Austin eastciders loves a new flavor release; it’s a good excuse for a party.
This April the com-pany, founded in 2013, threw its release party for Blood Orange Cider at Easy Tiger on 6th Street in downtown Austin, and 1,500 people came out to try the citrus cider for the first time. “When your community gives you that kind of feedback, you’ve got to keep on doing it,” says Dave Rule, vice president of mar-keting. True to his word, the company plans to release another new flavor next spring.
Things are certainly looking up for the brand, which is also available in several states and major cities outside of Texas, like New York, Boston and Nashville.
In June 2016, the company opened a new cidery in southeast Austin. This location is considerably larger than the storage container that had previously served as Eastciders’ office space.
The expanded facility has an open room for the company’s 56 employees with high ceilings and a hand-painted mural that reads, “How do you like them apples?” in Eastciders’ easily recognizable script. (In July, the company was granted a trademark for the branding slogan “How do you like them apples?” from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.) The rest of the building includes a room for weekly team lunch-es, spaces for quality testing and a warehouse where the cider is made, canned and packaged.
This location isn’t open for the public, but luckily for cider lovers, Austin Eastciders is building a public cidery and taproom in East Austin at their old location this November. The cidery will offer food, special cider blends they’re testing and their core five flavors: Original, Texas Honey, Hopped, Pineapple and their newest offering, Blood Orange.
At Eastciders, the cider goes easy on the sweet, using specific types of bitter- sweet apples from abroad mixed with American dessert apples.
NOT YOUR TYPICAL CIDER The secret to Eastciders’ popularity? The cider isn’t too sweet — thanks to the bittersweet apples used.
Before Prohibition, cider was one of the most popular beverages in America. But unlike most cider today, it was made with cider apples. These apples are slightly bitter and dry compared with the sweeter apple we’re accustomed to eating.
Post-Prohibition, the orchards used in cider production died off, so when cider made its comeback in America, it was made with “eating” apples. But making cider with dessert and culinary apples “would be like going to the store and buying grapes to make wine,” Rule explains. So the company took a different tack.
“We encounter people who don’t like cider because it’s too sweet,” Rule adds, “and we say, ‘This is different — it’s like a prosecco [Italian white wine].’” With a fruit juice and yeast base, it really is a wine. Eastciders will give you a dry, less sweet flavor than a typical, modern American cider, and that’s key to its appeal.
Austin Eastciders makes a drink that’s versatile. While you can sip it on its own, bartenders around Texas have already taken to using the cider in cocktails. Texas Honey Cider and bourbon has quickly become a simple classic, and more elaborate “cocktails in cans” — drinks made with the can as a shaker — are also becoming staples anywhere Eastciders is sold.
Beyond the beverage, Eastciders supports the community and helps connect people through experiences and cider. Whether it’s donating cases to a local art gallery show or recommending an employee’s band for an opening set, Austin Eastciders is there to help. People get to experience the cider at the same time they discover new music or learn about a new product. At the very least they’re usually in a fun environment with people they like, which is what Austin Eastciders is aiming for.
After all, it’s a good excuse for a party.
