Inside Cider at Fox Barrel

Edible Sacramento; Summer 2005

Cider? That was my first thought as we drove towards Colfax, home of Fox Barrel Cider Co. That very question of what is cider is exactly what owners Sean Deorsey and Bruce Nissen contend with as they journey down this less-traveled road.

Bruce and Sean had always hoped to open a business together but nothing really resonated with them. It took a barbecue and maybe a few too many libations to solidify the idea of opening a cidery. Sean began making homemade hard cider (bathtub style) while he was attending Santa Clara University. Bruce had become a hard-cider consumer years ago and saw the potential for it in the varied beverage industry. Now it was just a matter of leaving their very secure lives behind. Bruce and his wife, Carrie, were living in Sebastopol, where he was working in marketing and business management; Sean was living in San Francisco with his wife, Jeanenne, where he held the position of CFO at a "dot-com." Sean says it best when he says "Life is so much better crunching apples then crunching numbers." So they packed their bags and migrated east to the little town of Colfax in Placer County.

The very first stop on the road to making world-class hard-cider took them to Washington State, where - conveniently enough for them - a course in commercial hard-cider production was taking place. "We are not science guys," says Bruce. "In the beginning we were like 'Beaker? What's a beaker?'" Teaching that course was Peter Mitchell, who just happened to be a very well respected cider maker from the U.K. He formed an instant friendship with these two novices. "We were very aware of what we didn't know," says Bruce. So with the help of Peter and a gentleman by the name of Marty Hartigan (their third partner, who takes a more hushed approach to the business), they began the process of producing Fox Barrel Cider.

There are, of course, a number of frustrating things that one encounters when starting a business. For Sean and Bruce there was quite a bit more than the normal pile of papers and licensing hoops to jump through. They had to discover - or, more accurately, create - a market for their cider. Was their target market the 20- to 30-year-old white-collar crowd, or was it women who loved the mouth-feel of Champagne but would prefer the lower alcohol content and lower calories? The market is so diversified and for Fox Barrel it is still too soon to say with any amount of authority. One of the many challenges a cider maker faces is educating the public on cider and shedding the image that cider is always a sweet Martinelli-type beverage. Hard-cider can be made from a number of fruit types but most commonly you will find apple or pear.

The process of making cider is very similar to making wine. In much the same way that a winemaker might prefer a particular vineyard, a cider maker has predilection for certain orchards. Farming practices play a very important role in the final outcome of hard cider. For example, if a farmer is using potassium to amend his soil it can result in musty flavors in the cider that cannot be blended out. The fermentation process of cider takes about 3 weeks, then it will go through a racking process, and then on to filtration. Sean and Bruce filter their ciders five times. They blend the final cider with a concentrate that is made specifically for them, from a proprietary recipe. They had been reluctant to use concentrate but learned early on that the consistency it allowed was beneficial. After the finished cider is bottled they pasteurize the bottles for quality control.

Yes, there will be problems, but they won't stop us," says Bruce. A testament to this attitude is the way they pasteurize. An old-time farmer nearby had a meat freezer, circa 1950s, rusting in his backyard. Bruce and Sean politely asked if they could have it. Once they got it back to the cidery they rigged the inside with two simple copper manifolds, one in each compartment of the freezer. They drilled two holes in the side and ran piping from the manifolds out to an old steam compressor they had rehabilitated. Presto! An instant steam pasteurizer. It can handle twelve cases at a time and it heats up to 135 degrees. When the 2 1/2 hours of pasteurizing have elapsed, then they simply open the lids and use a garden hose to cool the bottles back down. They just recently purchased a new tunnel pasteurizer that will enable them to handle 30 bottles per minute. However, the homemade version is not easing into retirement; they have a list of "bathtub" cider producers who would love to purchase it.

Within every great company there are roles that the principles play. While Sean is the main cider maker, Bruce is in charge of sales and Carrie Nissen is in charge of marketing. The vibrant Nissen family sales-and-marketing team has garnered some prime tap pours throughout the greater Sacramento area. During our conversation, they mentioned that they had been able to place Fox Barrel Cider in 10 more accounts just that week!

I myself would not only recommend these ciders on the obvious hot day, but I think they would make a great fit for Thanksgiving dinner or a nice alternative to Champagne at Sunday brunch. I arrived at Fox Barrel not exactly knowing what to expect but I left a true fan. I loved the light flavors and the fact that they are not extremely high in alcohol content. I think you will find cider to be as versatile in pairing with foods as many lighter-bodied wines. It is nice to have another alternative when you just don't feel like beer and wine seems jus a bit much and for about $3 a bottle you cannot go wrong!

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