Tag: Heirloom fruit

ALERT: Virtue Cider Enters New Era with Independent Ownership, Revamped Culinary Programming and More

Cidery, Farm-to-Table, Farms, Fennville, Lake Michigan, Virtue Cider

Virtue Cider founder Gregory Hall, a pioneer in the farmhouse cider industry and a major player in Southwest Michigan’s craft beverage landscape, has repurchased the proper farmhouse cider brand from beer titan Anheuser-Busch. Nestled in the distinctive fruit-growing terroir of coastal Southwest Michigan, which Greg deems the “Napa Valley of cider making,”

Virtue Cider is taking its sustainable old-world production methods back to its independent roots, bringing the brand’s deep commitment to clean, high-quality ciders to new heights with a series of announcements for the new era. These include a full distribution overhaul, a farmhouse tasting room renovation coupled with a new menu direction, guest chef dinners, local artist collaborations and a reinvigorated direct-to-drinker subscription service delivering sustainable sips nationwide. 

“My heart and soul have always been devoted to crafting independent beverages that connect with our local community,” says Hall. “I’ve poured myself into building both Goose Island and Virtue Cider on this foundation, guided by a passion for creativity and collaboration. As Virtue Cider enters this new chapter, I’m excited to return to our roots, refine our winemaker’s approach to craft cider, and rediscover the sense of independence that inspires us and helps us grow.”

Following his 20-year tenure at Goose Island Beer Company, founded by his father John Hall, Greg immersed himself in European cider culture, soaking up time-honored techniques from some of England and France’s top cider craftsmen. He brought that same spirit home to the United States, purchasing the brand’s Fennville, Michigan farm in 2011 and building a haven for craft cider production anchored in two ingredients: apples and time.

Hall sold a 51% stake in Virtue Cider to Anheuser-Busch in 2015 and reacquired the brand in late summer 2024. A constant throughout Virtue Cider’s history, the brand will continue to use only local heirloom fruit with absolutely no added sugar, uplifting the apple farmers of the Midwest’s “Cider Coast” and raising a glass to sustainable Michigan-made sips.

WHAT TO EXPECT IN VIRTUE CIDER’S NEW CHAPTER: 

  • Once again embracing its spirit of independence, Virtue Cider is leaving big beer-backed cans on grocery store shelves behind and committing to 750 ML bottles, only available at Virtue Farm or through the brand’s robust direct-to-drinker shipping program. 
  • In tandem, Hall will stay true to his love of grassroots relationship development in the chef community, pouring new seasonal releases and beloved bottle varieties at intimate gatherings inside some of the Midwest’s best chef-driven restaurants. 
  • Hall will also welcome some of the nation’s most prominent culinary talents to Fennville for guest chef dinners with fine cider pairings, embracing the local bounty of the micro-region.
  • On the 48-acre Virtue Farm, the tasting room will undergo extensive renovations and welcome a vibrant new food program, with a menu refresh to align with the brand’s wine-making approach to cider. Menu details are forthcoming but will focus on seasonal, homestyle comforts made with regionally sourced ingredients. 
  • Hall and his team are also excited to continue nurturing their direct-to-drinker and Cider Society subscription box programs, delivering proper farmhouse cider from the fermentation tank to the front porch. Cider enthusiasts in 43 states across the country can give the gift of Michigan cider to themselves and their loved ones with access to holiday boxes and exclusive seasonal releases. 
  • Virtue Cider has also forged new partnerships with local musicians and makers through amped-up live music programming at Virtue Farm and merchandise and cider label partnerships with acclaimed regional artists. Tony Fitzpatrick, whose work has been showcased at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, is the first of many Midwest artists to join the list of collaborators. 

More details on Virtue Cider’s upcoming craft cider releases, renovations, events, and more to be released in 2025. For more information, follow Virtue Cider on Instagram or visit the website at www.virtuecider.com.

ABOUT VIRTUE CIDER: Located on a 48-acre farm in Fennville, Michigan, Virtue Cider is a craft cider company committed to creating exceptional farmhouse ciders that blend old-world traditions with modern cider fermentation and aging techniques. Embracing a deep-rooted respect for sustainable practices and local partnerships, Virtue was founded in 2011 by Gregory Hall, who brought two decades of innovation and an impressive collection of 14 consecutive Great American Beer Festival medals from his tenure as head brewmaster at Goose Island Beer Company.

After his time at Goose Island, Hall set out on a pilgrimage to the cider capitals of England and France to study time-honored European cider-making traditions, and Virtue was born. Virtue Farm, Virtue Cider’s headquarters, is specifically located in the heart of one of the country’s premier apple-growing regions, known as the Midwest’s “Cider Coast.” Hall has cultivated a deep bench of local farming partners, using the bounty of the highest quality Midwestern heirloom apples to craft a collection of crisp, complex, award-winning ciders, which never contain added sugar.

Apples are pressed on-site and fermented in tanks below ground to maintain a steady temperature, housed within three cider houses with architecture that emulates the Norman French style and a strong environmental focus. Virtue Cider’s farm is open year-round and is a vibrant destination for visitors, offering scenic trails, a tasting room featuring a seasonal menu and samples of a variety of ciders, cider flights, and more from their extensive portfolio. For more information on Virtue Cider, please visit www.virtuecider.com.

ABOUT VIRTUE FARM: Virtue Farm, located in Fennville, Michigan, is a 48-acre farm and the destination headquarters of Virtue Cider. Three Norman French-style cider houses, built with Michigan White Pine, hold Virtue’s below-ground fermentation tanks, which use only locally sourced apples and are naturally cooled and heated by the region’s climate.

