Visit our presenting sponsor: www.CalgaryAgbusiness.com
Posterity Ciderworks: https://posterityciderworks.com/
Brendan Barnard Twitter: https://twitter.com/IntractableLion
Posterity Ciderworks Twitter: https://twitter.com/posteritycider
Kris Barnard Twitter: https://twitter.com/KrisMBarnard
FoA 318: The Budding American (Hard) Cider Industry with Greg Peck, Ph.D. https://player.captivate.fm/episode/49237ec9-117d-4d16-9569-0672b5e9aeca
Today’s episode features Brendan Barnard of Posterity Ciderworks.
To set some context here, a lot of the episodes on this show are focused on efforts to scale solutions: venture capital, commodity crops, hardware and software. And those are incredibly important to continue to find ways to improve our global food system. But I think too often there’s a tendency in agriculture to think something has to have the potential to reach some sort of global scale and FEED THE WORLD in order to matter. If you’ve listened to many of these episodes, you already know that I believe innovation and progress can many different forms. Some will look like solutions that can improve the way millions or billions of people eat. Others, which I equally enjoy, are stories of craft, of skill, of care, of community. Stories that are delightfully unscalable, but no less important. Many times, these are the stories that can teach us the most about agriculture and the most about ourselves. I think we have a story like that for you today.
It also helps that it ties together a few passions of mine: cider, nature, and value-added agriculture. Today’s episode speaks to several of the seven consumer values we talked about in episode 300, especially the need for a connection to an authentic source.
Brendan and his wife Kris were living in the bay area working in tech. They had some fruit trees in their backyard and seven years ago Brendan dove headfirst into cider making. Eventually they bought property in Calaveras County, about 140 miles away with a long term plan of eventually starting an orchard-based cidery. Today, that is alive and well as Posterity Ciderworks. Some changes in the timeline led them to start sourcing apples from what he calls feral orchards, which have somehow survived and even thrived for decades with no care. These feral orchards have also spawned wild trees which Brendan and Kris also forage from for their low intervention, fine ciders that really reflect the place they are grown. They make these ciders with no sulfites, no added sugars, no preservatives and no artificial flavorings or colors. All of this while raising a family and starting and expanding their own dry-farmed, non-conventional silvopastured orchard. We’ll talk all about that, but first just a couple of cider terms to be aware of.
We will mention abv, which is alcohol by volume. Yes, this is hard cider, not apple juice. The ABV goes up with higher sugar content which is fermented into alcohol. Those sugars are measured in fruit via a system called brix, which is another term you will hear mentioned. Finally, Brenan will talk about racking, which is just moving the fermenting cider from one container to another, which is usually done to get it off the lees, which is the dead yeast and other particles that settle at the bottom of the container. Or to move it to a barrel, bottle, or other secondary fermentation container.
FoA 413: Practical Farm Innovation With Brad Fruth of Beck's Hybrids
FoA 412: 'Biological' Is Not A Category (it's the future of agriculture)
FoA 411: Making Technology Your Unfair Advantage with Lawrence King of Headstorm
FoA 410: The Farm to Fashion Supply Chain With Paul Ensor of Hemprino
FoA 409: Is Agtech Entering A GenAI Era? Conversations From World Agri-Tech
[Field Report] Paul Sullivan of P.T. Sullivan Agro on SWAT MAPS
FoA 408: The Future of Precision Agriculture With Dr. Steve Shirtliffe and Dr. Preston Sorenson
FoA 407: Attracting Top Talent to Solve Agribusiness Problems with Christian Guffy of The Context Network
[Field Report] Corteva Research Associate Brett McArtor on SWAT MAPS
FoA 406: Health Trends Are Agricultural Opportunities...The Story of WonderCow
FoA 405: From Fintech Startup to the Largest Produce Trader in the World With Pablo Borquez Schwarzbeck of ProducePay
FoA 404: Digital Solutions for the Largest Ag Retailer in Latin America With Alex Wimbush
FoA 403: Shrimpin' Ain't Easy with Steve Sutton of TransparentSea
FoA 402: How To Know When An Ag Company Is Ready For Growth With Jim Taylor of Forage Capital Partners
[Field Report] Crop Consultant Tyler Kessler shares his experience with SWAT MAPS
FoA 401: Precision Irrigation With Arthur Chen of Verdi
FoA 400: Deeper Roots For Resilience and Carbon Sequestration with Michael Ott of Cquesta
FoA 399: The Changing Farm Economy with David Widmar of Agricultural Economic Insights
FoA 398: The Evolution of Precision Agriculture with Cory Willness and Derek Massey of Croptimistic Technology
FoA 397: Can These Greenhouse Robots Grow The Best Strawberries in the World?
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