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!