MONTAGUE — Jim Asbel remembers his first CiderDays well.
In fact, it launched his company, Ciders of Spain, which, based in Portland, Ore., brings Spanish ciders across the sea and then back to Franklin County each year for North America’s longest-running hard cider tasting.
“I will never miss a CiderDay,” Asbel said.
There was a sense among cider makers at the 25th annual CiderDays that the event is uniquely special. It’s niche, not bunched together with a variety of agricultural disciplines, and is meaningful to both consumers and producers.
The three days of cider — from New England, across North America and the wider world — and cider-themed events, like beginner’s workshops, tastings and seminars, kicked off Friday and lasted the weekend.
At Unity Park in Turners Falls, tents were erected for the United States Association of Cider Makers Cider Salons, a mainstay and key feature of CiderDays each year. With hundreds of visitors sipping a multitude of very different ciders at the tasting, cider makers were excited to talk about the event’s meaning and their own unique brands.
“My business calendar for the year, every year, starts today,” Asbel said.
Asbel is originally from Western Massachusetts. While he has traveled back and forth to Spain throughout his life, and owns a company on the West Coast, he has roots here, his grandfather was a tobacco farmer here and he considers here his “home base.”
So, it’s with delight that here he gets to share his Ciders of Spain each year with event attendees who, perhaps used to New England ciders, are sometimes in for a surprise.
“It’s different, it’s earthy,” Asbel said. “It’s a 2,000-year-old style — this is a community in Spain that knows what it likes.”
Spanish cider, Asbel said, is made using only the natural yeast present in apples for fermentation. The ciders are made using very traditional methods and close to the earth, with roots even growing over equipment, and they are made from a blend of different bittersweet and highly acidic apples.
Compared to American ciders, Spanish ciders are less spiced, less “manufactured,” Asbel said — although he was quick to point out he loves American ciders, especially his personal favorite, Carr’s Cider House from Hadley, which was also at the CiderDays tasting.
Despite being based in Oregon, the company has expanded, Asbel said, and now cans in Williamsburg. But it all started at CiderDays.
Noticing the difference in ciders like his compared to others is what makes CiderDays so fun for visitors, Asbel said, and other cider makers agree.
But it’s also the event’s “niche” aspect, according to Shannon Edgar of Stormalong Cider, based in Sherborn, that draws people back. Stormalong Cider was giving out samples of a variety of styles, some using rare apples, that are sweet and pay homage to the British cider tradition.
Stormalong Cider has probably been attending the event for four or five years, Edgar said.
“It’s a great spirit and energy,” said Edgar, mentioning he has been to other festivals and events before, but CiderDays is special.
“This one is a little more of a cider-specific crowd,” Edgar said. “I think there’s a history to the event, that it’s probably one of the first cider specific events. And it hasn’t been commercialized . . . It hasn’t been corrupted.”
Spoke & Spy Ciderworks, based in Middletown, Conn., was one of the dozens of ciders present, with cider maker Kim Sansone giving out several samples, including a strawberry-rhubarb cider. She said the event is great place to display a variety of different types of the drink, which has been a traditional craft in places across the world for several centuries, including New England.
“We came back partially for the community; it’s not just the consumers, it’s the producers,” said Sansone, adding that it was Spoke & Spy’s second year at the CiderDays tasting — though the company has volunteered at CiderDays in years prior to that.
Spoke & Spy, Sansone said, is a “nano-cidery,” where being a small, quality-control based outlet is actually the company’s goal and specialty.
“This is pretty big,” she said. “This is the largest probably cider only event.”
Reach David McLellan at dmclellan@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 268.