Brewvine: Two K Farms

“There’s a good concentration of wineries up here but not really cideries, so we decided let’s bring authentic hard cider from all over the world to Northern Michigan,” said George Koskela, vice president of administration at .

The Koskela brothers studied agriculture and wanted to bring that knowledge back with them to Leelanau County.

In 2012 they started and focused their attention on turning the right apples into their delicious hard cider.

“So these apples are complex,” said George. “They’ve got tannin, acid. Like you wouldn’t make a great wine out of a concord grape, same with apples. They just bring different characteristics that make them ideal for fermentation and alcohol.”

They have over 20,000 trees growing the special varieties of apples on site.

They say that’s what sets their ciders apart.

George said “We’ve got traditional French, English, so of the French let’s say Carville de Blanc is a traditional French culinary apple to Reine de Pomme, Dabinett those are traditional French cider apples.”

They use those French cider apples to make one of their flagship ciders called “Norman”.

“It’s going to be some of those traditional French brutes, so country style brutes, so a lot of these small producers in France they’re making a Norman style cider,” said Max Koskela, vice president of operations. “It’s a dry cider, so you’re actually going to be tasting what people in France would be tasting right here at Two K Farms.”

“Arthur” is their traditional English cider and one of their best sellers.

It’s made with the world renowned Kingston black apple.

“A very dry, a typical English cider, so notes of almost hay and these earthy tones but these are classic English flavors that you can only get probably from the British Isles but we’re bringing it to Northern Michigan,” said Max.

The brothers say they have plans to keep expanding when others have said it couldn’t be done.

Max said “We took the risk. People said you couldn’t grow these varieties. They’re temperamental, right? The climate in England is not the same as Northern Michigan but I think we’ve proven them wrong with our ’17 vintage our ’18 vintage and now our 2019 vintage is going to be released.”