Reverend Nat's Calls it Quits

Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider, a fixture in Portland and one of the leading innovators in modern cidermaking, is calling it quits after twelve years. Just six months ago, the cidery relocated from an industrial tract in North Portland to a new production space, taproom, and cart pod on Division Street in hopes of reviving stalled sales. Unfortunately, the move didn’t jump-start sales quickly enough. “Five months in,” founder Nat West told me two weeks ago, “we’re just not hitting the targets. The business was doing poorly enough that we needed big numbers.”

Yet after four very hard years in which the cidery endured a marathon permitting process on that industrial facility, followed by a pandemic their business model was not designed to handle, Nat is not feeling glum. Two-thirds of all companies in the US fail in their first decade—and that’s without a pandemic. But Reverend Nat’s did more than survive—it was one of a handful of companies that helped shape the way modern cider is made and consumed in the United States. Nat put it this way:

“We were one of the most interesting and exciting cider companies in the country. We’ve done so many things and made thousands of ciders. We were successful in every way but financial.”

I recounted some of the cidery’s recent history when Nat made the move to Division back in March. Just before the pandemic hit, the company was selling 8,000 barrels of cider and employed 29 people. “There were pandemic winners and losers, and we were a huge loser,” he told me. “If you didn’t crush it in grocery, you were in trouble.” He and his board thought scaling down to a taproom model and using 2019 on-premise numbers would give him an idea of what to expect, but sales lagged. “Portland was a different market then,” he said, echoing what I’ve heard from brewers this year. Looking out at the future, Reverend Nat’s decided closing up now was the best solution.

But that’s just the business part of the story—one we perhaps focus on too much when we talk about the beer and cider industries. Whether a company is successful or not depends on more than how long it flourishes. When I met with Nat, he was more concerned with the cidery’s accomplishments and legacy than its end.

Defining American Cider

I interviewed Nat for my book Cider Made Simple exactly one decade ago. He was just a few years into the experiment of Reverend Nat’s, and cider was in the process of finding its footing in America for the first time since the mid-19th century. In the book, I framed the moment this way:

Unless you’re a close watcher of the burgeoning cider market, you're probably unaware of the nearly existential war taking place in the United States to define what cider should be. The protagonists in this battle run the gamut from the large industrial cideries who want you to think of cider as a sweet, appely frolic to artisanal producers like Steve Wood and Kevin Zielinski making sophisticated, complex products. Tentative new drinkers are caught in the middle, susceptible to the notion that there really is an answer to what cider “should” taste like.

A decade later, we have a far better idea of the trajectory cider was on, and looking back, Nat came the closest to seeing it clearly. Near the end of the chapter, I reported what cider-makers expected to become of the market in a decade—that is to say, now.

Nat West had the most radical answer—one that made me re-think the idea of “proper” cider. In his view, there’s a cultural residue clinging to the idea that a cider must be made a particular way. “American cider should have an American taste to it. I’m not defining what an American taste is, but an American taste is not English, it is not French. If you’re trying to create a style or a culture, don’t use other existing styles as your reference point. Look at what you have on hand here, and what people here are already used to and accustomed to. No one is accustomed to drinking French and English cider.”

Americans don’t really do tradition—or not for very long, anyway. American cider is a mash-up of little shafts of European tradition, modern industrial technique, borrowings from other beverages (beer chief among them), and a whole lot of experimentation. Some of those experiments have become part of an evolving American idiom: flavored ciders made with other fruit or spices, hopped ciders, and barrel-aged ciders. Others were passing fancies that lasted as long as brut IPAs or nut brown ales.

Despite its old-timey, tonic-label brand, Reverend Nat’s was on the leading edge of experimentation—in both directions. Nat was as quick to champion the obsolete style of ciderkin as he was to try improbable practices like boiling apple juice for eighteen hours to make “fire cider.” He fermented with sake yeast and beer yeast and wild yeast—and bacteria. He used every kind of barrel there was, and probably every fruit, as well. And of course, he championed tepache, the traditional Mexican “cider” made of pineapples. It became not just a signature of the cidery, but a perfect example of the way he would borrow any idea, however old, distant, or outlandish. Nat seemed to have an instinct for what would be fun, and that became his calling card.

From all of that screwing around—because of it, more likely—something American emerged. Cider isn’t at the center of the conversation like it was a decade ago, but the products are a lot better. Customers know that a cider with fruit in it will be sweet, while one with hops will be drier, more beer-like. Orchards have grown up around the country bearing heirloom or European fruit, though the ciders they make remain a less central part of the market. Instead, it’s those “fun” ciders that have carried the day. Americans never became doctrinaire about their ciders, and they’ve settled on lightly-sweet, fruity beverages that are hard to dislike. Nat was right: Americans didn’t want French or English cider.

“We wanted to change the perception of cider,” Nat said near the end of our interview. “We did that. The perception of cider today is different than it would have been if we hadn’t started our company twelve years ago.” He wants people to think of Reverend Nat’s, even as it enters its final weeks, as an unalloyed success. “Would I have started Reverend Nat’s if I’d known it would only last twelve years?” he asked. “Absolutely.”

Reverend Nat’s will be open through September 24th, and Nat’s throwing a party on Saturday the 23rd. He’s got cider in cans and bottles, and in true Rev Nat’s fashion, he’s releasing new ciders even now—three Tent Show specials as well as two non-alcoholic ciders he’s really excited about. Swan Song is one of those fire ciders, and this might be your last chance to taste one. Stop by and make sure you have a final pint.

Make sure you’re smiling when you drink it—that’s how Nat would like you to remember the cidery.