Mission and Philosophy

Thank You & Happy Thanksgiving!

October 6, 2018 by Kristy Rhyason 4 Comments

We still have a few weeks left in our busy apple season, but things are starting to wrap up. We are beginning to reflect on this year, both for practical strategic planning, but also observing how amazing it has been because of the people in our lives. They say “it takes a village” and that is so true even about our baby – yegcider. With Thanksgiving here, we wanted to take some time to say thank you to everyone who has been a part of that village this year.

Ayden has helped us tremendously this year, consistently coming by after work to help press or spending “date nights” with me picking fruit. A new discovery this season was his remarkable tree climbing abilities. Ayden has been a great sounding board for both of us as we mull over ideas and long term plans. He has kept me sane when things have been overwhelming and took care of little things, like making sure I eat. He let me high jack our holidays for a whirlwind cider tour of British Columbia and was always happy to check out ANOTHER cidery. Ayden has amazing attention to detail and has been so helpful at events – everything from cutting wood for our fire pit, to making sure my hair wasn’t a mess.

Aaron has been the king of red flesh crabapples. We can all thank him for his contribution of beautiful colour and complex flavour profiles to next year’s cider. He has developed a knack for finding all the good spots to pick them; he also has spent hours and hours picking the tiny crab apples. This is a job that no one is jumping to do, except him! Aaron has also been a great influence on both of us to take time to chill by going to the beach or out for Indian food. He has also spent many nights pressing with Nathan until after dark.

Christiane has offered us her truck more times than I can count. We are really sorry that it now has a permanent apple smell! She has been a great help picking fruit and we had some really great chats while stuck in the cherry bushes. Christiane has been a superstar at events, always seeing where she can pitch in. She also makes killer mulled cider! AND she just returned from Europe where she brought us back a collection of ciders from a little shop in Prague.

Caleb has spent hours cooking our random apple recipe requests and preparing for parties. He has developed a pretty good palette for cider tasting too! He is good to send us ridiculous goat videos when we are feeling overwhelmed. His sense of humour is always appreciated, especially in his blog posts like the infamous pumpkin spice expose.

We also need to say a huge thank you to everyone who gave us feedback on our 2018 cider. We appreciated how much time you all spent filling out our survey with honest feedback. We have loved the positive reactions, but even more, have loved your sense of humour when you didn’t like one of our ciders. We had so much fun with Edmonton’s Next Cider Superstar (which we will try to finish?) especially when alliances started forming and I was getting in trouble in real life for ciders being eliminated.

This year we have been overwhelmed by the response from the community in donating fruit. It warmed our hearts to know that lots of people out there share our goal of seeing less food go to waste in our city. Thank you so much to those of you who dropped off fruit – it seemed like our apple collection was growing daily! Thank you to those of you who spotted public trees for us, picked for your neighbours or family members or who reached out to us for extra help. We have loved being welcomed into people’s yards and being introduced to your kids and your pets. We have cherished every story we were told about your apple trees, who planted them, and your grandpa who grafted.

Ultimately we want to create a community of cider drinkers and cider makers, so we want to say thank you to everyone who has been a part of that community, especially online. We appreciate the likes and shares, and LOVE when you chat with us. We have had some pretty great conversations getting to know you over messenger or email. Nathan and I laugh over your jokes. Our hearts grow two sizes when you comment and share our cider nerd enthusiasm. We feel overjoyed when you share your own cidermaking journey with us.

The Stachniaks have been a crucial part of my life since I was born and it’s no different with yegcider. Thank you to Bo & Deb for offering us orchard space and business advice. To your kids for helping us plant the orchard and sending us snapchat updates when we can’t make it out to check on it. Thank you to Josh & Ela for sharing your amazing chesnut crab apples, chokecherries, and the biggest haul of rhubarb to date. Your kids have become great little apple pickers! We also appreciate you letting us trial ciders on you, your family & guests – even in the early, less confident years! Thank you to Co Co for picking saskatoons and finding us spots to pick when we thought this season was a bust. And to Cha Cha and Auntie Shelley for your brutally honest feedback that still makes me laugh; we often tell people they shouldn’t feel bad giving us honest feedback because our aunt’s said our cider tastes like gravy. It has made me have a fondness for that cider, even though it is bad.

