Portland neighborhoods are brimming with residential fruit trees, and while the bounty is a delight to the residents and their friends who reap the benefit of their generosity, a lot of that fruit winds up wasted on the ground.
One refreshing solution comes from the Portland Cider Company, an award-winning cider brewery founded in 2013 by husband/wife team Jeff and Lynda Parrish, that pairs classic English-style cider-making techniques with the astounding array of apple varieties grown throughout the Pacific Northwest.
For the past six years, along with a score of other flavor-packed beverages, Portland Cider Company has been producing the limited-quantity PDX Community Cider, which is made from 100 percent donated apples and other fruits grown in neighborhood yards.
The annual Fruit Forward Drive that collects the bounty used to make PDX Community Cider runs from mid-August through September, and this year raked in a record-breaking 41,000 pounds of fruit. It’s a good, smart idea—but what’s the actual result when a wide, unpredictable variety of apples, pears, plums, berries, and more are lumped together to create each batch of cider?
