Julian Ciderworks

Julian CiderWorks is a startup cidery in the mountains east of San Diego, CA. Using exclusively local fruit, sourced from various orchards in the Julian area, we produce interesting ciders that you won’t find at other cideries.

We have a different focus than other cider makers, that being to help build the local apple and pear orchards grow to their full potential, and to educate cider enthusiasts on what different apple and pear varieties bring to the table on their own.

Most cider makers carefully blend the fruit they have at their disposal to try to create as perfect a cider as they can. Indeed, many cideries simply purchase juice, or juice concentrate, and try to differentiate their ciders by what they add to disguise the fact that cider made from readily-available culinary fruit is often somewhat bland and unexciting. Often these ciders are very sweet and fruity, resembling soda in their character.

We will do a limited amount of blending and flavoring, but most of our focus will be to bring ciders made from local single varietals to the discriminating cider drinker. This concept of changing the ciders as little as possible, and letting the fruit speak for itself, will be one of the things setting us apart from other cideries. Most of our single varietal ciders will be quite dry, often with a character resembling white wine. A sweetener is provided for those who prefer a sweeter cider.

Our ciders are true craft ciders, made in small batches using a mostly manual process of washing the fruit, discarding any not suitable for cider, grinding and pressing the juice. We then ferment the juice into hard cider, using a wine yeast, an ale yeast, or the naturally occurring yeasts on the fruit.

Once fermentation has completed, we clarify the cider to some extent using vegan-friendly bentonite, a natural clay-like material that helps settle the haze usually found in apple juice. The ciders are not filtered, and some, especially those made with pears, retain a bit of haze. All of our ciders are gluten-free, of course.

Since we use exclusively local fruit, we have to do all of the cider making when the fruit ripens in the late summer and fall months. This is very similar to wine making, and cider is essentially wine made from apples and pears. Although usually consumed as an alternative to beer, cider is not “brewed” in the same sense as beer is. Heat is not used at any point in the process.

With many San Diego area breweries producing award winning craft beer, we felt that the time and place was right for a craft cidery, an audience ready to embrace something new and exciting. We hope to see you in the barn on the 200 acre Kenner Ranch that houses both the cidery and tasting room for a cider tasting experience. Please like us on Facebook to stay up on what’s happening.