Thank you to Glyn & Shevelle, our fellow local cidermakers. It has been great to celebrate and commiserate over the state of the cider industry in Alberta. We have appreciated being on this journey together, knowing that we are all insane for wanting to do this.

Thank you to Amanda for taking AMAZING photos of us. You really captured the feelings of cidermaking and connected to our story. We also loved your (& Scott’s) feedback.

Sam & Amy have been helping us since the beginning. Thank you for bringing us apples, receiving our grinder, and hosting a tasting this year!

There are also numerous people and organizations that have been great to us this year, by encouraging us, sharing our story, letting us visit, connecting us to others and supporting us where they could:

Rochelle & Lorin, Ryan & Al, Sea Change Brewing, Pete & Karen, Canada Homebrewers, Edmonton Homebrewers, Kathy Yan Li, Farm to Bottle, Dustin Bajer, Wild Heart Collective, Nomad Cider, BX Press, Gabbie’s Cider, Sea Cider, CTV Edmonton, City TV, Operation Fruit Rescue Edmonton, Mike Johnson, our neighbour Dawn, our coworkers in our day jobs, Jacob & Chelsea, Monica & Paul, Linda & Gary, Aileen & George, Sunny & Jess, Kimberly Gramlich, Uncommon Cider, Sherbrooke Liquor, Destination Gardens/Not Your Babas, Shrugging Doctor, The Local Good, Princess Auto, Cafe Linnea, Bob & Crystal Kruger, the Devonian Fruit Growers Group, The United States Association of Cider Makers…

…and so many more! It was difficult to make a list because so many people have helped build yegcider this year. I am sure there are people we have forgotten – but I blame apple season brain overload.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.

We hope you have an amazing Thanksgiving! Cheers!

Celebrate Local Food Week in Alberta!

August 13, 2018 by Kristy Rhyason Leave a Comment

This week, August 12-19, 2018, is the first ever Local Food Week in Alberta!

We started making cider because we believe so strongly in the fruit and flavours that thrive in Alberta. We want to support local food – and drinks! And we want to make sure that local food is honoured and not wasted. (You can read more about our beliefs and philosophy in our Cider Manifesto.)

Local Ingredients and Hardy Fruit

All these apples were picked on the same day in Edmonton!

We believe in using locally grown fruit as much as possible. There are many apples that grow in Edmonton that make great cider. There are also many other fruits and plants that grow here. We are always discovering new local ingredients that we can incorporate into our experiments. Right now we can’t grow everything we need on the land available to us but even when we have to look a bit farther we always try to use cold hardy fruit that we could grow in Edmonton.

Local Food and Community Building

Local food, drink, and craft industry has a great role to play in the development of communities and a sense of place. Local craft foods and beverages link some of our most social and cultural experiences with the place we live and the land we live on. We use local food as an opportunity to give back to our community – whether that is helping a senior prune their apple tree when they can’t afford it or by donating apples to the Food Bank.

Donation of apples to the Food Bank
So much local love!

How Can You Celebrate Local Food Week?

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is! Literally. Buy Local Food!

We know that buying local sometimes means you have to spend a bit more – however, this time of year it’s often cheaper!! So while the growing season is in it’s prime see how much you can purchase locally. Visit the farmer’s market. Trade with your neighbours (we know you have way too many zucchini…). Or even order local grocery delivery like Organic Box or SPUD.

Visit Farmers and Local Food Producers

We look forward to Alberta Open Farm Days every year! This year it’s on August 18 & 19th.

