Welcome to BONE-A-Fide Brews’ very first two-part series! The next two episodes of the podcast are going to shed light on a brand new partnership between two companies with whom I have very close ties, 47 Hills Brewing and South City Ciderworks. For part one, we sit down with Jenn Root Martell of South City Ciderworks.
I have personally known Jenn and her husband Alex, both are co-owners and founders, ever since I first came into the beer industry back in 2014, which coincidentally that’s around the time South City Cider was starting to take off, especially with Freewheel, my first job in the craft beer industry, is one the first clients of their new and blossoming business. Cider, as you will learn, is treated a whole lot different when it comes to regulations, taxes, etc. due to the fact that it is fermented fruit, but hearing the passion behind Jenn’s words on how much detail goes into creating their blends, all the thought on how stressful it must be to deal with the different regulations goes right out the door.
Just like with the different breweries around the Bay Area, so too did South City Cider deal with the struggles of the shutdowns of 2020, but one thing that SCC had that not a lot of breweries already had was the fact that they were primarily distributing their products in cans before the pandemic, which gave them a bit of a leg up on the situation. Also during the pandemic, like myself, Jenn and Alex welcomed their first child. What’s incredible about this is the fact that both Jenn and the production manager, Alisha Blue, were both pregnant at the same time and both basically worked until their due dates. Another great thing to come out of the pandemic for Jenn herself was her new podcast “Courage and other C Words” which we go into detail in the episode.
I’m so excited to finally have South City Cider on the podcast because not only do they have a great story to tell about their company and their products but the fact is that they are finally located in South San Francisco after years of searching. We’ll touch more on the SCC and 47 Hills Brewing merges in part 2 next week but please enjoy part one with BONE-A-Fide Brews’ first-ever cidery to be on the podcast, South City Ciderworks.
Cheers \m/,
Joe Hawk