Distributor Locations
For this Women’s History Month, we wanted to collaborate with ERIS Cider House and Brewery and take a look at how they craft their award winning ciders. Founded by Michelle Foik and Katy Pizza, ERIS is named after the goddess of chaos, and they certainly have brought chaos into the hard cider category. For a deeper dive on ERIS’ leading women, and the history of the cider house, click here.
Have you personally ever wondered how a batch of cider is made? It’s similar to beer, but different, actually. It’s quite easy to learn how to brew online – there’s websites, video tutorials, even entire online communities on how to brew beer. But what about hard cider?
Hard cider is a steady staple in the alcoholic beverage world, and it’s a drink that everyone enjoys. Women and men drink hard cider roughly at a 50/50 split, according to CiderCraft Magazine. It’s often seen as beer’s fun loving relative, but they’re not too different in how they’re produced. We went to ERIS Cider House and Brewery in the Old Irving Park Neighborhood one day to see how hard cider was made, and to have a few ciders ourselves.
“There’s a lot of similarities to beer, but also glaring differences.” Says Owen, a 15 year veteran brewer at ERIS. “There’s no brewing process.” This is a very important distinction, as there’s no cooking or any of the previous steps. You would go straight from the juice of the apple into fermentation.
Owen walked us through a regular cider process at ERIS. It starts with them getting their fresh juice. Once they pump it in through their lines, it ends up in their holding tank, where it sits until it’s ready to be transferred inside. This is the fermentation process, and it can take about two weeks for it to perfectly ferment.
“[We] see how much sugar is fermenting out, and how alcoholic it’s getting. Owen says. They do this by taking a sample from the tank, bringing it inside and using a hydrometer and the Brix scale to measure the level of fermentation. After a few days, it’s onto the next step.
The blending process is where they hi add flavors, depending on their recipes, and it involves a lot of experimentation. In the case of Pedestrian, ERIS’ most dry cider, they use little flavoring, as they want the apples to tell the story themselves, but it depends on the cider – and considering they have several year round, seasonal, and other ciders in rotation, the recipes and concoctions are plenty in between.
Afterwards, they move the cider into filter tanks and it goes through a complicated looking-but-actually straightforward filtering device. It goes in through one part, spins around, and comes out into one of their “brite”, or serving tanks, and that’s where it’s ready to be canned, wrapped up, and shipped to your favorite bar or liquor store for you to pick up, crack open, and enjoy!
The entire process from juice to canning takes a few weeks, but the result is award winning hard ciders, and absolute fan favorites that keep cider drinkers coming back for more. This cider drinker really enjoys their Blush cider. It’s a love letter to rose wine, made with cherries and has a sweet finish. But, if I’m outside on a patio or a porch, I’ll opt for their Pedestrian cider, a crisp, dry take on traditional hard ciders. Regardless of which one either me or you choose, ERIS has a cider for you. Crack open a can, and raise it to the goddess of chaos herself. Happy Women’s History month!
Well what do you know? It’s almost 2025! I feel like it was a month ago when we were talking about 2024 goals and resolutions. How did those go, by the way? Successful? Congrats! If not, don’t worry – 2025 is a blank slate.
So – what are your goals for the year? A healthy lifestyle includes enjoying yourself, so you shouldn’t have to compromise taste and quality as part of your resolutions. Here’s a guided breakdown of resolutions and some products to help you along with your goals!
Last month the annual Great American Beer Festival was held in Colorado. Thousands upon thousands of beers were submitted in varying categories but only a handful came out on top. Many award-winning beers were created by some of our great brewery partners. So what award winning beers do we have in our lineup? Keep reading to find out!
Did you know that May is Celiac Disease Awareness Month? Celiac Disease may or may not sound familiar to you but it is something that is more than likely to affect someone that you know like a friend or loved one. According to John Hopkins Medicine, more than 2 million people in the United States have celiac disease and not all of them even know they have it. Symptoms of a gluten intolerance include abdominal pain, diarrhea, headaches and more.
