Everything I Like About Apples: A COVEN x Threadbare Cider Collaboration

Oct 14

As fall is in the air, we thought we’d take a moment to highlight Everything I Like About Apples - Coven’s House Cider made in collaboration at Threadbare Cider and Mead!

Ian Mansfield, Cider Maker at Threadbare Cider and Mead

Hard cider has a special place in our hearts - and on our taps - at COVEN Brewing. Before becoming a beer brewer, Head Brewer Caiti did a stint in the hard cider world making mixed fermentation ciders and meads. Along the way, she connected with cidermaker Ian Mansfield, who now makes cider at Threadbare Cider and Mead here in Pittsburgh. Looking for a way to work together again, they dreamed up a collaboration cider made at Threadbare that is now Coven’s house cider! This wild-fermented cider is dry, apple forward, and delicious. Much like a table beer or easy-going saision, Everything I Like About Apples has a pleasant acidity, slight funky, and tons of flavor.

Through cider, Threadbare often aims to make ciders with a sense of place. Much like wine, hard cider can be crafted from special apple varieties that each lend their own flavors and aromas to a finished hard cider blend. This heirloom cider blend is composed of 25% Harrison, 25% Black Twig, 20% Arkansas Black, 20% Stayman Winesap, and 10% Gold Rush. “Everything I Like About Apples” was fermented cool and slow with native yeast for over 3 weeks in stainless steel, then matured in neutral oak barrels for an additional three months. It has a good balance between fruity aromatics and soft tannins naturally from the apples, with a little hint of funky but approachable character from the wild yeast.

Threadbare cidermakers chose this apple blend to mimic the rustic cider apples of the British West country, an ancient cidermaking region. The North American apples included resemble British tannic, funky cider apples. Ian says, “Harrison should be one of the most famous apples in North America. In the late 1600’s there was no winemaking in North America, and New Jersey grown Harrison-based cider was the first fruit beverage available to the thirsty colonists. In its heyday, it was a luxury product in North America. In more recent years it nearly became extinct…but was rescued from just one surviving original tree.”

You can find this special modern dry cider on at Coven and Threadbare through the fall! Everything I Like About Apples Specs: