Apple Crush: Back on the Cider Fest Circuit
Plus, reminders about upcoming Cooking Up a Cure and Eat & Evolve events
Cider Fest Revived My Apple Crush
I’d sampled enough hard cider when I lived in D.C. to know I liked it. It was never a big thing, though, until I moved to Chicago in 2011. Cider, which earlier in American history was largely the drink of choice, was undergoing a revival that in our area was reinforced by the availability of apples from Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois.
I attended a lot of cider tasting events and wrote stories about cideries in our region. Then came the pandemic, and it had been a while since. So when I learned about Cider Fest taking place last Thursday (September 28) at the Artifact Events space (on Chicago’s Malt Row, better known for craft beer and spirits), I jumped at the opportunity to attend.
Turns out that even with a long layoff, I have a bit of history with some of the brands that served at Cider Fest.
Eris Brewery and Cider House, located in Chicago’s Old Irving Park neighborhood, is owned by two women, Michelle Foik and Katy Pizza. Their ciders are excellent with innovative fruit blends.
I’ve known Michelle since the first year I lived in Chicago. We met when she was working for Revolution Brewery and she graciously pointed me toward what turned out to be my first craft beer writing gig, and so I tell her every time I see her that she kickstarted my second career as a Good Food advocate.
Michelle, after working for cider companies, embarked with Katy on Eris, which opened in 2018 and weathered the pandemic successfully.
I was active in Michigan State University alumni activities during my first few years living in Chicago. During a campus stay in 2013 (almost exactly 10 years ago), I took an excursion 30 miles north to St. John’s, Michigan to visit Uncle John’s and cider industry legend Mike Beck.
This photo was taken at Uncle John’s tasting room. I learned so much, including a major reason why hard cider virtually disappeared for decades. Hard cider apples typically are heirloom varieties that are too tart to eat out of hand. During Prohibition, those apples became useless and many farmers cut down the trees and grew other crops that they could sell at market. Until recent years, Uncle John’s was one of the few growers keeping that legacy of cider apples alive.
The married couple of Deirdre Birmingham and John Biondi produce The Cider Farm hard ciders and apple brandy from organic heirloom apples they grow on their farm in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, with a cidery and tasting room in the state capital of Madison. I got to know them when they participated in the Good Food Accelerator, an entrepreneur development program then run by FamilyFarmed, the non-profit for which I worked prior to starting Local Food Forum in 2021.
Their products are consistently well-crafted and delicious.
Riding the wave of rising consumer interest, The Northman restaurant opened in 2016 in Chicago’s North Center neighborhood as the city’s first cider bar. There was a lot of excitement around the project, which I wrote about prior to its opening, but the brick and mortar location lasted only until February 2020 (closing just weeks before the raging COVID pandemic would have shut it down anyway).
Nonetheless, the Northman name lives on with an outdoor warm-weather location on Chicago’s scenic Riverwalk and in the canned ciders they sell in retail.
Here are some of the other regional cidermakers that served at Cider Fest.
Right Bee Cider, Chicago
2 Fools Cider, Naperville, Illinois.
Broken Brix, St. Charles, Illinois.
Reminder: Two Great Food-Focused Fundraisers
These are two Chicago fundraisers coming up over the next couple of weeks that will benefit important causes… while providing attendees with amazing food and drink.
Cooking Up a Cure Benefit for Scleroderma Foundation Greater Chicago
Cooking Up a Cure, to be held on Thursday evening, October 12 at Theater on the Lake in the Lincoln Park neighborhood (2401 N. Lake Shore Dr.), provides an outstanding food and beverage experience while raising money for the Scleroderma Foundation of Greater Chicago. Scleroderma is a rare chronic illness that causes skin tightness and thickening that can spread to internal organs.
The event is chaired, as it has been for several years, by Chef Cleetus Friedman, who lost his father to the disease.
Eat and Evolve 2023, the biggest annual fundraising event for The Evolved Network, will be held on Monday, October 16 at eden restaurant in Chicago’s Avondale neighborhood.
Local Food Forum has written often about The Evolved Network, but if you’re new to the newsletter, it is a Chicago non-profit that works with young people from under-resourced communities to provide education and support through farm-to-table experiences. Founder Sebastian White currently provides cooking lessons for students in several Chicago schools. His ultimate goal is to build out a restaurant and urban farm that will provide young participants with job, business and growing skills while providing therapeutic assistance for those who need it.
And if doing good isn’t enough reason to buy tickets for Eat and Evolved, you’d do well to check out the amazing roster of participating restaurants seen at the bottom of the graphic above.
Bob’s World, and Welcome to It
Monday (October 2) was another clear day, producing another lovely sunset for me to photograph from my living room office. Watching the sun sitting on the horizon is a Zen moment in my typical busy day.
And sometimes the afterglow, with the interplay of pastels and darkening clouds, is another dose of serenity.