Alberta Open Farm Days is about farmers and ranchers inviting their urban and rural neighbours to stop in for a visit to share stories, see demonstrations, and learn more about the farmers who grow their food. As well, some of Alberta’s most talented chefs and rural communities will be hosting a memorable series of farm to table culinary events that will be held around the province using Alberta farm products.
– Alberta Open Farm Days website

We highly recommend checking out some of the other craft beverage producers in the province like Blindman Brewing, Fallentimber Meadery, & Shady Lane Estates Fruit Winery. The Alberta Barley to Beer tour in Calgary looks especially awesome. But there are also lots of fruit u-picks, farm to table dinners, tours and all kinds of local food fun!

Help Your Extra Fruit Reach its Full Potential – as Cider!

Another great way to celebrate is to make sure that the food growing in your own neighbourhood doesn’t go to waste! We are still collecting fruit – apples and crabapples of course, but also other local fruit as well. We love to experiment with anything that grows locally; here are some of the foods we have used in cider in the past:

saskatoons,
raspberries,
highbush cranberries,
spruce tips,
lilacs,
dandelions,
sage,
rosehips,
seabuckthorn,
sour cherries,
currants,
choke cherries,
rhubarb,
haskaps,

You can contact us through our website or social media (@yegcider) if you would like to share!

Happy Alberta Local Food Week! Hug a farmer, food producer, chef or the Baba down the street who always keeps you fed.

Finding Prairie Cider Apples in Edmonton

April 1, 2017 by Nathan Smith 2 Comments

Not all apples are the same

In the the grocery store you will usually have a choice between a variety of apples. Each variety has its own unique characteristics. Some people prefer McIntosh, while others might prefer Golden Delicious or Honeycrisp. They are still all apples, but I’m willing to bet that most people wouldn’t confuse a Granny Smith apple with a Red Delicious. The juice from any apple can be used to make cider, but some apples produce better cider than others.

The typical grocery store apples are usually there for a few reasons. First, people like them enough to buy them and eat them, so they keep growing them. Second, the trees that produce these apples may have attributes that make them easier to grow on a large commercial scale. We grow certain types of apples, called “dessert apples”, in North America suited for eating and baking because that is what most people want.

The complication is that sometimes what makes a good eating apple is different than what makes a good cider apple. There are lots of these “dessert apples” around and resourceful cider makers are demonstrating that they can still be used to make a great cider.

In the fall we tasted every type of apple we could easily get our hands on. So many colours, shapes, sizes, and flavours.

There are more apples out there

The options at the grocery store are only a tiny sampling of the thousands of apple cultivars (ie. type of apple) that exist. There are some apple varieties that are specifically grown to make cider. These “cider apples” are often quite different than the fruit we eat fresh. Apples grown specifically for cider often have more tannins that make them more bitter or astringent. These apples may not be great in a pie, but are good in cider. These cider specific apples can be hard to find in North America because only so many people are growing them.

There are also some crossover apples that are great for eating and can also make a great cider. Some of these are your typical grocery store options, but there is also a lot of interest in heirloom varieties. These are apples that have some history of being cultivated, but for various reasons don’t have wide commercial success today. Even if these apples aren’t cider-specific, they provide more variety and are quite popular in cidermaking.

What can we grow in Edmonton?

Many of the cider apples common in the U.K., France, or Spain are grown in wet, moderate maritime climates. The climate in Alberta is not very wet, and is certainly not moderate. Even if some European apples are able to survive here, they won’t taste exactly the same because of the different growing conditions. Even other common non-cider specific apple varieties just aren’t quite suited to living in this part of the world.

In many older neighbourhoods in Edmonton it is clear that there are apples that thrive in our climate. What kind of cider do they make? Not all of them will be successes, but we don’t know until we try. We believe there are likely some apples that probably already do grow in Edmonton that would make a great cider.

As we continue to experiment with local fruit, we hope to figure out what the best local cider apples may be. We know they won’t be the same as the traditional varieties, but that’s okay! Different can still be delicious and we’re going to do our best to make sure our local apples can reach their full potential.

One of the many Mature Apple Trees Growing in a Yard in Edmonton

If you have experience making cider with any cold-hardy apple varieties we’d love to hear about it! Or if you have apples that you think we should test, check out our donate apples page.