New cider institute aims to guide fast-growing industry

A new organization plans to help Oregon State University and Cornell University train people to make hard apple cider, an industry that is growing rapidly in the Pacific Northwest and is attracting the same sort of connoisseurs who favor the region’s craft beer and fine wine.  Formation of the Cider Institute of North America (CINA) was announced in late May. Making and drinking hard cider is particularly popular in the Pacific Northwest. Membership in the Northwest Cider Association grew from 17 to 70 in a three-year span, and cider accounts for 4 percent of alcoholic beverage sales in Portland and Seattle, compared to 1.7 percent nationally. A former Cornell University cider expert estimated that people in Oregon, Washington and California drink about 80 percent of the cider consumed in the U.S.