Beer is made of gluten, so someone with an intolerance won’t be able to enjoy a round with friends at the bar. But not all is lost, there are some beers (and non beers) that are gluten reduced, or even free options you can enjoy whether taking a pack home or enjoying a pint at the bar. Here are six options you can drink for a pleasant gluten free (or reduced) experience.
ERIS Co-founders Katy Pizza and Michelle Foik
Situated in Chicago’s Old Irving Park neighborhood, lies a unique but comfortable mainstay of the area. ERIS Brewery and Cider House was founded by Michelle Foik and Katy Pizza, two people with completely different backgrounds but a fate encounter led them to opening one of Chicago’s premiere Cider Houses.
Michelle Foik is a tried and true craft veteran. Starting out at Goose Island, she made her way to Virtue Cider and Revolution Brewing, and through some encouragement through their current chief strategy officer that she met at Revolution, she decided to open her own place.
“….he’s the one that really encouraged the idea that I should open up my own place. And so, I said no a lot of times but he’s very persuasive. So that is how I got the opportunity to actually meet Katy. We sat down and made this business plan, and from there we looked at each other and said, might be kind of nice to work together in a company and be, you know, woman owned.”
Katy Pizza’s road to ERIS is much different. As someone with Celiac disease, she strayed away from beers and the such, but ciders were something she always enjoyed. In addition to that, Katy’s origins were far away from the beer and craft industries.
“This wasn’t a direct path for me. … My professional career was in project management through a bunch of different industries. I was at a dot com, I was in telecommunication, … in health insurance, and then medical devices but it wasn’t until I had been kind of on the beach for a while … that I got introduced to Michelle …”
Michelle mentions that working at Virtue got her excited to open ERIS, she realize that there were plenty of misconceptions about hard cider. People would mention to hear and say that they believe cider is always sweet and sugary, part of ERIS mission statement was to educate the appreciation of different styles of hard cider.
“I felt that people just needed to be educated on cider, and if we brought people to Eris, they could try all the different types of ciders we had on draft and honestly, end up liking something. I can’t tell you what cider to like, I can’t tell you it’s not going to be sweet unless you try it.”
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So what’s behind the doors at ERIS? Since opening in 2018, their Old Irving Park brewpub has built a following that voted them 2023’s Best Cidery in the US. Here are a few of the power hitters.
Pedestrian is like “Biting into a Granny Smith apple”, we relate you to the apple. Almost everyone knows what a Granny Smith Apple is, it’s going to be green, it’s going to be crisp. It’s going to be a little bit on the tart end and it’s going to be dry.
Van Van Mojo – Van Van Mojo is ERIS’ “craft beer cider”, according to Michelle. Mosaic hops are very relatable and identifiable, thus making them a great addition to the blueberry cider – giving Van Van a leg up with craft beer drinkers.
Blush – Sweet and sour cherry blend with apple – ERIS Blush is reminiscent of the blush on one’s cheeks. It’s a summer favorite among ERIS’ drinkers.
So what do Michelle and Katy see with the future of both ERIS and cider as a whole? Well, it’s complicated. They have long term aspirations of going out of state, but firstly the short term goal is to be Chicago’s “Home for Hard Cider”
“It’s been really cool to see our name (ERIS) and our ciders out in the market, and the fact that people are in love with them and enjoy buying our brand… Technically we are kind of “The Unofficial Cider of Breweries” in Chicago and Illinois.” – as ERIS is available in a number of local brewery tap rooms in Chicago.
Katy adds to this. “I want them [bars and restaurants] to have a cider section on their menu. I don’t want to be lumped in wines, or Meads or fruit beers, … just a cider section.”
Regardless of what happens, ERIS has made a name for itself as a cidery that welcomes everyone, no matter what your preferences are. Be prepared to see them lead the charge of the new cider renaissance in Chicago.
Happy new year! With a brand new year comes brand new goals and resolutions that you want to achieve within these next 365 days. A big goal for many people is changing their nutrition, whether that’s having less calories, cutting the amount of alcohol they drink, or even changing their diet to help with a specific health issue.
Alcohol can be a part of a person’s life that they want to change during the new year, hence why “Dry January” is such a popular challenge. However, you don’t have to completely cut out your favorite drinks to make some changes in your life.