CiderCon® 2024 Recap–Connecting Minds, Igniting Ideas for Growing the Cider Category

CEO’s Note–CiderCon® is carefully curated to offer expert-level content for all stages of the cider industry. In an industry as diverse as cider, it takes immense intentionality, and we are grateful to all of our speakers for participating! Many of our speakers have commented on how eager and engaged the CiderCon® audience was. Great speakers and great students–that’s my CiderCon® dream come true. Thank you to everyone involved! –Michelle McGrath, CEO ACA

• The 14th annual CiderCon® was held in Portland, Oregon from January 17-19, 2024 at the Oregon Convention Center, celebrating a return to Portland after 8 years. The week was deemed a success despite a rare multi day ice storm that impacted the travel plans of some attendees. CiderCon® is organized by the American Cider Association (ACA) and presented by FruitSmart, and it is the world’s largest conference for the hard cider industry. 
• 1,250 people registered for CiderCon® 2024, including attendees, vendors, volunteers and speakers, and an estimated 1,100 attended. Registration was 20% more than the previous year, and CiderCon® 2024 attendance exceeded any prior year’s levels despite challenging weather conditions.
• Attendees came from 40 different states and DC, including Alaska and Hawaii.
• Oregon claimed the most registrants, followed by Washington, California, and New York.
• Attendees from 14 different countries participated in CiderCon®, including Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, New Zealand, Norway, the Russian Federation, Spain, Sweden, and the UK.
• An estimated 30% of CiderCon® attendees came from the Northwest (MT, ID, OR, WA, BC) this year.
• The ACA hosted 9 recipients for their Cider is For Everyone Scholarship at CiderCon® 2024. This scholarship is designed to bring individuals from historically marginalized populations within the beverage industry to CiderCon® to increase the accessibility of cider education and catalyze the careers and ownership pathways of these burgeoning cider professionals. Now in its third year, the scholarship received almost four times the number of applications than in the previous two years combined. 
• The ACA hosted the annual cider guild leadership meeting on January 17 with guild leaders from the Northwest, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, California, Virginia, Utah, and Vermont as well as the UK, Norway, Japan, and Canada. The group shared regional strategies for engaging consumers, retailers, and distributors as well as preemptive strategies for protecting the cider industry from efforts to raise state excise taxes in the US. 
• CiderCon® 2024 coincided with Oregon Cider Week, organized by the Northwest Cider Association (NWCA). Some events were postponed or canceled due to the inclement weather, but the events that remained were well attended and celebrated cider throughout Portland.
• The NWCA also organized the tours for CiderCon® 2024. Two overnight tours went to Seattle and Port Townsend areas to visit cideries in those regions. Two other tours explored cideries and bottle shops in Portland, after needing to shift from visiting the cider regions of the Columbia Gorge and the Willamette Valley due to the weather.
• Cider Share is an ACA-coordinated industry tasting only available to CiderCon® attendees as the beloved opening reception of the conference. This year Cider Share took place on January 17 and featured dozens of cidermakers from around the country and the world.
• The NWCA coordinated a special preview hour of Cider Share this year. The Cider Share preview hour was invite-only for wholesalers, buyers, media, and influencers to sample cider from throughout the Northwest. NWCA and ACA worked together to invite representatives from local and national companies as a strategy to recruit more wholesalers and buyers to attend CiderCon®. Portland’s weather made it hard for some to attend as flights were delayed, but participation in the preview hour was still high, especially from representatives of the media, who attended CiderCon® in record numbers this year.  
• The ACA welcomed 3 keynote speakers on the morning of January 18,  including multigenerational orchardists Kaitlyn Thornton (Tonasket, Washington) and Randy Kiyokawa (Kiyokawa Family Orchard in Hood River, Oregon), along with cidery owner Lara Worm (Bivouac Ciderworks in San Diego, California). All three discussed the theme for this year’s CiderCon®: Connecting to Consumers in an Age of Endless Choice. 
• Following these three mini-presentations, Zoe Licata of Brewbound hosted a panel discussion, investigating the state of the hard cider industry with a selection of cidery representatives from around the country: Aaron Sarnoff-Wood (2 Towns Ciderhouse, Oregon), Casey Baxter (Blake’s Beverage Company, Michigan), Shannon Edgar (Stormalong Cider, Massachusetts), Caitlin Braam (Yonder Cider, Washington), and Eleanor Leger (Eden Specialty Ciders, Vermont).
