<P> It is only in recent years that interest has been revived in hard cider . Surviving heirloom varieties that would have had a role in the old orchards have been carefully catalogued and others have been put up for sale at city farmer's markets, as well as sold by the bushel to businesses wanting to make their own labels . On the East Coast, many have been taking cuttings of trees planted a hundred years ago and blending them experimentally into new brews, with California and the Great Lakes States following suit . Business is currently booming, even outselling the craft beer movement and though it is currently only one percent of the alcoholic beverage market it has skyrocketed and is projected to keep growing . Larger beer brewing companies, whose profits have been suffering for years due to the loss of market share to craft brews and the change in public opinion as to the quality of their product, have bought cider making companies . The company that ferments Bulmers in Ireland purchased Woodchuck Hard Cider in 2012 . </P> <P> There is great diversity of taste in the types of hard cider, made by small local producers all the way up to the big beer conglomerates, and great variation from region to region . Because the US allows brewing for personal use, instructions for making homebrew are readily available on the internet . According to a July 2014 article from a Chicago area newspaper, the city is taking advantage of its proximity to an area in Michigan that has national importance as a major apple growing region . A whole bar dedicated solely to new ciders in the city is up and running and consequentially Great Lakes producers are pressing more and more of the drink: in its first year, Michigan - based Virtue Cider pressed about 20,000 gallons of cider, or 75,708 liters, selling it in Chicago and other markets . In 2013, it pressed about 120,000 gallons (454,249 liters), and for the year 2014 it expects to press more than 200,000 US gallons, or 757,082 liters . </P> <P> The early 20th century was difficult for the New England region in terms of alcohol production: first, in 1918 the Northeast suffered a particularly brutal winter that led to an apple shortage . Prohibition and the Volstead Act destroyed most of the cider trees . As the after effects of the 18th Amendment wore on, Boston and the coastline of Massachusetts became nationally important as places where contraband alcohol from Eastern Canada and the Caribbean could be smuggled in by boat . Unfortunately, because Boston and the small fishing villages that dot the New England coastline were a gateway from whence the rest of the nation clandestinely got its wine, whiskey, gin, rum, and beer, it was much more lucrative to smuggle contraband alcohol than saving a local rural drink from extinction . Finally, the Great Depression hit and financial difficulties made a lot of the old timers abandon their orchards: the 1985 John Irving book The Cider House Rules correctly shows that much production of the surviving orchards had switched over to sweet cider by the 1940s, when the novel takes place . </P> <P> However the last quarter of the 20th century proved this region had ample potential for revival: records of how cider was once made were left untouched . The equipment for creating its sweeter, non-alcoholic cousin could easily be switched for hard cider and many of the old presses were still usable . The wine revolution in California had taken off and often beaten European varietals in taste tests, an important step proving the United States could make quality alcohol other than whisky and opening the floodgates to better quality, more modern machinery and tools in greater volume: some of this equipment can also be used in cidermaking, and in New England thus it became possible to order it by catalogue, by asking for the surplus from California winemakers, and by the early 1990s, by internet . Heirloom varieties still survived in more remote areas of the region, sometimes hidden on abandoned farm land, and there was contact with other countries that produced alcohol derived from apples such as Canada and Ireland, the latter country exporting it for the Irish expat community in Boston and the large Irish American population in the Northeast . </P>

Hard cider is referred to as just cider in the us