Most of the farm’s electricity is sourced from 200 solar panels, just one piece of the farm’s vast commitment to sustainability and nourishing its community. Over 20 acres of the farm are grasslands, creating a monarch waystation for Michigan pollinators, and the farm is home to several Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, harking back to old orchard folklore, as well as a variety of chickens. Virtue Farm also features a full tasting room with cider flights, handhelds, and charcuterie selections, offers guided tastings and tours for visitors, hosts live music, and supplies seasonal bottle selections for Virtue Cider’s national Cider Society subscription service.

For more information on Virtue Farm, please visit www.virtuecider.com.

King of Heirloom Apples

Regional & Ethnic

         We take the concept of heirloom or heritage fruits and vegetables as common place nowadays. But I was reminded how unfamiliar the concept was just several decades ago and how Herb Teichman, the owner of Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm in Eau Claire, Michigan who passed away earlier this month at the age of 88, was in the vanguard of re-introducing the fruits long ago to the American palate creating a connection to food heritage.

         I met Herb about 20 year ago and over the years wrote about his family and farm many times. After reading about his passing, I thought I would re-read them. Here’s the first few paragraphs of one of the first articles about Herb I wrote.

“For most of us, Louis XIII is a hazy figure, a bewigged monarch who lived some 350 years ago and had a furniture style named after him.

But for Herb Teichman, owner of, Louis is but an apple away.  Apples are historical embodiments for Teichman   who can tell you the history of each heritage apple variety he grows.  Take the Calville Blanc D’hiver, a favorite of Louis XIII.

         “This was the classic dessert apple of France,” says Teichman. “Le Lectier, who was the procurer for Louis XIII, grew it in the King’s gardens at Orleans. When I taste a Calville Blanc, I began to feel like I know Louis the 13th a little better.  Eating these apples becomes a bridge connecting the centuries.”

         “Or take the Newtown Pippin, a favorite of both Ben Franklin and George Washington.

          “When I bite into a Newtown Pippin, it’s like I’m sharing something with Washington or Franklin,” says the (then) 72 year old Teichman.

         “Teichman, a successful second generation fruit farmer (his parents first started farming here in the 1920s), designates three of his 500 acres of fruit trees to raising heritage apples.  Heritage (or antique or heirloom) is a term applying to varieties that have existed for 75 years or more.

          “According to Teichman, an apple tree lives about 20 years so for these heritage varieties to still exist after all these years means that generations of men and women believed that the fruit was so good it was worth reproducing by grafting over and over again through the centuries. 

          Teichman is one of the few heritage fruit growers in the United States.  And, as if that isn’t enough to discourage people, Teichman says that there are few antique apple growers in the United States because antique apples aren’t as commercially viable as the modern apples. Heritage apples, which are more expensive than modern varieties– aren’t always pretty—they tend to be much smaller than the varieties found in stores, are often knobby and discolored.  But what they lack in looks, they make up for in flavor.   

         “Years ago, if an apple like Margil or Pitmaston Pineapple, which tastes like a pineapple, was growing in your yard, you possessed the best darn thing there is in the world,” says Teichman who speaks in superlatives when talking of apples.  “They didn’t have candy bars; a good apple was dessert.” 

         Talking to Teichman is like getting a lesson in food history.    “Each apple variety has a history of where it originated, who liked to eat it and why,” he says.  “And each apple really tastes different. 

“Teichman says he moves a little closer in time to his hero Thomas Jefferson when he bites into an Esopus Spitzenberg apple.  Jefferson so loved this variety of apple that after returning from serving an ambassadorship in France, he planted 12 Esopus Spitzenberg trees at Monticello.”

Soon Martha Stewart discovered Teichman and featured a story about the heritage fruit at Tree-mendus. Makers of brandies and cordials wanted his heirlooms fruits to create old world flavors. Now the farm has more than 200 varieties of heritage apples.

Herb Teichman

And, of course, heirloom fruits and vegetables are much more common. According to the National Restaurant Association’s heirloom vegetables and fruit will continue to be one of the top food trends in the area of produce as it has been in the last few years. For that, we owe a big thank you to Herb.

One of the times I visit the fruit farm, Herb gave me a copy of Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm Family Presents Recipes and Collections which I’ve kept all these years. I thought it would be fitting to include an apple recipe from the book.

Elizabeth Teichman’s Brandied Apple Roll-ups

24 roll-ups

¼ cup sugar

1 cup chunky applesauce

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon cornstarch

¼ cup brandy

1 tablespoon sugar

In small saucepan, combine the ¼ cup sugar and cornstarch. Stir in applesauce and brandy. Cook and stir over medium heat until mixture is thickened and bubbly. Remove from heat.

Make crepes (recipe below).

On each mini-crepe, spoon one scant tablespoon of the filling along one edge of the unbrowned side. Roll up tightly. Place seam side down in greased shallow baking pan.

Mini-Crepes

3 egg yolks

½ cup milk

3 tablespoons margarine, melted

¼ teaspoon vanilla

½ cup flour

¼ cup sugar

3 3gg whites

In bowl, beat together egg yolks, milk, margarine, flour and sugar. Beat egg whites at high speed until stiff peaks form, gently fold batter mixture into beaten eggs white.

Heat lightly greased 6-inch skillet. Remove from heat, spoon in one scant tablespoon of batter, spread batter with back of spoon into 4-inch circle. Cook over medium heat for 30 to 60 seconds. Place on paper towel. Repeat with rest of the batter.

To freeze: Make stack, place wax paper between each crepe, place in plastic bag. Freezes well for up to 4 months. Thaw for one hour before using.