140: Commercial Cidermaking | Niagara College, Ontario

Niagara College has two locations in Ontario, Canada. This chat features the Niagara-on-the-Lake campus which has a fully licensed winery on site (which is what is needed to make cider in Canada). It is here that past student and now the onsite winemaker, Gavin Robertson, works with students making cider to sell at the college’s Tasting Room.

The course work is very experiential in that there is a small high density cider apple orchard on the campus, all the equipment needed to make cider and a program that teaches students the ins and outs of  commercial cidermaking.

The annual cider yield is around 5000 cases of wine and now cider too!

In fact, per Dan who was serving that day while I was on site in the Tasting Room “Cider is what everyone is asking for when they visit [the Tasting Room].

The main brand at this campus is called: Cider 101.

Additional programs offered at Niagara College

culinary sciences at Niagara on the Lake College

• chef
• brewmaster program
• distillation program
• enology
• post grad program
• horticulture
• cannibus growing business - July 2018 Canada opened up recreational and medicinal marijuana.

Gavin also runs a virtual cidery and speaks about the set up of this business. He calls t Garage D’or Cider and has only draft accounts.

The following establishments are a good bet for finding Garage D'or ciders on tap.

• Merchant Ale House in Saint Catherines, Ontario
• Kully’s , Saint Catherine

In Toronto Garage D’or occasionally pours at:

• Wvrst - toronto @wvrstbeerhall
• Birreria Volo - toronto

Contact Gavin Robertson

eMail: [email protected]

135 Taylor Road, S.S. #4

Niagara-on-the-Lake

Ontario, CA LOS IJO

Niagara College Teaching Winery

Follow Garage D’or Ciders on Facebook

Mentions in this chat

Totally Cider Tour: Normandy, France September 23-29, 2018

August 3-18 Sonoma Cider Week events

August 8th Backyard Cider Salon at Handline Restaurant part of Sonoma Cider Week

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3. Oliver’s Cider and Perry - Herefordshire/UK ; listen to Tom Oliver on episode 29
4. Santa Cruz Cider Company - California : listen to Nicole Todd on episode 60
5. The Cider Project aka EthicCider- California
6. Albermale CiderWorks : listen to Chuck Shelton on episode 56
7. Cider Summit : listen to Alan Shapiro founder of this cider fest on episode 75.
8. Ramborn Cider Co. Luxembourg.
9. Big Fish Cider Co. Virginia
10. Tanuki Cider Co. Santa Cruz California episode 103
11. Ross on Wye Cider and Perry, UK
12. Process and Analytical NMR Services - John Edwards provides analytics of cider - stay tuned for his Chemical Fingerprints workshop coming up on Cider Chat
13. Ironbark Ciderworks, Claremont, California

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