Cider House 1949: Focused on events, craft cider in new digs

Life is about making choices. Yes, the Cider House, originally located at 102 Second St. in Fairfield, was successful and popular, but it wasn't what the team who created it dreamt of.

'We wanted to manufacture hard cider and didn't have the capital to do that,” explained Clint Stephenson, one of four co-founders/owners of the flourishing Jefferson County business. 'We thought that opening the Cider House would be a good way to do that and after opening in 2014 and winning best burger in Iowa in 2015, we sort of got sidetracked and the restaurant became our main focus for a while.”

So Stephenson and his partner Hopi James, along with Cole Fishback and his partner Annalisa Thompson took what they had saved after four years operating one of the most popular restaurant in town and shut their doors.

'Ultimately, we did the restaurant so we could do the cider, and though we enjoyed the food, it wasn't our passion,” reiterated Stephenson of the group's tough decision to close up shop just as they approached their four-year anniversary. 'Our dream was always the hard cider. It was a very difficult decision at the time, but we decided to stick with our dream and go for that instead of staying where we were.”

The quartet started buying equiptment needed for their cider operation and shifted their focus to their new location where they have built a tap room and an event barn located at 1949 Pleasant Plain road.

The location is also special to the group of young entrepreneurs because they sourced local wood and milled it in the current parking lot.

'Some of the challenges are starting over,” said Stephenson. 'When we started the restaurant, none of us had owned or run a restaurant and we really had no experience.”

Stephenson said the group got as good as it could be at running a restaurant just in time to start a new line of work.

'Now we're starting a whole other business we've never done before which is events,” he continued. 'Our restaurant was very small, while our event center can host weddings, parties, graduations and cater corporate events. All of the bookings, paper work, legal, insurance and contracts is a whole other business and then on the other side is manufacturing and marketing hard cider at the same time.”

The original Cider House was also very demanding of the team's time.

'We prepped every meal that was ever made there,” explained Stephenson. 'Everything was made to order which was very labor intensive. One of us worked almost every shift that we were open and definitely for the first three years, so to shut it down to follow our dream was a big decision and a large risk.”

The four co-owners didn't land in Fairfield by accident with Texas, California, Kansas and Australia representing the quartet's birthplaces. Three of the four went to Maharishi School in their youth, and two graduated from Maharishi University of Management.

What's new

Besides the event center on Pleasant Plain Road, the team has focused on the cider that everyone's been talking about.

The brand is called Fishback and Stephenson, and the two duos started making hard cider in Clint's basement before expanding recently now that the restaurant in town doesn't absorb all of their focus.

'We wanted some blue sky and bigger upside,” shared Stephenson.

And the name?

'It really just boils down to us thinking that they were the most unique sounding names together,” said Stephenson. 'We started by entering competitions out of my basement and that's just the name we put on the bottle because it stuck out the most. It fit together and that's the only reason why.”

They have four canned flavors and are working on their distribution to have a much broader reach and have recently expanded into Illinois.

'We have coverage in almost every county in Iowa and we are gaining a large presence in our home state,” added Clint. 'Now, we are moving into Illinois and have [contracted] with our fifth distributor in the state just this week. That's been a big stepping stone because it's hard to cross state lines with alcohol and distribution, so that's been a big victory for us and a huge success.”

The event center itself is also thriving, having hosted more than 30 get-togethers in the last 12 months including everything from weddings to bridal and baby showers to graduations and corporate outings.

Upside

Hard cider is gluten-friendly by default, because apples don't contain gluten, something that makes Fishback & Stephenson more tantalizing to the average consumer who is now, more-than-ever, concerned about the ingredients in their consumable purchases.

'I think in the beverage industry, everyone's goal is to have a brand name that is recognized and is a consistent product that people like,” said Stephenson. 'Especially with the gluten-free movement in our country, cider is growing very fast and we would like to be first to market as far as craft cider goes and be a common name when you go to a bar.”

Purpose

'We want to make the best, most consistent products we can and we want that product to be fun and exciting and to offer flavors that offer something for everybody,” explained Stephenson.

'None of our jobs are more important than any other and we are all interchangeable between the four of us between legal, contracts, design, manufacturing and packaging ... everything from bartending to carbonating a tank of cider.”

What's inside?

The coolest fact from this whole piece, in my opinion, was learning that it takes five-seven apples per can or about 18 pounds per gallon to create the mixtures from Fishback & Stephenson. Because of this, 20,000 to 40,000 apples a week are hauled into Fairfield before being reduced to their cidery deliciousness.

The team wisely does not disclose their recipes, although they did share that their Coyote Verde featured Granny Smith apples.

The most popular of the four elixers is their Pink Watermelon Cider which has the company's biggest reach so far, although the Iowa Strangler is the most interestingly named. It features aronia berries that are native to Iowa and known as 'the black choke berry,” inspiring the name Iowa Strangler. 'It's called the strangler with the pun intended and it's grown 100 percent in Iowa,” shared Stephenson.

'For people who say they don't like hard cider, our hope is to maybe make a recipe or create a brand that they would be willing to try and find out they enjoy,” added Fishback, who is not only a co-founder but the artist responsible for designing the cans for the consumer.

'I just think about what the beverage is and what it looks like to me,” said Fishback. 'It usually just comes together and I know how I think it should look. Sometimes, there are people who say they didn't think about it like that, but to me it's always been that color and had that vibe.”

Does the artist ever taste the goods to draw some inspirtation?

'Yeah, all the time,” said Fishback before having a laugh and a sip with his buddy Stephenson.

Progress

'The idea of being noticed as progressing in the community is important,” shared Fishback, 'because it inspires other people and you watch how people have grown and say, ‘I can do that, too!' If everyone is growing and progressing, we can have a progressively nicer place which is what I think we all want.”

Stephenson added, 'It matters because it means we're moving in the right direction and if people are noticing progress, then we're in the right place at the right time.”

Contact

You can research the facility for its functionality if you're considering renting the space by going to ciderhouse1949.com and you can learn more about the new cider line produced locally at fishbackandstephenson.com.