PICC Awards – full list of winners
We attended the Portland International Cider Cup awards last week (which took place during Homebrew Con), the sixth annual awards event hosted by the Northwest Cider Association. The ceremony took place at the Lagunitas Community Room in north Portland, where there were some of the award-winning ciders pouring and appetizers for guests. This is an industry event, and I was able to get media passes.
This competition, and awards, are something like a regional GABF for cider in the Pacific Northwest (included British Columbia and Montana). The judging of the ciders took place back on March 25 at Square Mile Cider, with nearly 170 ciders entered.
I posted the press release of gold medal results last week, and promised that I’d also post all of the winners by category (I kept notes on them all). Let’s get to it.
Best Dressed: Ryan Fitzgerald of The Brew Happy Podcast. He was wearing a long purple jacket over his suit which impressed the judges. Kind of a fun category, with many of the cider reps dressed to the nines.
Fruit Ciders; these made up 25% of all the entries in the competition.
Fruit – Cane Fruit
- Bronze: Seatte Cider Company, Berry Rosé
- Silver: Bauman’s Cider Company (Gervais, OR), Loganberry
- Gold: Swift Cider (Portland), Marionberry
Fruit – Other Fruit
- Bronze: 2 Towns Ciderhouse (Corvallis, OR), Rhubarbarian
- Silver: North Idaho Cider (Hayden, ID), Berry Eclipse
- Gold: Draper Girls Country Farm Cider (Mt. Hood, OR), Aronia Berry
Fruit – Stone Fruit
- Bronze: 2 Towns, Man Gogh
- Silver: 2 Towns, Cot in the Act
- Gold: Rack & Cloth (Mosier, OR), Pêche
Fruit – Cherry
- Bronze: none
- Silver: Tieton Cider Works (Yakima, WA), Cherry Cider
- Gold: none
Fruit – Pear (different from Perry)
- Bronze: none
- Silver: Draper Girls, French Pear
- Gold: none
Hopped
- Bronze: Rootwood Cider (Manson, WA), Hop Infused
- Silver: Swift Cider, Pineapple Hop
- Gold: Square Mile Cider (Portland), Hopped Apple Cider
Spiced/Herbed (second largest category entered)
- Bronze: Tumalo Cider Company (Tumalo, OR), Thai Citrus
- Silver: Chatter Creek Wine & Cider (Woodinville, WA), Chatter Creek Cider
- Gold: 2 Towns, Nice & Naughty
Wood/Oaked
- Bronze: Portland Cider Company, Blackberry Pinot
- Silver: Liberty Ciderworks (Spokane, WA), Stonewall Barrel-Aged Cider
- Gold: none
Perry – Modern
- Bronze: Portland Cider, Perfect Perry
- Silver: Eden Valley Orchards (Meford, OR), Pear House Cider
- Gold: Elk Horn Brewery & Cidery House (Eugene, OR), Very Perry
Perry – Traditional
- Bronze: none
- Silver: Carlton Cyderworks (McMinnville, OR), French Lane Perry
- Gold: Dragon’s Head Cider (Vashon, WA), Perry
Modern Dry
- Bronze: Swift Cider, Hard Apple
- Silver: Western Cider (Missoula, MT), McIntosh 2017
- Gold: 2 Towns, BrightCider
Modern Sweet (this category hasn’t had all three medals awarded since 2013)
- Bronze: Montana CiderWorks (Darby, MT), McIntosh
- Silver: 2 Towns, OutCider
- Gold: Portland Cider, Sorta Sweet
Specialty (first gold awarded in this category since 2014)
- Bronze: Elk Horn, Grape Perry
- Silver: Snowdrift Cider Company (Wenatchee, WA), Red Cider
- Gold: Liberty Ciderworks, Manchurian Crabapple SV
Wild/Non-Sac
- Bronze: Tieton Cider Works, Perry
- Silver: none
- Gold: 2 Towns, Traditions 2015 La Mûre
English Dry
- Bronze: 2 Towns, Cellar Series West Country Replica
- Silver: Carlton Cyderworks, French Lane Press
- Gold: Cider Riot! (Portland), Shaken Tree
English Sweet
- Bronze: none
- Silver: Montana CiderWorks, North Fork Traditional
- Gold: Sea Cider Farm & Ciderhouse (Saanichton, BC), Bittersweet
Heritage Dry (fourth largest category entered)
- Bronze: WildCraft Cider Works (Eugene, OR), Willamette Heritage
- Silver: Finnriver Farm & Cidery (Chimacum, WA), Farmstead Cider
- Gold: Bauman’s Cider, Clyde’s Dry
Heritage Sweet
- Bronze: Western Cider, Heirloom
- Silver: none
- Gold: Montana CiderWorks, Darby Pub
French
- Bronze: 2 Towns, 2016 Demi-Sec
- Silver: none
- Gold: 2 Towns, Traditions 2016 Cidre Bouché
Small Cidery of the Year: Montana CiderWorks
Large Cidery of the Year: 2 Towns Ciderhouse
Medium Cidery of the Year (new category): Swift Cider
Best New Cidery of the Year: Draper Girls Country Farm
Best of Show and Runner Up:
- Runner Up: Montana CiderWorks, Darby Pub
- Best of Show: Sea Cider, Bittersweet