MANSFIELD — The 5 Penny Hard Cider company will make its official debut in the coming weeks.
Josh Beard and Kelly Shaull, the husband-wife team behind the beverage, have set up shop at a warehouse in Ontario off of Beer Road where they’re manufacturing different types of hard cider. The cider will be distributed to local stores and restaurants.
“We’re both from here and have pretty decent experience in the brewery business,” said Beard, who previously co-owned a craft brewery.
“The craft beer industry in Ohio is pretty saturated at this point in time, but there’s not many hard cider companies around,” Shaull said. “We were out west in Oregon this summer and hard cider out there is huge.”
Seeing that hard cider is an “emerging market,” the duo is taking on 5 Penny Hard Cider in addition to working full-time jobs.
Beard is in charge of production, and Shaull handles the logistics. While gesturing to different pieces of equipment, Beard indicated what a scientific process cider-making is, with plenty of chemical analysis involved.
He remembers the first batch of hard cider that he made several years ago.
“It wasn’t dump-able,” he joked.
Shaull said he’s sharpened his skills since then.
“You can taste the improvement over time,” she said.
Beard rattled off some of the different flavors he’s experimented with — blueberry/honey blend, coffee, habanera pepper, and more.
According to Beard, many mass-produced ciders are made mostly from apple juice concentrates, whereas a true hard cider is made with fresh juice and fermented to different styles.
“Traditional hard cider is not necessarily carbonated,” he said. “It’s more still, or dry even, and doesn’t have residual sweetness to it.”
Beard hopes they get to the point where they’ll have tastings and other events.
“I think the goal of our company is to not only make a product and offer it to the community from locally sourced materials, but to also help educate the community on what real hard cider should be and consist of and the process behind it,” Shaull said.
Last August, Beard went to a cider-making workshop at Oregon State University, gaining more hands-on experience and knowledge from industry professionals.
The recipe for 5 Penny Hard Cider is made with locally sourced ingredients.
“We like to claim that we’re truly local in that our ingredients are local from the ground to the glass,” Beard said. “We get our cider juice locally, we get fruit ingredients locally, we go to the actual farms and talk to the actual farmers.”
Beard said they looked into making their own apple juice to use for the product, but that’s a labor-intensive process.
“We’d have to spend thousands of dollars on machinery and that’s not the way we start,” Beard said.
“Maybe way on down the road,” Shaull added.
Asked if they’re interested in opening a restaurant or something of that nature, they said that’s not beyond the realm of possibility. For now, they’re interested in focusing on the product and getting their name out to the public.
Explaining the story behind their product’s name, Shaull said, “We wanted a name that was tied to the local area and had some sort of heritage to this area.”
While researching Johnny Appleseed, she learned that he sold his apple seeds to local farmers for 5 pennies.
“So that’s where we came up with the name 5 Penny,” she said.
Beard said they’re licensed to make cider, as well as wine and mead, though in the beginning, they’ll strictly make different types of hard cider.
“We’ll feel out what’s popular,” Beard said.
