Ontario Cider Week Recap

 

I used to be a cider drinker. I hadn't quite developed my taste for beer, and I didn't get wine, so cider seemed like a fraught-free thing to order. Then I discovered the Snake Bite/Black Velvet (terminology dependent on bar), a deadly combination of stout and cider.

And I'm so very sorry, beer purists. But it's good.

It was also probably the grease on the slope I slipped down into becoming a craft beer drinker. The Guinness lead to other macrobrews, then to similar styles from local breweries, and eventually to me drinking specialty one-off casks brewed with three different adjuncts and twice as many hops. Along the way, cider was left behind.

But only by me. While I was busy with beer, others in Ontario were doing interesting things with cider. In an echo of the craft beer movement they were perfecting the standard pub cider, while also expanding the boundaries of what a cider could be. The options are no longer limited to Strongbow (except on the shelves of most LCBOs) - West Avenue, Brickworks, Puddicombe, Spirit Tree and more are all doing wonderful things to apples, including mixing them in with raisins, cherries, and ginger, and seeing what settles out.

And what settles out is mostly good. I finally reunited with cider last week, after discovering Ontario Cider Week. At the All-Day All-Ontario Cider event at Bar Volo, in fact, I reunited with exactly seven of ciders. The West Ave Crab and Cherry and their Ginger Rhubarb were my favourites, the Crab deliciously tart, and the ginger pleasantly spicy. This was enough cider to dampen my existential life crisis to a dull roar. On the patio, in the sun, chatting with people I would probably never, ever see again, life seemed okay. And cider? It was better than okay.