Calling Centeral Virginia Cider Makers

Hey Y'all - for those of you who are close to Charlottesville, the Cville brewing club will be meeting at my place this Tuesday evening the 6th, for some ciders and homebrews. Several of the guys in the club are excellent brewers and recently came back from the Dominion Cup a few weeks ago with a bunch of medals, so there should be some good brews on hand. I'll have a few kegs of cider tapped also, so you can check it out. I might keep some of the DME batches around till then if anyone is interested. PM me for details.

Also, I'll be going back out to the orchard on Oct 8th, by which time the Staymans should be ripe. I'll be picking up some juice for myself and friends and I buy wholesale so the rate is good. You'll need to get a sanitized carboy to me before 8am and I'll be back by noon. Again, if you are near Cville and want to get in on it, PM me. I'll know the exact mix on the 6th, depending on what is available, but it will be mostly Staymans.

Finally, I can get a decent deal on Northern Spys and Black Twigs by the bushel, and have a friend with a press, so we might do a pressing later in the month. If you want some really good juice and dont mind working the press for an hour or so to get it, let me know.

As far as what other apples will go into the Oct 6th pressing, I wont know what's available til Tuesday. I'd like to get about 1/2 to 2/3 Staymans with some Jonathans for tartness, Winesaps if they are available and maybe some Cortlands again. Then again, it could be all Staymans.

As far as the hand pressing goes, there are a lot of apple options. This area seems to have had a good year for apples. Apples available by the bushel right now are Northern Spys, Winesaps, Grimes Golden, Jonathan, Cortlands, Granny Smith, Fuji, York, McIntosh, Mutsu, Gala, Empire, Prima, Big Red, Smokehouse, Cameo, Red and Golden Delicious. Next week Stayman, Black Twig and Albemarle Pippens should be available.

A lot of these I'm not familiar with, so I loaded up at my local produce store over the weekend. I've been munching a lot of apples. I want to do a batch with Northern Spys as the base apple. It may take a while to figure out what to mix with. I'll probably cut some up and put them out on Tuesday, so people can mix and match

I'll be headed back out to Showalters again on Tuesday the 24th for another bulk juice pickup. Mix will be Stayman and Pink Lady. If you are near Cville and want to get in on it, PM me. You'll need to get a sanitized carboy to me before 8am and I'll be back by noon.