To call Brix Cider the fruit of Matt and Marie Raboin’s labor is more accurate than you might imagine.
It’s not just that the couple opened a cider pub in Mount Horeb that sells the hard cider they make. It’s that the cider they make uses apples that come from 18 different area orchards and farms. And the Raboins pick the apples themselves.
“It’s a lot of extra work,” says Matt Raboin, chatting over cider in the spacious new cafe and tasting room two doors down from the Grumpy Troll Brew Pub and across a bike path from the new Duluth Trading Co. headquarters, just south of downtown Mount Horeb. “Our falls would be a lot easier if we just bought apples. But [picking] connects us with all these growers and it gives us access to apples other people aren’t even aware of.”
The Raboins have fruit trees on their farm near Barneveld that haven’t yet borne fruit. Even when they do start producing fruit, Brix will continue to source apples from other orchards.
Making cider is similar to making wine (pressing the fruit, fermenting and bottling the product) and Brix is registered as a winery. Apples from just one orchard go into single-origin ciders for Brix’s Orchard Series. Some include local fruits (strawberries, raspberries), while others are barrel-aged like a craft beer. Wisconsin Old Fashioned Cider is aged in brandy barrels, steeped with Door County cherries and slices of orange, and splashed with bitters. Like craft brewers, many cideries are willing to experiment.
“I’m not a purist,” Raboin says of his cider-making methods. “If something tastes good, why not try it?”
The hard cider market started warming up about a decade ago. Today, such national brands as Woodchuck, Angry Orchard and Crispin continue to be joined by small local producers. According to The Cyder Market, which tracks information about the hard cider market, there are 910 hard cider makers in the U.S., up from 109 in 2009. New York leads the way with 103 companies making 519 types, followed by Michigan (102/476). Wisconsin ranks 13, with 22 producers making 92 types of cider.
“Wisconsin is an interesting place to do what we’re doing. We don’t have huge commercial producers but we have a lot of small orchards,” Raboin says. “So it’s a fun place for learning the flavors and personalities of different orchards.”
The Raboins have been making cider since 2016, starting at Stoughton’s Indigenous Wines & Ciders. Production began at the new facility on Feb. 1. They already had been selling four-packs and 500-milliliter bottles of their cider, with 30 retail accounts in the area.
Local connections go beyond apples at Brix, named for the measurement of sugar content in making wine or cider. The pub also has a small, locally sourced food menu featuring soups, salads, desserts and house-made sausages that are a tip of the hat to Marie Raboin’s family, which ran a sausage company in Milwaukee two generations ago.
Kombucha and soft drinks are for sale, and beer will be available. But cider is the star, with 11 taps including three from the Orchard Series as well as a wild cider made from foraged apples.
In the tap room, ciders (with ABVs in the 6 percent range) are sold in 4-ounce and 10-ounce pours and 32-ounce growler sizes. A flight of four costs $10.
Brix Cider
119 S. Second St., Mount Horeb; 608-437-2749
brixcider.com; 4-9 pm Wed.-Fri., 11 am-9 pm Sat.-Sun.
