Steve Koenemann

Farnum Hill is Poverty Lane’s Cider

I had the great pleasure to recently visit Stephen Wood at his Lebanon, NH homestead and the home of Poverty Lane Orchards. Poverty Lane Orchard produces the apples which are used to make the traditional, old-world style ciders sold under the name of Farnum Hill Ciders by Stephen and his family. Some of you may remember an excellent article from about a month ago by one of my fellow Hop Press writers, Joe McPhee, who wrote about his visit to Farnum Hill last summer in an article entitled “A different brew – Farnum Hill Cider” .

Even though Lebanon, NH is only about 55 miles from my house and a place that I visit quite a few times each year, I had no idea that this orchard existed; nor was I aware of the wonderful cider produced by its owners. The orchard is not that far from town; very near the Lebanon airport, you take a winding road up Farnum Hill, past the Lebanon Police department and you can’t miss the prominent sign at the end of the drive. The property consists of all the things that you would expect there to be at a multi-generational apple farm… quaint older farmhouse, old barn and an open garage with tractors and other typical farm equipment. Stephen and his family no longer live in the farmhouse, which is now used as their business headquarters, and the barn no longer houses any farm animals (except for Newton, their very friendly yellow lab); it now houses the two businesses that Stephen runs; UnCommon Apples and Farnum Hill Ciders.

I spent a good part of an afternoon with Stephen talking about and tasting a lot of cider. After a brief tour of the property Stephen provided me with an overview of how Farnum Hill got to be where it is today. The traditional ciders that Farnum Hill produces have their roots, literally, in Europe. Many of the apple varieties grown at Poverty Lane to make cider with are from England and France, with a few American heirloom varieties mixed in. Most of them have names that are unfamiliar to the apple-eating public… Dabinetts, Yarlington Mills, Ashmead’s Kernel, Kingston Black, Esopus Spitzenberg and Ellis Bitters. These cider-destined apples make up about two thirds of the 15,000 trees grown on the 80 acre orchard. Stephen describes most of these traditional cider apple varieties as unpalatable as “eating” apples, but each of them has important contributing characteristics that can be used to make good cider.

During our approximately two and a half hour meeting, Stephen walked me through the 16-20 month process that it takes to produce most of the Farnum Hill ciders. This all began with a discussion of what makes a good cider. When I proudly proclaimed that I had made hard cider once and described how I went about it, Stephen was very quick to point out (gently) that, from his perspective, I screwed it up. My cider (a “cyser”, actually) contained honey and raisins in the recipe. The Farnum Hill ciders contain no such additions or adjuncts. He then told me that great cider, in his opinion, starts in the orchard. Stephen, not surprisingly, considers himself an apple grower first and a cider maker second. He was adamant that the goal of making good cider was to take the quality of the fruit from the orchard and to “touch it” as little as possible before getting it into the bottle and ready to drink. The cider maker needs to respect the fruit and ensure that the fruit is the focus of the end product and not what you do to it or add to it. While similar to the philosophy of wine makers, it is in distinct contrast to that of beer makers; where you (hopefully) begin with quality ingredients, but the process and what gets added to the beer likely defines the end product. Stephen laughed when he told me that beer brewers make terrible cider makers because they can’t resist the temptation to “touch it”. Unfortunately, I resembled that remark…

Once he had impressed upon me the fundamentals of what makes a good cider, we then moved to sample and taste many of the components that make up Farnum Hill Ciders. In stark contrast to what you find in the wine industry, with many wines focused on “varietals” of various types, all of Farnum Hill’s end-product ciders are “blends”; made up of, in some instances, many different apple variety ciders. The blending of the various cider characteristics from the apple varieties allows surprisingly precise control over the acid level, bitterness, tannin levels and fruitiness of the finished product. As with both beer and wine making, there is a fair amount of “chemistry” involved in the process of taking fresh fruit and turning it into cider. Stephen was quite knowledgeable about this scientific side of his business and even though I have a background (a college degree actually) in Biology/Biochemistry, he tested my rusty knowledge of this complex process. Our tasting began with some of the simpler cider components… specific blends of cider from apples that produce a desired effect; acid, sweetness, fruitiness, “funky” sulphide flavors and others. These would be combined with a cider “base” to create the desired final product. We moved quickly through these components to the tasting of cider in various stages of production “readiness”, including the base blend that will be used to produce some of his 2010 ciders.

Once he got me through the production process to the point where his products were bottled, we began to sample some of their commercially available ciders… Farmhouse, Semi-Dry, Extra-Dry, “sparkling”, “still” and even some of their specialty ciders; Ashmead’s Kernel ’08 Reserve and Kingston Black ’07 Reserve. With each tasting, Stephen pointed to the varying characteristics of each brand and related each of those back to the cider components that we has sampled previously. For all of you beer fans, the flavor profile of the Kingston Black cider surprisingly included just a hint of the flavor of dieceytl, the same“buttery” or “butterscotch” flavor found in certain types of beer. While not intentionally produced, it is produced naturally in the Kingston Black apples grown in this part of NH, it adds another rather unique flavor component to this excellent cider.

I have to admit that time that we spent “sipping and spitting” our way through their cider making process was extremely enjoyable. Stephen has a remarkable amount of knowledge about both cider and wine making and was willing to share it all with me. It was evident that he absolutely loves what he does and this is reflected in both the quality of his product and in the success of his business. He expresses a business goal of continuing to produce high quality traditional ciders and to promote and encourage their production elsewhere. He feels that helping to grow the market for these ciders should, in turn, help him sell more of his own. A visit to the Poverty Lane Orchards Web site and the pages dedicated to the Farnum Hill Ciders will give you some sense of the acclaim that these ciders are receiving in the marketplace. You will find these ciders in small stores and cooperatives in the New Hampshire and Vermont as well as some of the finest restaurants in New York City. During our time spent together, Stephen not only managed to make me a “convert” concerning the pleasures of traditional ciders, but perhaps even more importantly for him, he has turned me in to “consumer” of his fine ciders and one that will definitely seek out his fine product to enjoy in the future.

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