We're Bringing the Cider Tasting to CA State Fair —from our farm to Sacramento
- Gowans Cider
- Jul 31
- 3 min read
For 150 years, the only way to taste Gowan's apples and cider was to drive out Highway 128 through Mendocino — past the oak-studded hills, through the redwoods, and finally through the garden gate in Philo — and sit under the apple trees that made it.
This Saturday, we're bringing that tasting experience to you.
On August 1, Gowan's Heirloom Cider hosts our Cider Tasting Experience at the California State Fair — the same unhurried, farm-to-table tasting we pour in the Cider Garden at home, now in Sacramento. No four-hour drive required.
You'll Sample 1st Place Ciders
Every cider we're pouring was grown on one family farm in Mendocino's Anderson Valley — from more than 120 heirloom apple varieties our family has curated across seven generations. Certified organic. Pressed at peak ripeness. Estate-bottled on the farm.
That fruit has had a remarkable year:
● Three world titles at the 2026 World Beer Cup — where exactly one Gold is awarded per class, worldwide, for the year. We won three, and finished as the most decorated cidery at the competition.
● Cidery of the Year and Cidermaker of the Year from the 2025 Great American Beer Festival.
● And 1st place right here at this year's California State Fair, for our Spiced Apple — with our Gravenstein taking 3rd.
That last one means something particular to us. A California family farm, judged at California's own fair, against the best the state has to offer. You can taste the winner on Saturday.
Not a Booth. A Tasting.
Here's what makes this different from handing you a two-ounce pour and moving you along.
We'll start by introducing you to the farm — the family, the orchard, and the trees behind what's in your glass. Then it's yours. Come up, tell us what you're curious about, and taste your way through the lineup one glass at a time, with the people who grew the apples standing right there to talk about them.
That's exactly how it works in the Cider Garden. Somebody points at a bottle and asks what a Gravenstein even is, and twenty minutes later they've heard about Russian fur traders and a Sierra Beauty tree our family kept alive from 1906 while the rest of the world let it go. Those conversations are the whole point.
"The cider is only half of it," says Sharon Gowan, founding cidermaker. "The other half is standing next to somebody while they taste it and getting to tell them where it came from. We've been doing that under the apple trees for years. We're just doing it in Sacramento for a day."
The Details - One Day Tasting at the CA State Fair
● Saturday, August 1, 2026
● 1:00–7:00 p.m.
● Taste of California Classroom, Save Mart California's Kitchen, Building B
● $10
When You're Ready for the Cider Garden-Visit the Farm
A day at the Fair is a wonderful introduction. But the ciders you'll taste on Saturday came from a particular two acres of century-old heirloom trees, and there is nothing quite like drinking them there.
The Cider Garden is California's first outdoor cider tasting orchard — green grass underfoot, dappled light through ancient branches, hundreds of roses climbing an antique redwood fence, and Pacific breezes coming through the orchard rows in the afternoon. Each tree wears a small hanging sign with its name, its estimated planting year, and its harvest month. You can walk from tree to tree and read 150 years of one family's history hanging from the branches.
This is our 150th consecutive harvest. The trees that carried this family through world wars, depressions, droughts and floods are still standing, still giving. Come taste what they made — first in Sacramento this Saturday, and then, we hope, through the garden gate itself.
Family Owned. Farm Crafted. From Branch to Bottle for 150 years.
