OUR HARD CIDERS

Original Bear is an aged premium hard cider, made with only the highest quality apples grown and hand picked here in New Hampshire.  

Please do take a moment and imagine being in an orchard on a crisp autumn day. You see an apple, maybe red, maybe shiny with earth tones, and certainly looking tasty. Perhaps a tad out of reach a bit too high up on the tree?  Do you want to reach out and eat it? Those are the apples we use.  After hand picking, every apple on our pressing line is inspected, fresh from the tree, so that we can bring the purest and tantalizingly delicious hard cider to our community.

We have hand crafted and blended Original Bear as a dry cider with a trace amount of residual sweetness. The cider is very clear to the eye and lightly carbonated, with apple notes on the nose, and a sharp and very mouth watering finish.

12 oz cans, 6.4% ABV.

It took us 3 years of harvests to perfect Golden Bear. The right apples, the right harvest year, the right orchards. Did you know that an apple from the same tree in different years can produce a different taste in the hard cider? Never mind the location or where the orchard is. In partnership with our growers, we decided to use this to our advantage to create Golden Bear.

This is a hard cider for those who like a fuller mouthfeel and  dry cider. In particular, if you like Original Bear you should try it.

Each Fall,  we ran our onsite cider mill in Bradford and took some of the fresh pressed juice from the most promising local hand picked apples and kept it aside, fermented it, aged it with love, and nurture it before the final blending to create Golden Bear. 

The process, the yeast strains, and some of the apple types we will keep secret so this is unique to Bradford Bear. What we will let you know is that Golden Bear is made in limited quantities and has a healthy proportion of Roxbury Russet, Ashmead Kernel, Hudson Golden Gem, Black Gilliflower and Esopus Spitzenburg plus a variety of others.

Limited Quantities (we have only made 250 cases)

12 oz cans, 6.5% ABV.

Ruby is a blueberry maple hard cider. All from New Hampshire. 

Did you see those lovely blueberries on the bushes?   For many years we have picked and enjoyed blueberries along with the birds, and many of you. Perhaps you visited some sugar shacks last winter and enjoyed the local boiling of fine NH maple syrup?

Ruby Bear is fermented from fresh pressed New Hampshire apple cider and blueberry juice which is back sweetened with U.S. grade A New Hampshire maple syrup. 

You will find that Ruby Bear provides a delicious taste of what blueberry plus apple can deliver - with moderate maple syrup sweetness. This cider is red, not blue, just like the juice it comes from. We have a complex mixture of blueberry and heirloom apple species in this cider (12 species of apples and blueberries in total).

We use local grown New Hampshire blueberries and apples in our Ruby Bear.

12 oz cans, 6.2% 

Strawbeary Rhubarb Bear has been created when Bradford Bear hard cider underwent a secondary low temperature coferment with strawberries and rhubarb.  

Strawbeary Rhubarb Bear is fruit forward with a very tart taste.

  12 oz cans, 6.6%  ABV . 

What could be better than Bradford Bear hard cider fermented with a variety of enthusiastically hand picked local blueberries types from Rossview Farm in Concord, NH?

Tart and tasty!

12 oz cans, 6.6% ABV

Cranbeary Bear is a clear balanced cider that has been created by putting Bradford Bear hard cider through a secondary low temperature coferment with Steven’s variety cranberries grown up the road in Vermont. 

12 oz cans, 6.6% ABV

Honey Bear is a medium sweet cider created by fermenting freshly pressed juice from some of New Hampshire's finest Baldwin. Fuji, Roxbury Russet and Northern Spy apples.

Honey bear has a gentle carbonation and a sparkling clarity as it is s filtered to 0.6 microns

and is sweetened by adding local honey collected in Bradford and surrounding areas.

12oz cans, 6.3% ABV. 

In order to craft this delightful cider our family worked on our pressing line in Bradford to juice some of the finest hand-picked heirloom apples from Alyson's Orchard in Walpole, New Hampshire. 

 The fresh cider was cold fermented with a mixture of cider and champagne yeast strains prior to being back-sweetened with a blend of maple syrups from here in Bradford and Kearsage Gore Farm in Warner.

It is pretty nice... Enjoy!  
12 oz cans, 6.1%  ABV 

 Caramel apple bear is is sweet, different and delicious.

This cider is made with birch tree sap and NH heirloom apples.

It reminds us of caramalized apples that you might enjoy after a day in the orchard

   12 oz cans, 6.2%  ABV .

Due to the delightful perfume notes given off during fermentation, we named this cider Ester.  If you research the science of fermentation, it makes sense - there are a lot of delightful, yet subtle flavors called esters produced during the process. This should not be surprising as Ester is made from  some of our best apples -

 Ashmead Kernel, Esopus Spitzenburg, Hudson Golden Gem,  Jona Gold and Roxbury Russet apples with some Gala and Bramley thrown in for good measure.

Ester is filtered to 0.5 microns and carbonated, so it is a bright sparkling cider.

750 ml bottles

Total production 10 cases

SOLD OUT

6.6% ABV

Walnut Cranberry Bear is a hard cider made form NH apples with New England cranberries and walnut syrup.   Walnut syrup has a much deeper and more earthy nutty flavor than its maple counterpart and is a delicious component of Walnut Bear.

Walnut cranberry will tantilize the senses with its combinations. The subtle red color from the cranberries is seen as light passes through the top of the glass, whereas the cider is a deep amber color from the walnut tree sap.  The initial aroma of apples is presented from the carbonation soon complimented by the rich walnut taste. Rapidly, the tannins and tart taste from the cranberries kick in followed by a sweet finish as the syrup coats your taste buds.

750 ml  bottles. 

Total production 10 cases

Limited amounts remain.

6.3% ABV

 In the spirit of the admiration of apple trees, we pressed some fine NH apple juice here in Bradford fermented it and matured it with traditional mulling spices. 

 Our goal is so that we can toast and cheer on the trees for a bountiful and healthy harvest. This is part of the ancient Wassailing tradition that happens in January in orchards in England and Europe and some here in the US, to toast the trees and ward off bad spirits. For more information on Wassailing check out our "Fun Stuff" section of the web site.

Unpredictable like spirits seem to be, it turns out that spice bear has quite a year round following, to be enjoyed on its own or as a cocktail mixer. We have been told that if you add your own rum and you have a

 "Bradford Bear and Stormy" 

After several welcome requests, we will be releasing Spice Bear more often. 

12 oz cans 6.6%  ABV

 Midas Bear was a true heritage-style cider. It had a golden glow and a refined champagne-style cider taste

.
Midas was crafted from Winesap apples blended with Black Oxford, Blue Pearmain, Jonagold, Red Spy, and Courtland varietals.  

 "The golden touch of Midas Bear".

SOLD OUT

12 oz cans, 6.3% ABV