Skip to main contentAbram Goldman-Armstrong is a beer guy. Or at least that's how I've always thought of him. The local personality, Timbers Army mainstay and Northwest Brewing News writer is synonymous with local suds.
And now he's gone cider.
Goldman-Armstrong's new punk-rock-and-apples venture, Cider Riot, is now fully funded on Kickstarter and will be on shelves by next May.
This is good news, because the cider is really, really good. Goldman-Armstrong invited local media to a tasting at Cheese Bar a month or so ago, and wowed the crowd with his samples and a long presentation on the history of fermented fruit juice in the British Isles. The Burncider (heyooo!), which is to be his flagship, was especially wonderful, as was a varietal made with swanky Kingston Black apples.
The rising popularity of cider has drawn a lot of attention from craft beer types of late. But, despite Abe being a "beer guy," he has a long history with cider. How do we know? The Willamette Week archives, of course.
Below, a drink column Goldman-Armstrong wrote for WW way back from October 18, 2000, when Al Gore was still running for president and there were only four cideries West of the Rockies making cider from fresh juice.
Only one of these, the now-defunct, well-regarded White Oak Cider, was in Oregon. (White Oak farmer Alan Foster switched much of his apple crop to pinot noir grapes starting about seven years ago, although he still provided apples to Wandering Aengus as of at least last year.) The local cider industry has come a long way in the meantime. If Goldman-Armstrong can mass-produce cider as good as what we tried last month, it'll go further yet.
WWeek 2015