Page 52 - The Hunt Winter 2021

Evan Gruber has a sensible way of assessing where cider fits in the drinking order. “You make cider in a similar manner to wine, but you drink it in an atmosphere more like for beer,” he says.
(Left) Gruber with the fruits of his labor.
(Opposite page, below right) Cider tender Zach Starke pours a sample.
through the door, I take over as cider maker and head marketer. My wife, Hannah Starke, and her brother, Zach Starke, run the tasting room and act as bartenders.”
And the Grubers have day jobs—mostly in
the technical and analytical fields. To moonlight as cider makers, they started their homework about 10 years ago, researching different types
of apples. They gradually settled on about
20 different varieties. Some of the more commonly used varieties include Roxbury Russet, Virginia Crab Apple, Black Oxford, Dabinette, Gold Rush and Stoke Red.
The family also purchases apples each year from local orchards. “We do some blends, but generally they’re made by variety,” Gruber says. “The earliest variety is ripe in late August, but one isn’t ready until the first week of November.”
Once harvested, the fruit is trucked about 45 minutes from the Grubers to a farm near Oxford, which crushes the apples into a mush of pulp and juice. This pulp is transported back to the cidery, where the juice is pressed out and commercial yeasts added. The residual pulp is used in the orchards as natural fertilizers.
After fermentation, the cider is aged in
large tanks or sometimes carboys. The latter
is especially true for the experimental lots. Generally, Old Stone ciders are straight, naturally fermented apple juice produced in the same alcoholic range as beer. “We don’t add any sugar before fermentation,” Gruber says. “Occasionally, we’ll add sugar back after fermentation.”
There are about a dozen other cideries within a 50-mile radius of the Brandywine Valley, especially in the Harrisburg and Allentown areas. Many local orchards also sell jugs of unfermented ciders. They’re mostly made by someone else from fruit from their own trees.
If you’ve not tried ciders before, Gruber has a sensible way of assessing where they fit in the
50 THE HUNT MAGAZINE winter 2021-22