Hard Cider Symposium

Beeronomics is a two day conference coming up September 8 and 9 that focuses on beer, brewing and related activities. A new feature at Beeronomics 2015 is a Hard Cider Symposium. Peter Tozer with Washington State University.

TOZER: It's a bit of two-pronged attack. We have some industry speakers coming in to give us a perspective on where they see the industry going and the growth and how they perceive the future for the industry.

The second part of the symposium is a look at some research that being done.

TOZER: It's sort of like a research industry feedback type thing. Find out what the industry wants research-wise as well. We're trying to keep it pretty industry focused. We don't want to do research for the sake of doing research. Hopefully we'll get some industry there and get some feedback about what they see is issues maybe facing the industry and what sort of information they want.

The Cider Symposium will take place on Day Two of Beeronomics. Tozer talks about the cider industries growing pains.

TOZER: Actually I don't think it's quite got to the growing pains stage yet.I've got a feeling it's going to happen shortly. If you sort of follow the craft brewing industry, the cider industry hasn't quite got to the stage yet where there's going to be some growing pains. There's some cideries that are going to have to decide whether they want to just be artisans basically, just small, very small producers. And then there's going to be some that are going to have to make some decisions about the future of their business.

That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.