Bearanoia Brewing Cider Labels: Rescue Party

Friend and award-winning homebrewer Christophe Venot of Bearanoia Brewing recently bottled a New England-style cider from my parents’ apples and collaborated on a label for the brews. The crabapple tree just outside the house produces over 300 lbs of fruit every other year, but they’re too tart to eat out of hand and often are left for wildlife to eat. In fall 2018, Christophe collected several hundred pounds of them, pressed the juice, and brewed them in a dessert cider, reducing and caramelizing the juice several times to optimize the flavor. As far as we know, the crabapples are a variety called Rescue, so the cider was dubbed Rescue Party by Bill Jamison and myself.