BELLEVILLE, Ill. — Ask and you shall receive! For years, Eckert’s customers have asked for a hard cider line, and today that became reality.
Eckert’s Farm announced a four-flavor line, developed to highlight fruits that are grown at the farm.
You can choose from Well Red (strawberry apple), Berried Alive (blackberry apple), Peach and Quiet (peach apple), and Roadcider (apple).
Each flavor is available at Eckert’s Country Store and can be purchased in 4-packs of 16-ounce cans for $10.99. While on-site, guests will also have the chance to enjoy the hard cider on tap, in flights and more during operating hours.
So how what led to the creation of Eckert’s hard cider?
Angie Eckert, Vice President of Retail Operations says the popularity of the farm’s non-alcoholic apple cider in Eckert’s Country Store and across local groceries and markets helped pave the way towards the family’s recent hard cider venture.
Eckert’s partnered with Brick River Cider Co., the city’s first dedicated ciderworks, to turn their farm-fresh fruit into a farm-to-can hard cider line.
“For years, guests have asked us to create a line of hard ciders and the demand only increased after we added the cider press,” says Vice President of Retail Operations, Angie Eckert. “With the growing popularity of canned alcoholic beverages, and restrictions and pivots on our pick-your-own fruit season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we decided that 2020 was a good time to dedicate efforts to bringing this idea to life. The goal was to combine the most loved aspects of our farm — our pick-your-own fruits and apple cider — to our guests in a delicious adult beverage. The line of hard cider also brings new opportunities for us here at the farm and we look forward to sharing those with our guests over the next few months.”
Eckert’s is also renovating a dedicated space next to Eckert’s Country Store. The plan is to make it into an on-site cidery.
The farm hopes to fulfill this vision in 2022.
For more information on Eckert’s hard cider including the availability of flavors and updates on CiderWorks, click here.