Cider vs. seltzer vs. beer: Duluth craft pros on consumers' many choices

DULUTH — This is still the land of sky-blue waters, but today those waters go into a lot more than Hamm's. While your grandparents might have been Fitger's loyalists or Grain Belt stalwarts, 21st century drinkers are much more adventurous.

"Brand loyalty has kind of gone away, especially with younger people," said Dave Hoops, sitting in his namesake brewery's Canal Park taproom last week. "They drink what they like, and what's in front of them now, and I don't blame them."

The dizzying array of options for today's tipplers are on display in Duluth this week. Saturday's All Pints North beer festival saw a sold-out crowd of brew fans filling Bayfront Festival Park, and this coming Saturday, the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center will host a Cider vs. Seltzer Fest with dozens of drinks in those beverage categories.

To help make sense of the wide world of craft beverages, the News Tribune spoke with local experts in each of the three product categories. Hoops covered beer, Wild State Cider CEO Adam Ruhland talked about apple-based beverages, and Blacklist Brewing sales manager Tyler Schiroo weighed in on the fast-growing seltzer market.

People have been fermenting beverages for thousands of years, and historians debate the specific order in which the types of alcoholic drinks we know today emerged. Suffice it to say, both beer and cider go way back.

"This was the original drink of our forefathers," said Ruhland about cider. "People used to consume 36 gallons of cider per person per year, because it was safer to drink than water."

Duluth's two cideries — Wild State and Duluth Cider — give the fermented apple juice a proportionally outsize presence in the city.

"It's pretty unique," said Ruhland, "when there's only like five cideries in urban locations in Minnesota, that two of them are within a couple blocks of each other in Duluth."

Unlike with breweries, Lake Superior water wasn't a big draw for Wild State. "Our ciders are just 100% apple juice," explained Ruhland.

Both of Duluth's cideries have been established in the past decade, while the city's beer making history goes back much further: In fact, as Tony Dierckins writes in his book "Naturally Brewed, Naturally Better," brewing was the city's first industry.

"Before Prohibition, there were four major breweries here," said Hoops. "Over the years, the big (national) brewers pretty much decimated all the little breweries ... but Fitger's persevered, and continued to be part of the community."

Fitger's revival as a brewhouse in the 1990s spawned a new generation of brewers. A number of brewers who formerly worked at Fitger's now work at newer breweries in Duluth and Superior, burnishing the area's present-day status as a beer mecca.

"Don Ness arbitrarily decreed us the beer capital of Minnesota before the other mayors could do it," said Hoops with a grin, "but we have the best water ... it's almost impossible to make a non-stellar product because of our water."

That water also shines in hard seltzers, said Schiroo. "Seltzer is basically straight water that you carbonate, at the base of all of it, and we have the best water in the world."

Blacklist is among the breweries that began producing hard seltzers to feed a growing appetite for the alcoholic drinks, which are made by fermenting sugar water. When Minnesota legalized cannabinoid drinks last year, those seltzers took off as well.

"THC and CBD stuff fits perfectly in the Duluth world," said Schiroo. "You can have one of these and go on your bike ride or go on a big hike or whatever ... it just kind of emphasizes your experience."

Seltzer can be given any flavor, but Schiroo said craft breweries distinguish their seltzers by using quality ingredients. "We're adding organic fruit puree," he said, "whereas White Claw would be using just essence, so it's not real fruit."

If you're a fruit fiend, of course, you'll likely be drawn to cider. "We say that cider is made like wine and packaged like beer," said Ruhland. "There are many different directions in terms of fruit additions, sweetness, acidity, tannins, the different profiles of the apples."

Ruhland said that among people who walk into Wild State's taproom, "more people are unfamiliar with cider than people are familiar with it." He sees the Cider vs. Seltzer Fest as a good opportunity to introduce his product category to people who only know seltzers.

"It's a really adaptable beverage that can be made in many different forms and taste profiles," said Ruhland about cider.

Beer may be a more familiar beverage, but Hoops said the industry is also having to adapt to meet changing consumer tastes. With consumers less interested in heavy drinks and high alcohol, the hop-heavy ales that might delight beer fest regulars can't compete in stores.

"The breweries have spent all this money to offset seltzer and stuff like that by making drinkable, low alcohol products," said Hoops. "Is beer fitting into this market? Beautifully. Are people going out and drinking four 8% alcohol, heavy beers? Not as much."

