered into a respectable pulp for putting into cheeses in the press, and after a few hours of grinding, pressing, drinking Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest and my home brew best bitter, we ended up with 17 gallons of juice, all of which is fermenting away to make that most wonderful of glorious booze products, cider. Even though I am first and foremost a beer drinker, I do have a soft spot for cider, especially in summer, with a Ploughman's lunch....ahhhhh the idyll.

We paid $20 for the apples, which works out to $1.18 per gallon of juice, given 8 US pints in a US gallon, we will be drinking cider sometime next year for just $0.15 per pint. Not a bad return on investment for a couple of hours labour in an orchard, and then several hours drinking and pressing juice. Almost makes you wonder what the mark up is on commercial cider?

Cider Pork Roast

It was about this time in 2009 that Mrs Velkyal and I made our first attempt at making cider. I say "first" although in reality to date it is our only attempt at cider making, but it most certainly will not be the last. One thing we will remember to do next time is to prime the cider at bottling. I know there is a school of opinion out there that likes still cider, but I am most assuredly not a member of that particular persuasion. I like a little sparkle, not fizzy, but gently carbonated, the French would call it "pétillant", the Czechs have the wonderful phrase "jemně perlivá". My maple mead is lightly carbonated, and at nearly 10% abv all the better for it, but the cider is flat.

We have toyed with idea of what to do with the remaining couple of gallons of cider and not done anything with it other than leave it in the cellar, a quick note for my American friends and readers, cider with no alcohol is not cider, it is apple juice, thus the term "hard cider" is pointless. Suggestions have included making cider vinegar and then using it in chutneys and the like, Mrs V and I both love to cook, so it would be nice not to have to buy vinegar in chutney making season. It was in one of my cooking moods that I decided to make a stab at using a bottle up, with my Sunday roast.

Growing up, almost every Sunday had as the heart of the day a roast dinner. Most often chicken, but also beef, lamb, pork and occasionally venison or mutton. Whatever we had was served with at least roast potatoes, veggies and onion gravy. Yesterday I cooked a roast pork lunch, served with roast potatoes, braised leeks and onion gravy, and to top it all, it was the first time I had made that most delectable of foods, crackling.

Usually the leeks are braised in white wine, but I ditched that (well alright then I didn't have any white wine) and used cider. The rest of my bottle went into the onion gravy to give it a nice tart apple bite to balance the sweetness of the caramelised onions, I roasted the pork on top of the sliced onions, to the pork fat, as well as keeping the meat moist, also cooked the onions.

To make the gravy, I chucked the onions and juices from the roasting dish into a saucepan, added some flour for thickening and then poured in good half pint of cider with a quarter pint of water from boiling the potatoes and let it boil away to reduce. Eventually Mrs V and I had plates looking like this:

Paired with this delight of pork and veggies was a high ball glass of 7 UP with a liberal dose of brandy in the top - lately I've been on something of a spirits and soft drinks kick, which is most disturbing, though thankfully the sanctity of my single malts is still intact.

A minor diversion from beer, to be sure, but a tasty one I can assure you - and yes, the crackling crackled and was cracking.

Mrs Velkyal's Cider

Sometimes it feels as though our flat is slowly turning into a home-made alcoholic beverage production line. Regular readers will know that I have a 60/- Scottish ale currently in my carboy, which will be bottled on Monday, and then in a quick turn around I plan to brew up my imperial stout on Tuesday. Yesterday though, we added another boozy project to the list, when Mrs Velkyal made her first batch of cider. Last week there was an apple festival near Charlottesville, so while I was at work in the brewery, Mrs V went with a colleague and came back with 3 US gallons of pressed apple juice.

In order to make the cider we needed more fermenting space, so up to Fermentation Trap we went and bought another 3 gallon carboy, the necessary bung, airlock and yeast. Originally we were going to use wine yeast, but after speaking to the guy working in the store we opted for the Safale 04 dry yeast, which apparently most cider makers in these parts use. I also picked up some more steriliser because I didn't like working with the C-Brite stuff.

Mrs Velkyal's recipe was simplicity itself:

• 2.5 gallons pressed apple juice with no preservatives and junk
• Safale 04 yeast

The process was also simplicity itself, as you can see from these pictures:

1. Mrs V pouring the juice into the carboy

2. Yeast sprinkled on the must

3. Yeast happily doing its thing.

The OG of the must was 1.044, so we are looking for a 4.5%-5%ABV cider when it is done, and after months in bottles conditioning, something nice and refreshing for next summer. Now, where can we hide a small still?