LTHForum.com

Link to TimeOut article
Now it’s time for a test. “Okay,” Hall says to me, “what do you think the ingredient list should be on a bottle of cider?” Hall, seated at a wooden farmhouse–style table at Virtue headquarters in Roscoe Village, picks up a bottle of Crispin (a popular U.S.-produced brand of cider that bills itself as “ultra-premium”) and begins reading from the ingredient list: “hard cider, apple juice concentrate, natural flavors, malic acid, sulfites.”

“Brewers—even the biggest brewers in the world—are still using water, malt, hops and yeast,” he says. “Even the biggest wineries are using grapes. The biggest cider makers are using apple-juice concentrate and sugar. Nobody would do that in brewing or wine making.”

Surveying the widely available ciders, Hall sees a landscape not unlike that of craft beer two decades ago. “I remember in, like, 1988, ’89, people would come into Goose Island and say, ‘Hey, do you have any domestic beers?’ And we’re like, ‘This is Chicago, America, it’s all domestic. It’s made right here.’ [They’d say:] ‘No, you only make imports.’ It’s like: You don’t even know what that means. People just didn’t know what beer was supposed to taste like. And it’s exactly like that with cider today.”

...

But cider is more than a personal passion: It’s an endeavor Hall sees as “virtuous,” hence the company’s name, which was inspired by the principles of the Slow Food Chicago organization, where he was a board member. “If I can source many apples [100,000 pounds this year, 1 million soon] and plant more trees, that’s a good thing,” Hall says. “And if I can support farmers and pay a premium for specific apples, there may be more families who can stay in farming.”

...

Hall has similar plans for cider, and he’s not waiting until early 2012, when RedStreak hits the market, to implement them. For the past three years, Hall has traveled to New York to teach beer-and-cheese classes at the iconic Murray’s Cheese Shop. Now those classes include lessons on cider, too. Last week, Hall coordinated a cider dinner at C-House, in which four courses (e.g., venison tenderloin with hay-roasted parsnips) were paired with a different cider from the French producer Dupont, at whose estate Hall spent a few weeks in October. Is cider ever going to be as big as craft beer? “No,” Hall replies. “No chance. But, I mean, right now, [the cider market] is just so, so tiny” that there’s plenty of room for growth. Just as soon as Hall can find the fruit.

Chicago, IL (April 13, 2012) - Virtue, the new hard cider venture from Gregory Hall, former Brewmaster at Goose Island Beer Co., and co-founder Stephen Schmakel, debuts its first release, RedStreak, today in Chicago. An English session-style cider, aged in American Oak, RedStreak is now available in draft format at a number of restaurants and bars in the Chicago area, including The Publican, Hopleaf and Lula Café with more locations coming soon. Virtue will debut two additional styles of barrel-aged draft cider in the fall of 2012 in Chicago, as well as SW Michigan, New York City and Portland, Oregon.

I had it on tap at The Publican and I guess I was hoping for a bit more. I've been drinking Basque ciders with a lot of funk lately and this was nowhere near that style. I found it light and somewhat devoid of body. I did like the contrast between the fragrant apple aroma and the cider's dryness. I also liked the complexity at the finish but I only really noticed that after it warmed up to just about room temperature. For an inaugural effort, it was certainly promising, though. I definitely look forward to seeing how Virtue progresses.

=R=

...I'm a little confused, though -- is there actually Redstreak in the cider? Or is that just the name? If so, I'm curious as to the source of any Redstreak for Hall's cider, not that he would ever divulge it publicly .

...I'm a little confused, though -- is there actually Redstreak in the cider? Or is that just the name? If so, I'm curious as to the source of any Redstreak for Hall's cider, not that he would ever divulge it publicly .

“The varieties he wants, no one grows,” says Nick Nichols, a farmer in Marengo, Illinois, “because they taste horrible.” Nichols is leading the Virtue Cider team (Hall; his business partner, Stephen Schmakel; his assistant, Emilia Juocys; and two members of his design firm, Grip) through his muddy Nichols Farm apple orchards on a cool September morning. These trees will bear some of the fruit for RedStreak, whose name comes from the first apple grown in England specifically for cider—in 1632. “The hard thing with apples is it takes six years to get much of a crop on them,” Nichols adds. Given the commitment it takes on the farmers’ part, Hall is testing out a number of apple varieties to determine which ones he might ask Nichols, or another farm, to grow for him. In the meantime, he’s scouting growers in Michigan (the second-largest apple-growing state after Washington) and Illinois for apples that have high levels of tannins similar to the antique English and French varieties. “That acidity stays in there,” Hall explains, “and the tannins add structure.” Overnight, Hall has become one of Nichols’s biggest buyers: He just bought 20,000 pounds of apples for some of RedStreak’s earliest batches.

There's some information here: http://virtuecider.com/OurProcess.htm . And via an older post at BeerPulse (http://www.beerpulse.com/2011/10/virtue ... greg-hall/), it looks like Redstreak is among the varieties in use ("Redstreak, Cox’s Orange Pippin and Chisel Jersey among the apple varieties Virtue Cider will be working with").

I recall, in some of the earliest reports about Virtue, that Hall faced a huge hurdle in convincing farmers to start growing cider apples since if the cider thing fell through, the farmers would be left with a lot of otherwise unpalatable/unsellable apples.

He has recently closed on his own farm for the orchard in Michigan, so he'll kind of have free reign over what gets grown.

As to the cider itself, as has already been mentioned, I'm kind of surprised that anyone would recommend a Basque cider to drink relative to the Virtue cider, which is English style. Even a French cider would have been a better choice (but still not the right one). That being said, my notes on Red Streak were that there was an initial hint of sulfur that fades pretty quick and leaves you with a vary floral nose and a very appley character, as opposed to the oxidized apple juice notes of lesser ciders. Fermented incredibly well, though. The palate is really nice on it with a pleasant level of sweetness and a medium acidity. Not as tart as one would expect from an English Style (but this is a good thing). My biggest quibble was that the body was a bit thin but it's hard to maintain body once it's been filtered, particularly if you're not using French techniques. Regardless, I found this to be a phenomenal cider overall and really look forward to future products from him. I'd love to see some Canadian-style Ice Ciders as well.

except for that slight failed rubber belt aftertaste noted upthread.

Although cider remains a niche segment in the U.S. market, sales are accelerating rapidly, rising 23% to 5.7 million cases last year, according to Impact Databank. Five cider brands—Woodchuck, Strongbow, Magners, Crispin and Ace—earned Impact “Hot Brand” honors in 2012.