revivals
Heurich's Liberty Apple Cider

The ANXO team - known for their dry-fermented ciders - worked closely with the Museum to create a 21st Century version of legendary D.C. brewer Christian Heurich’s Prohibition-era offering. The result is a tart, non-hopped version of the cider that was first sold a century ago. 

100 years later, Heurich's Liberty Apple Cider was reborn as a non-hopped, dry fermented canned cider. DC's original cidery, ANXO, and the Heurich House Museum launched the new Heurich's Liberty Apple Cider.

Liberty Apple is currently avaliable, give it a try at our biergarten.

Liberty Apple History

In anticipation of Prohibition coming to D.C., Christian Heurich pivoted his brewery to make a non-alcoholic apple drink, purchasing $100,000 worth of Stayman Winesap apples and pasteurizing them to prevent the juice from fermenting to alcohol. While he diluted the beverage and added a hop extract, what Heurich did not anticipate is that, contrary to beer which requires the addition of yeast, cider ferments in its own juices. After 18 months, the apple drink was about 6% ABV.

Although Prohibition was in effect, in 1920 Heurich was given special permission to sell the fermented apple drink - which he called Liberty Apple Champagne - for just three weeks. In 1933 when Prohibition was repealed, Heurich still had 60,000 gallons of Liberty Apple Champagne stored at the brewery, which were dumped and lost to time to make room for future brews. One hundred years later, the new Liberty Apple Cider pays homage to Heurich’s original release, while staying true to ANXO’s standards of creating ciders made with only apples and no additives.