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Rediscovering Hard Cider
A journey through New Hampshire’s craft cideries
BY KARA MCGRATH
If the words “hard cider” conjure memories of sipping a sickly sweet concoction at a local college bar, it might be time to give the drink another chance.
“We get a lot of people in saying, ‘I don’t like cider, I don’t like cider,’” says Tim Bassett, co-owner of Contoocook Cider in Contoocook. “Within two or three sips, they’re going home with something.”
Thanks to the big, juicy dessert apples that you’ve likely picked on your own autumnal orchard visits, like McIntosh and Cortland, New England-style cider is light and on the drier side but still full of flavor, says Mark LeClair, owner of Rhythm Cider in Lincoln.
“New Hampshire is a special place for apples (and burgeoning for cider),” says Malcolm Thomas, co-owner of Chase Hill Farm in Albany. “The deep freeze and brilliant climate help develop something truly wonderful.”
While Chase Hill Farm experienced severe fire blight in their mature orchards last year that forced them to pause on selling cider — they’re tinkering with small batches and new blends until fruit production ramps up enough to sell again — there are a handful of other cideries across the state that are sure to please cider enthusiasts and skeptics alike. Here are three worth checking out.
North Country Hard Cider • Dover
Silas Gordon and his brother, Ivan, grew up on a farm in Central Maine “in the middle of nowhere” with no running water and no electricity, but plenty of wild apples to pick. Their mother was a chemist who didn’t allow them to eat anything with additives or preservatives, an ethos that stuck when they decided to go into the cider-making business in 2014 along with their friend Ronald Dixon.
Today, North Country Hard Cider is still made without preservatives — instead, they use a flash pasteurization unit to make the drinks shelf-stable — or added sugar, though that doesn’t mean the ciders aren’t sweet.
“I would say most of the cider we make is kind of a medium (dry),” Gordon says. “But since it’s not added sugar, the interpretation of it is a bit drier and definitely a different taste than something that has processed sugar.”
If you’re looking to branch out from the usual cider flavors, North Country is the place to do it. Their most popular cider is Fire Starter, a spiced cider made with cinnamon, habanero and pomegranate that the company initially produced as a limited-edition Valentine’s Day special in 2015. But once they discontinued it, people kept asking them to bring it back, so they did, and it’s been a bestseller ever since. Other unique blends on tap at the time this article was written include Sweetie Pie (a sweet cider with rhubarb and strawberries), Wulf Kitty (tart cherry, tangerine zest and ginger), and Pineapple Thunder (pineapple juice, lime zest and a hint of cilantro).
North Country’s dog-friendly tap room in Dover is open year-round. Allowing dogs means they can’t have a kitchen on-site, but guests are allowed to bring in their own food, plus they rotate in food trucks as often as possible.
They also host a lot of live events, including monthly comedy shows, to raise money for charities the founders are passionate about, primarily ones focused on wildlife rehabilitation and land preservation. “That’s kind of the biggest goal of the business,” Gordon says, “trying to give back to these (causes) that are important to myself and my business partner and my brother but the team as well.” northcountryhardcider.com
Contoocook Cider Company • Contoocook
Tim Bassett and his wife, Amy, purchased Gould Hill Farm in 2010 and quickly realized they wouldn’t be able to afford their mortgage just selling apples. Hard cider, however, seemed promising.
The couple partnered with Mark and Lisa Strader, who had done some home brewing but not cider. “We were all learning as we went,” Bassett says. “And it worked out.” The first Contoocook Cider came out in 2016. There was a trial-and-error period — Bassett recalls an early cranberry cider attempt that turned into a “reddish cider without much flavor to it” — but now that they’re in a groove, the hardest part is the same thing every cider maker deals with: Apples are different every year.
The Bassetts grow over a hundred different apple varieties on the farm. Not all of them are great for hard cider, but it does give them the opportunity to create unique blends as well as single varietal batches.
In peak fall season, Contoocook typically carries 11 or 12 varieties, including some special batch or limited runs, though most are renewed every year: Bassett says the flagship blends, cranberry, blueberry, winter spice and maple are pretty much always available. But sometimes it just depends on the apples: “If we have a good crop of russets — which are very good cider apples — like we did last year, there’ll be a whole dry variety of a russet (cider),” Bassett says. Sometimes the weather determines what will be for sale: “We’re going to run out of winesap (this year) because our orchard (with the winesap apples) froze out last year.”
The bestsellers for Contoocook also change with the seasons: “In the summer, we’re doing quite a bit of the Summer Days, which is on the dry side, but in the fall we tend to swing much more to the sweeter side,” Bassett says. “Our blend, the maple and the winter spice all tend to be top sellers in the fall.” The cranberry cider sells well year-round.
The Contoocook Cider tap room and farm store (which sells apples and baked goods), located in a barn built in 1810, are open year-round. In 2021, they started selling some food beyond the baked goods, like pizzas, hot pretzels and charcuterie boards, including gluten-free options.
There’s also live music on the patio pretty much every day the tap room is open from May until Christmas. As Bassett describes it, all this makes for a sweet setup: “You can sit on our patio, listen to live music, and have some pretty amazing views looking right up to the White Mountains.” contoocookcider.com
Rhythm Cider • Lincoln
Mark LaClair had been making wine at Seven Birches Winery for 10 years when COVID hit. The pandemic brought a lot of trade to a standstill; LaClair wasn’t able to source grapes from South America or South Africa, but he could still get local fruit. So, he pivoted, and Rhythm Cider was born.
LaClair believes his wine-making background gives him a unique perspective on cider-making: “Wine-making and cider-making, from our perspective, is more like cooking than it is baking. It’s not an exact science.” Since, unlike beer, both wine and cider are derived from fruit, making either requires a certain flexibility and willingness to experiment.
“(It’s) somewhat reactive,” LaClair says. “What is the fruit giving us? What are the textures that we’re sensing right now? What is the sugar content of the fruit coming in, and how do we adjust for that?” After all: “Fruit is different all the time: from one tree to the next, from one orchard to the next, and certainly from one year to the next.”
Rhythm Ciders are all New England-style ciders, sitting closer to the dry side of the sweetness spectrum. The company’s first variety, Rhythm Cider, remains their bestseller. “It really hits the proverbial sweet spot for most people: It’s not too dry, not too sweet.” Rhythm Cider (the cider) is just apples, but Rhythm Cider (the company) experiments with blending other flavors like honey, strawberries, blueberries and, what LaClair gets most excited to talk about, hops.
“We put hops in while the cider is fermenting, and it brings out that beautiful flavor” that people might recognize from their favorite IPAs. New Hampshire Semi Sweet Cider won Best of Show and Best of New Hampshire at the Big E in 2023. “The awards are not what it’s about to us, but it’s kind of nice validation all the same,” LaClair says.
At the Riverwalk Resort in Lincoln, you can get your Rhythm Cider at two locations: the beverages-focused taproom, or with a sitdown meal at the Rhythm Tap & Grille. For their eye-catching bottles, which can be bought in person or ordered online for nearly nationwide shipping, Rhythm contacted local artists and asked if they had any existing art they’d like to be used for the bottles. The subsequent labels are used on the company’s “Artist Series” bottles, which are limited runs. “When they run out, they run out,” LaClair says.
Seven Birches still makes wine, but LaClair says they’re now making about the same volume of cider. “No one will ever really think of New Hampshire as a world-class wine region,” LaClair says. “But they should think of it as a world-class cider region.” rhythmcider.com
