Bottling the Orchard

The Hard Cider Business is Booming

The drinking habits of Americans are always shifting, leaving restaurateurs and bar owners to predict and cash in on the next big thing. Craft beer boomed in popularity, as has hard seltzer,1 but hard cider's renaissance might have slipped under the radar. Made from fermented apple juice (and a huge variety of other flavors), hard cider has become as varied in style and alcohol content as seltzer and beer. Craft cideries have sprung up around the country, especially in areas with relaxed regulations on making cider, such as New York.2 Cider has emerged as a fruity, flavorful alternative to beer, wine, and seltzer, but what exactly is it? And how can your business take advantage of cider's popularity?

Where Does Cider Come From?

Fermented apple cider is one of the oldest alcoholic drinks we've been able to track through history. We have evidence from Julius Caesar that the Britons were fermenting cider as early as 55 BCE,3 and cider remains popular in Europe today. Cider was the most popular beverage amongst the early European colonists of America as well, as it was easy to make, apples grew plentifully, and cider possessed enough alcohol to kill harmful microbes that made water unsafe.4

By the early 1900s, German and Eastern European beers were beginning to take over as formerly agrarian workers moved into the cities, abandoning apple orchards.3 Prohibition wiped out what remained of the cider industry in 1920. Because grains grew much faster than orchards, the beer industry recovered from Prohibition much faster than cider could, and the drink had a hard time regaining its pre-ban popularity for more than 80 years. However, the fruity beverage has exploded by an order of magnitude over the last decade.5 With craft cideries springing up and new takes on an old classic, cider has grown to be a significant alternative to beer, even if it's not going to overtake it in sales any time soon.

Is Cider Beer or Wine?

While generally packaged like and sold with bottled beer, hard cider is more closely related to wine, as it's fermented from juiced fruit.6 However, cider is usually stocked next to beer because it most often has a similar ABV to beers, somewhere between two and eight percent, with plenty of exceptions.

Industry professionals have a lot of opinions on whether hard cider should be considered a beer,7 but when it comes to marketing, that's the niche cideries are aiming for. While you might find some hard ciders packaged in large bottles sold alongside wine, most mass-produced ciders will be in bottles and cans on the beer aisle, appealing to those who prefer slightly fruitier flavors to the hoppy beers. Cider is typically sold in the same bottles used for beer, stocked on the same shelves as beer, and served in the same size glasses as beer, so in some ways it makes more sense to think of cider as belonging to the beer family, even though cider is a wine.

What's Next for Cider?

Cider's rapid growth has made it a promising source of revenue for restaurants and bars as well. As the craft beer boom normalizes, interested patrons seek something novel – something that seems more natural.8 A 2015 market research report found hard cider sales in restaurants9 have spiked nearly 318 percent in the five years prior.

The Shine on the Apple

  • More than 100 new cideries have opened in the past few years.10
  • Even when many restaurants were shut down in 2020, cider sales grew nine percent.
  • Studies suggest cider may be healthier than beer, which will appeal to an increasingly health-conscious consumer base.

References

  1. Brands Like White Claw and Truly Changed the Way Americans Drink. Business Insider. Accessed January 2022.
  2. It's the Perfect Time to Get Into High-end Hard Cider. Inside Hook. Accessed January 2022.
  3. History of Cider. Washington State University. Accessed January 2022.
  4. What is Hard Cider? Sunset. Accessed January 2022.
  5. What's Next for American Hard Cider? SevenFifty. Accessed January 2022.
  6. The Standards of Identity for Wine. Cornell. Accessed January 2022.
  7. Cider is Not Beer. Beer Advocate. Accessed January 2022.
  8. Hard Cider Could Be the Next Big Thing for the Alcoholic Beverage Market. Food Institute. Accessed January 2022.
  9. Diners are Drinking a Lot More Cider. Restaurant Hospitality. Accessed January 2022.
  10. The Cider Market is at an All-time High. BevZero. Accessed January 2022.