• During the opening session, Michelle McGrath, CEO of the ACA, announced that Reps. Earl Blumenauer (OR-D) and Mike Kelly (PA-R) introduced the Bubble Tax Modernization Act of 2024 (HR 7029) to the 118th Congress of the United States on Thursday, January 18. The “Bubble Bill” will amend a carbonation threshold disparity for lower alcohol wine, cider and mead made with fruit.
• There were 38 educational sessions held during CiderCon® covering topics in the areas of Crafting Amazing Cider, Doing Better Business, Exploring Cider’s Flavor & Terroir, Growing Bountiful Apples, and Selling More Cider. The Cider Institute of North America helped to develop the Crafting Amazing Cider track sessions once again.
• There were 12 sensory sessions, including a tasting with cidermaking guests from Sweden and Norway. Other tasting sessions featured stone fruit co-ferments, international perry (pear wine), cider and beer/wine hybrids, foraged fruit cider, ancestral method cider, amphoras, and more.
• CiderCon® 2024 featured multiple data-driven sessions featuring speakers from 3 Tier Beverage, Wine Market Council, Prosparus, and Mintel, offering nuanced looks at trends in the beverage marketplace and how they may impact the hard cider market.
• Representatives from beverage retailers spoke at CiderCon® 2024 including speakers from Safeway, Whole Foods, World Foods, Zupan’s, John’s Marketplace, and Ponderosa Beer & Books. 
• Two sessions explored sustainability issues and opportunities for the cider category, including a panel discussion with Christine Walter (Bauman’s Cider), Mike Biltonen (Know Your Roots), Mimi Casteel (Hope Well Winec), and Greg Jones (Abacela Winery) looking at orcharding, and a panel discussion moderated by Colin Schilling (Schilling Cider) looking at packaging and production with additional panelists from Santa Cruz Cider and American Canning.
• John Bunker, an American orchardist, pomologist, and “apple explorer” presented two sessions about apple identification. 
• The ACA once again offered its Certified Pommelier exam at CiderCon® 2024. The  Certified Pommelier is an advanced second-level designation of the ACA’s Certified Cider Professional program geared toward beverage and hospitality industry professionals. Close to 30 people sat for the challenging test that included a blind sensory evaluation section. The new cohort of Certified Pommeliers will be announced in 6 weeks. 
• There were numerous networking opportunities at CiderCon® 2024, including a Newcomer Networking session sponsored by Maletis Beverage, a BIPOC Cider Professional Meetup, and an Orcharding Meetup where attendees exchanged apple tree scion wood.
• The TTB–the agency charged with regulating cider over 7% ABV and collecting excise taxes at the federal level–held two sessions at CiderCon® 2024. They were also available during the trade show to answer questions regarding topics ranging from labeling to licensing to formula approval.
• The trade show, sponsored by FruitSmart, featured 93 vendors from around the country and the world and featured several new vendors as well as many who have returned year after year to support the cider industry. Trade show vendor registration grew by 25% from the previous year, but the inclement weather reduced the number of participating vendors slightly. 93 vendors is still a strong showing for the trade show, which featured 113 booths overall.
• The Michigan Cider Association hosted a tap trailer in the trade show featuring an impressive range of Michigan ciders for trade show attendees to sample.
• The ACA Board of Directors recognized several industry members for their efforts to move the cider industry forward, including 2024 Members of the Year: Seattle Cider and Ploughman Cider, the 2024 Apple Advocate Awards: Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Jake Mann (Five Mile Orchard), and the 2024 Significant Impact Awards: Emily Ritchie (Executive Director of Northwest Cider Association) and Brighid O’Keane (Executive Director of Cider Institute of North America). 

SAVE THE DATE: CiderCon® 2025 will be held in Chicago, Illinois from February 4-7, 2025.

CiderCon® was created to offer the commercial hard cider industry an outlet to meet, share ideas, collaborate, and affect positive changes in cidermaking, apple and pear production, the cider market, and cider regulations. CiderCon® is organized by the American Cider Association whose mission is to grow a diverse and successful US. cider industry by providing valuable information, resources, and services to our members and by advocating on their behalf.