Hi there—my name is Manly and I am one of the founders of Chester County Ciders. My love of traditional ciders began in Ireland, where I attended a work conference (I am also an attorney) each year for several years in a row in the mid-2000s.

(That’s me in the lower left hand corner in the jacket and tie with the conference group during one of those years)

Ireland proved to be a wonderful place in many ways, and each conference I attended there was truly memorable.

(A view of one of our conference closing banquets)

Because the organization hosting the conferences is international, I was able to make many new friends from all over the world during those events.

(Here I am—second from the left—at another conference dinner)

Fortunately, the conference “programme” permitted lots of opportunities to get away from the main conference facility to see the sights of Dublin and the beautiful Irish countryside.

(The view south from Howth Head to Dublin Bay)

(Malahide Estuary at low tide, with the Island Golf Club course across)

But one of the lasting experiences of my time in Ireland was my first encounter with dry cider. It was unlike anything I had ever tasted before—and certainly nothing like the cloyingly sweet ciders that I had run across in the US. Those trips planted the dry cider seed in my head and on my tastebuds.

Back in the States, I started looking actively for dry ciders of the sort I had enjoyed in Ireland, but they proved difficult to find. The few times I did find them, the selection was limited and the price was steep.

A few years later, I discovered that two of my friends, who did not yet know one another, shared my taste for traditional dry ciders. Even better, one of those friends had extensive experience with home brewing beer—his beer is excellent—and had even tried his hand at some still ciders over the years. (The fact that he is a Ph.D chemist was a pretty great added bonus, too!). I arranged a meet-up. My two friends hit it off well and we quickly agreed that we should try our hand at making some of the dry ciders that we all loved but had such a difficult time finding.

I fabricated a rack and cloth cider press using a converted 20 ton shop press, we got some 5 gallon glass carboys off of Craigslist and some 1 gallon glass jugs online, borrowed some supplies from our friend’s beer making equipment stash, purchased an apple grinder, and that next fall we pressed our first batch of apples (sourced from a local West Chester, Pennsylvania orchard) and made our first ciders. Those ciders were fermented to total dryness and carbonated using a traditional bottle conditioning method.

(Our 20 ton press at work pressing what became our inaugural batch of cider)

(A photo of our initial batch of ciders in 1 gallon glass carboys)

That first batch of ciders encouraged us to repeat the process the next year, this time branching out to try new apple varieties, additional types of yeasts, new methods such as dry-hopping, oaking, and fortification using local honey.

(One of our early handmade ciders exhibiting great carbonation from bottle conditioning and beautiful clarity despite being unfiltered, thanks to patience in production)

Over the following years we refined our methods, continued to experiment with different apples and yeasts and inputs, and upgraded our equipment to handle larger production volumes—all the time remaining true to our original concept of traditional dry ciders handmade from whole apples that we acquired direct from regional orchards (or foraged locally) and pressed ourselves.

(Scaled up production with larger fermenters and a load of apples being sweated in the foreground)

We had a blast along the way and created a range of ciders that we found quite enjoyable. We noticed that others also found them enjoyable, as well, and we began to give serious thought to seeking a license to produce our ciders on a small-batch basis for commercial sale.

The Covid-19 pandemic permitted us the time and space to turn that notion into a reality. As I write this in October of 2021, we have just begun production of our initial batch of commercial ciders. Those ciders will be true to our heritage: handmade from whole apples we grind and press ourselves, small-batch, traditional method, unfiltered and bottle conditioned, and truly dry, capturing the crisp taste and feel of autumn in the beautiful Brandywine Valley that we are so fortunate to call our home.

We are excited to share our ciders with you (but only in good time—you can’t rush the process!).

Manly

October 20, 2021

Meet the Cidermakers!

Meet the Cidermakers!