With one year in the books, Heartland Ciderworks is excited for the future.
Located in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, Heartland’s Eliseo Bell-Uribe said they are releasing new ciders, introducing canned products, and expanding production, along with announcing another exciting project planned as well.
“Last year was our very first year in the cider market,” Bell-Uribe said. “We released just one cider, The Avalon, named after the Isle of Apples from Arthurian Legend.”
It was an exciting year with just The Avalon as Heartland won a few awards, including a Bronze at the Great Lakes International Cider and Perry competition and being a Good Food Award Finalist.
They also submitted a test batch of a low-alcohol cider to the Northwest Cider Cup, and it won a silver medal, which gave the cidery enough points to tie with Empyrical Orchard and Cidery for the Best New Cidery of the Year.
“[It] was a great first year, and we are even more excited for 2024,” Bell-Uribe said.
In addition to a new batch of The Avalon, Heartland will release four new ciders, varying in style and taste. The cidery is going to continue to release in small bottles along with plans to can products as well this year.
Those include “The Little Apple,” a low-alcohol and light semi-dry cider; “Tomber dans les Pommes,” a French style semi-sweet cider; and “The Cooper,” a single varietal, Bourbon-barrel fermented semi-sweet cider.
“Of our harvest ciders, I am most excited for The Cooper,” Bell-Urbie said about the small-batch product that will have a limited release. “This cider is fantastic. The bourbon characteristics are robust but not overpowering and create a wonderful balance with the sweetness of the cider.”
A fourth release planned will be “The Heart of the Valley,” a community collaboration cider donation project.
“The Heart of the Valley was an exciting project that was a lot of work for a good cause,” they said. “We harvested unwanted apples and pears from in and around the Salem area and made a modern cider from them.”
The collab will be Heartland’s first canned cider with the profits to be donated to a local boys and girls club.
“This was a much bigger project than initially planned,” Bell-Uribe said. “The expected production was about 250 gallons, but in reality, we ended up making almost 1,000 gallons.
“This is a huge increase in our production, and it will be exciting to get our cider into many more places.”
My grandfather, Richard M. Lenz left Germany in 1884 and eventually settled on a farm in Ballston. He planted Gravenstein apples because of their sweet taste.
I remember drinking cider made from these apples in the 1950’s although we never made hard cider, but we could have.
I would like to know if you have included this variety in your products.
I also own the very cider press that I used as a child to squeeze the cider.