Photo courtesy of Virtue Cider
Throughout the 80’s and 90’s, then Goose Island Brewmaster Greg Hall would regularly travel to renowned European beer cities like Munich, Brussels, and London for inspiration on how to bring great beer to the United States. Fast-forward to today and Hall says he doesn’t need to go that far to find great cider—in fact, according to Hall, Virtue Cider’s Fennville, Michigan farm gets about the same amount of rainfall as “those fancy European apple growing regions.” Because of this, Western Michigan is somewhat of an apple growing haven and Virtue Cider takes pride in its home there. Known for creating a variety of complex and dry ciders, Virtue recently released their first cider in 12 oz. bottle format, Michigan Brut, and we were able to sit down with Greg to chat about the latest release.
Lakeshore Beverage: First off, can you give us a little background on Virtue Cider for those that aren’t familiar?
Greg Hall: My partner, Steve Schmakel, and I founded Virtue in 2011 and introduced our first product in 2012. What we were doing was making proper farmhouse cider in Michigan with Michigan apples. I’d been over to Europe pretty regularly with Goose Island and on one of my trips I was up in Yorkshire, England and wandered into a cider tasting. I was blown away by the quality and variety of the ciders they had. That was kind of an epiphany moment.
Lakeshore Beverage: When you say, “proper farmhouse cider” what do you mean by that?
Greg Hall: Cider is really made on the farm—and with that you get a little bit of complexity from the microflora because you’re on a farm. Now in brewing, obviously you’ve got the brew house which is completely sterilized. But in cider-making, you don’t have that hot side. So you get your apples and you press them and whatever microflora is on the root, it stays in the cider. So having a robust cocktail of different microflora, only adds complexity to the finished cider. If you’re drinking a cider made in a factory, you probably won’t get any wood, and you probably won’t get any farm.
Lakeshore Beverage: Michigan Brut is Virtue’s newest offering; can you tell us a little bit about it?
Greg Hall: We wanted to honor Michigan and our growers by making a traditional brut-style cider. So we get Michigan apples, which we press and ferment on our farm, let ferment dry, age a portion in French oak, blend that back in and we’ve got a nice dry cider that really focuses on the ripeness of the Michigan fruit with a little bit of added character complexity from the barrel and the farm. Michigan is known for the tartness of their apples so it finishes not only dry but a little tart, too, and we think that makes it very crisp and refreshing on its own but also a nice complement to dinner as well. Right now probably our favorite match is our roast chicken—the acid cuts through that really nicely and then grilled sausages, spicy sausages, that works really well. As far as cheese goes, it’s pretty versatile with cheese but we think our very favorite is a nice ripe goat cheese.
Photo courtesy of Virtue Cider
Lakeshore Beverage: You guys have bottled your cider in 750ml bottles previously and this is your first release in 12 oz. bottles. Can you talk through the decision to use 12 oz. bottles and then why you chose Michigan Brut for your first go at it?
Greg Hall: We’ve been asked since our first year when we were draft only, when were we going to be in package, with the assumption that it would be in 12 oz. bottles. For us, we had a lot of ideas about different types of cider and just like with an apple tree, you’ve got to be patient to get it right. So we wanted to make a bunch of cider, see what the public thought, see what the drinkers thought, see what the bartenders thought, before we committed to putting something in 12 oz. bottles. It was our hope that we’d be able to do something dry because there’s enough sweet cider out there right now. We came up with the recipe which was inspired by our original cider, Redstreak, with a few subtle changes. It’s a little more barrel and a little more farminess and complexity. I think that our other ciders were getting people ready for Brut.
Lakeshore Beverage: You were making beer for so long with Goose Island and now you’re making cider for Virtue. What do you like about what you’re doing now and what excites you about the cider industry?
Greg Hall: Probably the number one thing is while I’ll always be a Chicagoan, and I continue to have a residence both in Chicago and in Fennville, I love being out in the country and getting to see the stars at night. I love being able to buy fruit from my neighbors—running into my suppliers at the post office or at the diner—that never happened to me with buying malts and hops. So just like so many of our best chefs in Chicago are sourcing stuff from vendors at the Green City Market and other local vendors, we’re able to source locally with our apples and to me that’s a thrill.
You can find Michigan Brut throughout Chicago using our BEER FINDER.
