Picks for Cider Summit 2018

The 2018 Cider Summit kicks off Friday at 3pm (2pm if you spring for the VIP entry) at The Fields Park. With over 200 ciders from more than 60 cideries some hard choice are going to be made because even if you attend the full 10 hours of the festival spanning Friday and Saturday afternoons, in order to try all of the ciders you'd have to maintain a pace of one sample every three minutes. That doesn't even leave time for bathroom breaks or eating! 

We've compiled a short list of ciders we're most excited about, some of which we were introduced to for the first time last week. Some of those made our short list and overall we're giving preference to Oregon cideries even though the Washington, California, New Hampshire, New York, Canada, England, France and Spain cideries that will be there will likely have some things we would love. Tough choices. 

The top eight cideries we'll scouring the festival grounds for:
^5 Cider - 4 ciders and although most of what we've tried from them has gone a little overboard with the sour/tartness they made a cider for the Fruit Cider Challenge called Pineapple & Oak that sounds tasty and interesting.
Apple Outlaw - 4 ciders, including one in the Fruit Cider Challenge. We have very little experience with this cidery but the Pura Vida Pineapple has gotten pretty good ratings on Untappd and we do enjoy pineapples in our cider. Since the Challenge cider wasn't listed in advance that might be a game time decision.

Baird & Dewar - 4 ciders, including Peach Fuzz as their Fruit Cider Challenge entry. Having had three of their ciders before, including a previous version of Constitution and a peach/apricot blend, we were pleased to find leather or barnyard funk in all of them. That bodes well for these four and we might have to try all of them.
Blue Mountain - 3 ciders, all "Limely." We've only had one of theirs to date but were impressed by the fruit profile in the raspberry so we'll have to try at least one of these.
Bull Run - 4 ciders, of which we have had the Bramble Berry, and including Pineapple Perry for the Fruit Cider Challenge. The Bramble along with the Cranberry Perry we had both exhibited the barnyardy characteristic that never fails to hook us. Perhaps we'll have to do a back-to-back-to-back with their pineapple, ^5 and Apple Outlaw.
New West (the cider arm of Sasquatch Brewery) - 4 ciders, including a cherry one in the Fruit Cider Challenge. Of the four they are pouring we've had two, one we loved, one that was meh. It's likely we'll have at least one of the other two.

WildCraft - 3 ciders, one of which we had at the preview and two others, one barrel-aged and one a farmhouse. Yep, we'll be giving those a try!
Bandon Rain - 3 ciders, of which Don't Burn Grose sounds intriguing. Read on to see why.

Although we tried all of the 1859 Cider Co. from Salem at the preview, they were delicious and we HIGHLY encourage you to try them, too.

Perhaps we'll see you there tomorrow (and say hi if you see us first!).

2018 Cider Summit
The Fields Park, 1099 NW Overton
3 - 8pm Friday, 12 - 5pm Saturday
$35 general admission tickets at the door include tasting glass and 12 tickets, additional tasting tickets $2 each