Beer? Nah. Wine? Too common. Pottstown native Amy Hartranft is into a wholly different adult beverage: cider. Hira Qureshi got to the core of Hartranft’s fandom in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Hartranft’s education about the joys of cider begins with a quick definition she finds necessary because so many people she encounters think it’s something it’s not.

“It’s super simple,” she stated. “It’s fermented apples.

“It runs the gamut of alcohol-by-volume (ABV) percentage. You’ll see 5–6 percent ABV a lot of times, but it goes up. Your average orchard-based cider comes in around 8 percent.”

She’s eager to dispel numerous misunderstandings about cider. It’s not all sweet. In fact, like grapes, apples vary in taste and texture, owing to not only their varieties but also to external growth influences from soil, water, and air.

Although cider is gaining popularity, Hartranft sees its rise in visibility as perhaps anecdotal.  

“…It does not feel like there’s a cider boom,” she explained. “I feel like while we were hoping there was a cider boom, there was a seltzer boom.

“Cider is so misunderstood that seltzer came and scooted past us.”

To further popularize it, she and a local café owner launched a local, seven-day celebration of it to increase core fan numbers.

The 2022 edition of Philly Cider Week runs Oct. 23–30.

Further details on the week-long cider commemoration, and more thoughts from aficionado Amy Hartranft, are at The Philadelphia Inquirer.