Loyal followers, allow me to introduce a new addition to the Blue Bee Cider family… Harvest Party. Every cider tells a story, and this one is a doozy.
The origin for this little monster was in August 2019, when Team Blue Bee ventured up to Winchester in Northern Virginia to handpick crab apples (with temperatures in the upper 90s). After feasting upon Waffle House for an early lunch, we made our way to an experimental orchard and assessed the challenge before us.
See, these crab “apples” were no bigger than cherries. None came off the tree easily. We had no proper picking “equipment” aside from our hands. And did I mention temperatures were in the upper 90s?
We got to work and managed about four exhausting hours of steady harvesting. Courtney and Maddie focused on trees in one row while Taylor and Kenzie focused on another. I, of course, climbed the branches for the sun-ripened higher elevation fruit (like an idiot). While we optimistically brought a massive bin to store our pickings, the final haul was a comically thin single layer barely enough to cover the floor of the bin. Damned tiny apples.
But, oh, the magic contained within those damned tiny apples. Some were red-fleshed, and all were loaded with aggressive acidity and dry-your-mouth-out tannin. Inspired by our bounty, we hatched the idea of a “community cider” comprised of this fruit, plus apples brought to us by our friends & fans, pressed together at a harvest party for the creation of a brand new cider.
The response from the public was awesome. We received numerous apple donations, including one of several bushels from Barry Hayes, an urban farmer located in the Short Pump area. I picked the apples from the trees in our Scott’s Addition urban orchard (mainly Grimes Golden, Hyslop Crab and Hewe’s Crab), and also harvested the fruit from the gravel pit orchard we planted at our original location in Manchester.
Once we gathered all of the apples, we hosted the community at our annual Harvest Party in October 2019. Those seemingly endless hours of picking yielded a grand total of about 30 gallons, which we fermented and packaged in five kegs. That’s it.
Orchard Potluck: Harvest Party (that’s the full official name) is now available at the cidery – while limited supplies last – by the glass, carafe, and growler/squealer fill. We left it uncarbonated to drink more like a wine, and to put full emphasis on the powerful tannin & acidity created naturally by the Virginia terroir.
How fitting that this cider is registered under our “Orchard Potluck” label; it is truly a potluck of apples from various orchards across the Commonwealth, probably 15-20 in all. We will never make another cider like it.
– Brian
