Brooklyn Cider House Is the Basque Cidery America Needs
Descripción
Though cider often gets lumped in with beer, thanks to the beverage’s similar alcohol levels and penchant for being yellow and fizzy, good cider is actually far more like wine.
brooklyn bushwick estados unidos new york sidrería petritegi sidra sidrería txotx sidrería zapiain
Ficha
- Autor: Mike Pomranz
- Fuente: Food & Wine
- Fecha: 2018-05-04
- Clasificación: 2.0. Sidrería
- Tipo documento: Prensa
- Fondo: Sagardoetxea Museoa »
- Código: NA-008011
Texto completo
This idea isn’t a matter of taste: It comes down to production. Both wine and cider are a fermented fruit juice: wine, grapes; cider, apples. With wine, however, consumers have come to appreciate things like varieties and appellation. Sadly, despite becoming a bit more common, you’re far less likely to see indications like Northern Spy apples and Finger Lakes, New York, on a bottle of cider.
Part of what makes this lack of appreciation of cider’s origins so frustrating is that, much like visiting a winery, visiting an artisan cidery – seeing the trees and terroir – can be a wonderfully authentic experience. One region where this is especially true is in Astigarraga, an epicenter for Basque-style “sidra.” In this part of Spain, cider has its own culture: Cider houses known as “sagardotegis” all serve very similar house-produced sidras with extremely similar food in very similar atmospheres – and yet, despite all these similarities, almost all of them are enjoyable in their own special way. (It's a bit like how red sauce Italian joint can be both identical yet individual.)
Even more incredible is that, outside of this one small region, sagardotegi culture is found almost nowhere else in the world.
Sure, some of the area’s deliciously tart, acidic and funky cider brands are imported into the United States – Petritegi and Zapian are two relatively easy to find and delicious standards – but as for places that serve an authentic Basque cider house meal with, more importantly, the “txotx,” a way of serving cider directly from the barrel, you’re unlikely to find it anywhere in America… except for Brooklyn, New York, of course.
Brooklyn Cider House – which opened late last year in the neighborhood of Bushwick after years of planning – does an amazing job of bringing the Basque cider house experience to the U.S. in a complete package. After you push through the large American-style bar and seating area at the entrance, you thankfully arrive at an accurate interpretation of a sagardotegi. On your way to the authentically sparse dining area (this isn’t just minimalist Brooklyn chic), you see six massive wooden barrels on your right, and if the doors happened to be pulled back, on your left, you’ll see an equally impressive room full of large silver fermenting tanks. Often times, Basque cideries will serve cider from both barrel and tank, and Brooklyn Cider House is conveniently set up to do the same. The actual dining area is all-natural wooden tables, just like Spain, and includes enough large communal tables to hammer home the group appeal of a traditional Basque cider house.