Beer also comes in endless varieties, from the classic German styles to the kind of wild inventions you'll sip at the State Fair. A fruit fan? Beer's here for you. "I buy cherries and blueberries raw from Door County and from Bayfield," said Hoops.

Despite a changing market, beer remains a popular beverage category, both nationally and locally. "People here love to drink beer," said Hoops.

Whatever you're used to paying for a craft beverage, be prepared to pay more. The economic reality is that producers' costs are going up, and ultimately that will need to be passed on to the consumer.

"It costs a lot more to produce beer, but the market will not bear that most of the time," said Hoops. Consumers "are not going to bear a $10 glass of beer, where you can get away with selling a $23 cheeseburger."

Beer makers feel the pinch not only when it comes to ingredients, but labor. "We need more bodies to produce beer" because it's a more time-intensive process than brewing hard seltzer or cider, said Hoops.

He did point out that hops come in many varieties, and trends can drive costs up. So if you don't absolutely need an IPA made with, say, Galaxy hops, you might be able to save.

Cideries have fewer variables to contend with, but there's one big cost factor that's outside their control. "Our product is 100% apples," said Ruhland, "so we're at the mercy of an agricultural commodity."

While some beer prices may soar, generally speaking cider will cost a bit more than beer. Ruhland emphasized that it's simply a different product.

"People have a perception that a four-pack or a six-pack, no matter what is in it, should be competitive with beer," he said. "While we've tried to maintain a steady price, it's certainly more expensive on the input side than a lot of beers."

Seltzer is, relatively speaking, a budget option. Schiroo said the comparatively low base cost of seltzer production "gives us more money to throw around to make a better overall product." You'll pay more for a locally made craft seltzer than you will for a White Claw, but brewers think you'll taste the difference.

Cannabinoid seltzers come with their own costs. "The elixir they dump in costs a lot of money," said Hoops, referring to the THC or CBD element.

"It's funny how small an amount we add to make 1,200 gallons," said Schiroo. "It's basically the size of a Nalgene water bottle, and that's enough to make 400 cases of product. It looks like coffee creamer."

Craft beverage customers have made it clear: They want more options not containing alcohol.

Non-alcoholic beer was once a stigmatized category, said Hoops, but no more. "'Oh, you don't drink? Why?' That's not a question to be asked," said the brewer. "There's a lot of good reasons for a lot of different people."

Non-alcoholic — or NA — beer is currently the fastest-growing industry segment, said Hoops. When NA beer wasn't seen as having a sizable customer base, "the brewers were happily making undrinkable beer because it was for nobody."

Hoops cited Guinness as an example of how brewers' thinking has changed. "They spent $3 million," he said, to develop a high quality non-alcoholic version of the beer — which also happens to have far fewer calories than standard stout, adding to its appeal.

There is such a thing as non-alcoholic craft cider, said Ruhland, and "it definitely doesn't taste like juice." He expects the category will grow, but right now it would be an expensive proposition for a cidery based in Duluth. The alcohol would have to be removed from the cider, which would require either the purchase of "a really expensive machine" or shipping the product to the Twin Cities for processing.

That same process would be required for a CBD or THC cider, since law dictates such beverages can't contain alcohol. Instead, Wild State has recently unveiled a sparkling THC drink called Birdie that's "independent of the whole cider category," said Ruhland.

In the seltzer category, Schiroo said a big up-and-comer is a drink called hop water. "You get just enough of the bite and bitterness from dry hopping basically soda water, and then maybe adding in just a little bit of lemon or some kind of flavor."

Blacklist isn't yet producing hop water, though Earth Rider Brewery, in Superior, now offers a version of the non-alcoholic drink. "It's on everyone's radar," Schiroo said. "Jumping into a whole new segment of completely non-alcoholic stuff is kind of a big leap for a lot of us, especially when a lot of us just jumped into the THC stuff."

Though hard seltzer could perfectly well have been manufactured in the 1980s or even the 1880s, it didn't soar in popularity until the 2010s. "The marketing behind all of that stuff just kind of jumped out," Schiroo said, "where they just grabbed hold of the younger crowd."

Once people tried hard seltzer, they liked the lighter taste. Breweries and cideries took note. "I responded by making a lot of lighter beers," said Hoops, "offering a lot of different options."

Cider has also had its moments of trendiness, including a mini-boom in the 1990s, but Ruhland believes a commitment to ingredients and authenticity will give his company's product lasting appeal.

"We think people should care about what they're consuming," he said, "and the quality of what they're putting in their bodies."