Jeffery House The Cider King

Pro Chiller Green will be at Hanabi Lager on September 23 for another on-site demo of their climate-friendly chiller. Chillers work not only for production of beer but also chocolate, dairies and in cider too. Check the ProChiller website for details.

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Jeffery House has done a lot in his career to bring English beers to the US and to make great cider in America and taking it back to the UK. He calls himself a transatlantic missionary. Jeffery founded Ace Cider, probably the largest craft cidery in America.

He was also the one who brought British beer to America, when he brought Fuller’s London Pride in 1980s. They brought Fuller’s ESB which was a hit among all the micro-brewers. It motivated a lot of them. ESB extra-special bitter.

Jeffery introduced Fritz Maytag to the Fuller’s people in England. He was the first to put Anchor beer on tap in Britain. Jeffery is researching the transatlantic beer bridge because it is a history that demands to be written.

Kegs are expensive. When they finished with the Fuller’s kegs in California, they sold the empty kegs to Anchor which filled them and shipped them to the east coast and to London. Jeffery started California Cider Company in 1993. He has told his story before on this show on this episode and also here.

His book, The Cider King, has a cautionary tale about brand ownership. It is the first craft cider company in the western states after Prohibition. They started in Marin and then worked in Graton. The only other one at the time was back east, Wood Chuck. There were some English ones too, including Blackthorn. That became the biggest cider brand in the western states, during the boom of Irish and English pubs in the 1980s and ‘90s. Herlinda and Jeffery agree that “there’s nothing like the ambience of a good pub or taproom.”