News

Edneyville grower debuts apple ale

By Bill Moss, Published: January 17, 2015

Edneyville apple grower Anthony Owen decided one day last summer to plunge into a new way of marketing the apple.

For years, Henderson County apples have been made into juice and cider and on the heels of the craft beer boom hard cider. Owen decided to go into apple ale. And he didn't fool around. He got the idea last July and was working with a craft brewer to concoct sample batches by November. On Friday night at Sculley's Bar & Grille in downtown Asheville, he and others will celebrate his Twisted Apple Ale.
"It's canned and kegged and will be ready for stores by the end of the week," he said Monday.
It's not the first apple ale in the region but it's one of the first that's all natural.
"The difference I tell people is that a lot of apple ales have caramel coloring and natural and artificial flavoring in them," he said. "This is a true apple juice converted into an apple ale. It's only got four ingredients. I'll read them to you: water, barley, apple juice and yeast."
He hooked up with a craft brewer in Hickory who was "rockin' and rollin'" to meet demand in today's booming regional craft beer market and didn't have time to help an apple grower from up the mountain develop a new product.
"It's being brewed for us but it's our product," he said. "It was my idea."

Owen is known as one of the county's only organic apple growers and although he's not using organic apples in his new apple ale he is sticking to an all-natural theme. Owen figures Twisted Apple will appeal straight to the taste buds of a certain discerning palate.
"People that don't like beer or the beer after-taste are going to like this," he said. "It doesn't have a beer after-taste. It has an apple after-taste."
Marvin Owings Jr., the director of the Henderson County Agriculture Extension Service, said the apple ale is a promising innovation that can only broaden sales opportunity for Henderson County's No. 1 fruit export.
"This is a brand new product and it's an unusual product in that there's no additives," he said. "A lot of the other apple ales, if you read the label, they have a lot of additives."
"I tasted one today," he added. "It's very smooth. If you think you're going to drink a beer you would be surprised. It's a lot smoother than beer."
How does it differ from hard cider?
"To me hard cider has more carbonation," Owings said. "This apple ale is very smooth. Particularly the ladies who don't like beer are going to like the flavor. It doesn't taste anything like beer. It doesn't taste anything like hard cider. It's another Henderson County product that I think will be well accepted."