When is a Julian hard cider a Julian hard cider?

The actual business “Julian Hard Cider” may be found by following this link: “julianhardcider.biz”. Julian Ciderworks (this site) actually produces Julian hard cider made exclusively with Julian apples. Whereas, the business ”Julian Hard Cider” does not primarily make their ciders locally or with Julian fruit. The folks at “Julian Hard Cider” contend that the area may no longer produce enough fruit for their particular goals. From their business perspective, they may be right. But quantity isn’t everything. From our perspective, quality is everything. Unfortunately, the confusion in the name stems from the fact that Julian Hard Cider named their company for the product we sell. We feel compelled to nevertheless associate our product with Julian because the fruit produced here locally is uniquely suited to craft hard cider making.

Once upon a time Julian was a highly regarded apple and pear producer. While Julian’s arable acreage was not particularly large, there were many productive and interesting orchards in area. The fruit was (and still is) unusually sweet and flavorful.  This fact is a result of the consistently intense sun enjoyed by the area—maybe as good as or better than any other apple region in the North America. Julian established its apple gravitas by winning awards for the quality of its apples. The region’s reputation for great apple and pear fruit subsequently grew.

Several decades ago apple production in Julian entered a period of decline. The cause was Julian’s inability, due to limited arable acreage, to compete with high quantity and lower cost. It makes no difference if the fruit tastes better if a region cannot meet the crushing demand of mass markets. For commodity products, the bigger/cheaper producer will always win.  So maybe, if one ignores the possibility of better ciders from better fruit, the folks at the business “Julian Hard Cider” are right. Julian’s apple production is limiting.

But the emerging craft hard cider market is different; fruit quality and flavor matters once again. It is our belief that Julian apple production is at its nadir and not at risk of permanently disappearing. The good news is some of the old Julian orchards never really disappeared, they merely went off-line. They are well loved and never unappreciated by their owners. What’s new is the growth of regional demand for fruit. San Diego craft breweries are beginning to look to the Julian area for new flavors for their beer. Also, as a direct result of the successful San Diego craft beer market, new San Diego and Julian cideries are coming to pass.

Our cider strategy (Julian Ciderworks) is to focus on the diversity an uniqueness of local orchards.  The French call it terroir (that is, the set of environmental factors that affect a crops quality).  We can tell the difference between apples of the same variety originating in different orchards. The differences can be dramatic. Hard cider is a fun way to explore and understand those differences.

So come and enjoy authentic Julian hard ciders made from apples (many different heritage apple varieties) off the Kenner Ranch, Ranchita Del Reo, Volcan Mountain Winery, Storum Ranch, Limon Orchard, Fieldstone Farms, and many others.  We will soon have 16 different ciders on tap with (in 2015) 42 different apple and pear ciders produced. In 2016 we will have even more.