Cider Probably Shouldn’t Taste Like Easter Eggs

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Can something be exhausting yet invigorating? If so, that’s how I would describe the two weeks I spent traveling across the Midwest, from eastern Iowa to western Michigan, back to central Iowa, and then home again. Being away from home and driving nearly 1300 miles over the course of a nine day period was exhausting, but the events in which I participated gave me the momentum I need to grind away at things for the next few months. Exhausting, yet invigorating.

My trip two weeks ago to Grand Rapids, Michigan, for the Great Lakes International Cider and Perry Competition was my first trip to the state, and my first chance to experience one of the best regions in the United States for cider. The drive there, once off of Interstate 80, was quite enjoyable. Most of the scenery in Michigan was either a grove of trees, an apple orchard, or a vineyard – an enjoyable change from the rotation of corn, soybeans, and feed lots that populate the sides of the roads here in Iowa. Once parked in Grand Rapids on Tuesday, I didn’t have to drive anywhere until it was time to travel to Des Moines on Sunday. Downtown Grand Rapids is incredibly walkable – about as easily walkable as the city center in Denver. All in all, I was impressed.

The first event of the Grand Rapids leg of the trip was the Michigan Cidery Tour, an opportunity to see the inner workings of four different cider makers in the area. We stopped at Pux Cider, Vander Mill Cider, The People’s Cider Company, and Farmhaus Cider. Between these four cider makers, we were able to compare and contrast smaller and larger cider makers, urban versus rural, and newer versus more established. The best part of the tour, besides all of the samples, was being able to see the process in which a standard apple juice base is transformed into the different varieties of cider, from sweet to dry, with and without adjuncts. I learned a great deal from all four cider makers, and discovered different flavors that nobody here at home has yet tried.

After grabbing some dinner, I attended the judge training put on by GLINTCAP – it was an optional experience for stewards, but I wanted to experience and learn everything I could while I was there. They told us about the different cider categories, and we had a few judging practice rounds. It seemed like one of the main goals of the training was to get judges to work together at each table. While judges didn’t have to have the same exact score, the numbers weren’t supposed to be wildly different. Our table tried to put each cider in the same medal category – gold, silver, or bronze. Judging cider is no easy task, and I have an incredible appreciation for what they had to do in the short amount of time given for each round.

Thursday and Friday were the core competition days of GLINTCAP – four preliminary rounds on Thursday, followed by the semi-finals and finals on Friday morning. Each of the preliminary rounds lasted about ninety minutes, and each of the tables received between ten and twelve ciders in a specific category. According to the organizers, the judges could request to not get a certain type of cider based on their preferences. Each table had a maximum of three judges, but in all of the preliminary rounds, my tables only had two judges each round.

I was the most nervous during the first round, because I didn’t want to spill anything and didn’t want to overwhelm the judges with too many samples served too quickly. With the “quality control” being done in the steward’s room, I felt less nervous as the day went on. I found a good rhythm after the first round – about one sample every 4-5 minutes seemed to work. There were a healthy number of amazing ciders, along with a few turds. As the ballots came back and we knew which ciders were moving onto the rounds on Friday, we were able to hang onto the cream of the crop on a separate “winners” table. The average stuff and the horrible stuff was disposed.

On Thursday, we served one sample at a time, every few minutes. On Friday, we were instructed to serve everything at the exact same time. The first few minutes of the semi-finals and the finals were complete insanity, and there was a lot of down time during each of the rounds. As we did on Thursday, we placed the highest scoring ciders on a separate table after the final round, and once given the word that judging was finished, the stewards got the first crack at the top ciders of the competition. I left once the judges came in and surrounded the winner’s table – it was total chaos with that many people gathered around a small table.

I also attended the GLINTCAP Awards Dinner on Friday evening, continuing the theme of taking in as much of the week’s festivities as I possibly could. The only advantage of attending the dinner was learning about the competition’s winners a few hours before everything was posted online. In planning for next year, I will probably end up skipping the dinner and enjoying some nightlife, as many of the judges and stewards did instead. I stopped at People’s Cider again after the dinner and met up with a couple of judges and stewards who were out that evening. There were a couple of ciders on tap which had not been available when I visited two days prior, so I gave those ciders a try. Next year, I think I’ll skip the dinner and spend more time connecting with other stewards and judges after the competition.

My last full day in Grand Rapids was spent at the Great Lakes Cider Festival, right in the heart of downtown. There were over a dozen cider makers pouring samples of their products. I mostly tried cider from makers that either hadn’t entered anything in the competition that week, or who I hadn’t visited during the cidery tour on Wednesday. I ran into a bunch of judges and stewards from GLINTCAP during the afternoon event, and had some fantastic conversations with cider makers who I’d met during CiderCon in February, but hadn’t since during the big competition earlier in the week. I’m planning to attend the festival again next year, but hopefully behind a Cider Finder table passing out information while enjoying a few local cider samples.

The drive back west was much more rainy and windy than the drive to Grand Rapids. I think I passed the cold front somewhere between Chicago and Des Moines, because I noticed the temperature drop roughly 20 degrees in that span of Interstate 80. I stayed out on the west side of Des Moines from Sunday afternoon through Wednesday morning, and just plugged away at the ever-expanding pile of work on my plate all day on Monday, going to bed early on Monday evening so I’d be well rested for Monetery the following day. I knew Tuesday was going to be a long day at the end of a very long journey.

While the day was long, there really wasn’t any down time during the Monetery conference. The speakers and panels were fantastic, talking all things tech and funding, and there were an abundance of networking opportunities scattered throughout the day. I ran into a fair number of people who I’d met at other events in central Iowa, along with a fair number of folks from eastern Iowa. There were a surprising number of people who had made the trip from Nebraska, most of whom were current or potential Dwolla clients (Dwolla puts on the Monetery conference.) The lunch break was amazing – our bus went to the St. Kilda restaurant, while the other four buses each went to different restaurants around downtown Des Moines. The evening networking session at a rooftop bar was also a fantastic opportunity to connect with other entrepreneurs and investors over food and drink.

The May Mega-Trip was a resounding success. Being away from home for nine days was tough, but all of the connections I gained and all of the experiences along the way were worth the extended absence from eastern Iowa. I managed to gain a bunch of traction with Cider Finder by talking with dozens of cider makers and the enthusiasts who surround them. I learned things at Monetery that I can apply to the startup ecosystem here in eastern Iowa, help build my businesses, and nuggets of advice I can give to the college students who I mentor. While I might have been exhausted by the trip physically, I gained more enthusiasm for what I am doing, and what the future holds.

Looking ahead at the calendar, I don’t have any major travel plans until Denver Startup Week in mid-September. Roughly the entire summer will be spent here in Iowa City mentoring students in the JPEC Summer Accelerator, leading Iowa City Open Coffee, serving as the (now primary) emcee of 1 Million Cups Iowa City, facilitating Startup Weekend Iowa City, and putting the finishing touches on the Cider Finder app. It’s going to be nice to have some time to concentrate on Startup Weekend Iowa City, Cider Finder, and my freelance clients after the last few weeks spent running around the Midwest.

Here’s to a productive summer, and to finishing some of those nagging, seemingly never-ending projects that have been populating my desk and my mind for a while now.