Joran le Stradic - JORAN Cidrothèque
It’s just a little after 11am when Joran emerges from the entryway of 3 Rue Jacques Jensen, a cream colored three-story Brussels house between Schaerbeek’s Dailly and Plasky neighborhoods. He gives me a nod, affirming that I’m the one who’s been sending him emails, before welcoming me into the Cidrothèque which bears his name. As I enter, Joran is munching on a bread and sausage roll. “I didn’t order this,” he tells me, checking to see if the bagfull is indeed full of sausage rolls. “They must have given me someone else’s order,” he says, unenthusiastically taking another bite of his breakfast.
It’s a Saturday morning, so this hour is still quite early for Joran, who tells me he was at the Cidrothèque until late the night before. He looks a bit tired, and offers me, a foil of his grogginess, a cup of coffee. It’s still a bit too early for cider. As he brews coffee in the bar’s kitchen, I can tell something is a bit off.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?” I ask.
He sheepishly admits that he does not. It’s understandable, of course. It’s been quite a while since the wife and I have stopped in for a drink, or come to buy a bottle.
I tell Joran that whether he knows it or not, he is directly responsible for a large part of my beverage-oriented life.
He nods, still a bit unsure, as he hands me a cup of coffee.
* * *
The entirety of the Belgian cider renaissance started with a joke. Sitting one night at his local café, 1030 Café in Schaerbeek, down on his luck, fed up with his job, Joran Le Stradic drunkenly muttered the phrase that would unexpectedly change the trajectory of not only his life, but that of an entire nation’s culinary scene. “Fuck engineering,” he told one of the owners of 1030 Café, “it sucks anyway. I’m going to quit everything and start to make crêpes.” The Breton equivalent of “flipping burgers.” At only 29 years old, burnout was creeping up on him. “It was all bullshit,” he says of the job. Multinational corporations. Shareholders. “I couldn’t bear it,” he recalls, it took him nearly a year to quit.
It was a running joke with one of his friends, a joke he now acknowledges to be “mean” and in bad taste. The idea that you could go to school to study the art of crepes was laughable to him at the time. “Year one you add the sugar,” he jokes, “year three nutella,” but is quick to clarify, “I respect this job a lot now,” in all seriousness.
Three days later the owner of 1030 Café called Joran up, “Okay you're not drunk anymore, what about this crêpe story now? You want to do something?” Joran remembers him asking. “He dared me basically, so I accepted the challenge.” What resulted was a holiday Breton Brunch of sorts, to be held at the café on Sunday when they were typically closed. The Facebook event page simply read: Joran fait des crêpes, un brunch avec et par un authentique breton.”
“I learned how to do the crepes, which I didn’t know,” he laughs, but he knew that for it to be authentically Breton, he needed cider, Breton cider. “If we’re making crepes we need to have cider with it,” he reinforced, “but in the shops here I could only find cider from Normandy.” Reaching out to Famille Martin, a cider producer from his home village of Plouay, Joran was able to find the cider he needed–a classic, big orchard blend with three varying degrees of sweetness.
“On the side,” he remembers, “he had a single variety cider from an apple called Guillevic,” a specific apple from that area in Brittany, regarded by many Bretons as the only local apple worth of a single variety cider. “It didn’t taste like any other cider I’d had before,” he tells me. Joran describes a “holy balance” of sorts that many Breton and Nomans strive for when making cider. For this reason, he says, many ciders from these two regions are similar, without a wide range of diversity. “But if you want to make a range of ciders,” Joran says, emphasizing the plural, “you have to go different directions, you have to let the apple variety speak. You have to go unbalanced, more toward the tannin with one, acidity with the other.”
With the single variety Guillevic cider, he compared the experience to someone having only drunk red wine to then trying a sweet white wine, “it’s still wine, but it’s so different. That’s what happens when you taste different ciders.” This triggered something in Joran. If there were different apples, that meant different ciders, so he started looking for more.
The Breton Brunch was a success. “I was happy to serve this food to these people who came in with smiles and thank yous. You spend a day working with friends, drinking beers, I was like, this HORECA stuff is pretty cool.” With the success of the Breton Brunch, further events followed. Joran was making crepes and selling cider at Boentje café, Brussels' first zero-waste cafe. He held events at Fermenthings old shop in Jette, and even spent the summer making and selling crêpes in Park Josaphat.
As time went on, Joran discovered more and more ciders not only from Brittany and Normandy, but also from Spain, the UK, Germany, Belgium “pretty much anywhere there’s apples.” This got him thinking about opening his own place. At first the idea was a crêpe restaurant with a large selection of cider, “but there was one thing that happened at once that was really a big click,” Joran says, snapping his fingers, “It was when I realized I didn’t want to run a restaurant, I wanted to run a bar.”
The first time my wife and I visited Joran’s Cidrothèque was back in August of 2020. With a lull in the COVID, we jumped at the opportunity to take advantage of the summer sun and try something new. My wife, the cuter and, in this instance, more adventurous one, has ordered a flight of ciders. The four in front of her showcase of everything cider can be. One on the far left, her right, is a light and creamy color; another, an almost Fanta orange color; followed by a red that looks like a sparking hibiscus, and lastly rounded out with a rich and golden color of a Sauternes. I on the other hand have elected to go with a single pour of a demi sec from the UK.
As my wife works her way through the pours and I through my glass, I can’t help but think that I’ve never had a cider quite like this before. Like many, I’m sure, who grew up outside of the world’s established cider growing regions–the northwest of France, south of England, or the Basque country–cider for me was something quite different.
My first memories of cider come from an old cider press my father used to own. A cast iron crank and weight, would smash the apples in an old wooden slatted bucket beneath it. Admittedly, I only remember him making cider in it once, and even then my memories of whether or not that actually happened are unreliable. Cider, where I’m from, isn’t typically thought of as an alcoholic beverage. Rather it’s a more natural version of your standard grocery store apple juice, typically sold in gallon plastic jugs. I’d always preferred the “cider” over the more “pedestrian” apple juice.
For special occasions, cider came sparkling, albeit still non-alcoholic, in corked dark green glass bottles with a silver foil. In middle school, my friends and I would sneak into the garage where my parents kept the sparkling cider, reserved exclusively for Thanksgiving, New Year's, or a birthday; pop the cork, and take swigs from the bottle as we’d pass it back and forth.
As I grew older, and stumbled upon the more alcoholic side of cider, what I found was little more than a boozier version of the sparkling stuff I drank as a kid. Left to my own devices, I could drink a pallet of the stuff, much like I could with cans of Dr. Pepper, or Cherry Coke. Other than a handful of brands though, cider wasn’t so readily available in my youth, and when it was, it usually made an appearance as the six-pack a couple of girls would bring to a university party. Drinking cider wasn’t for dudes.
For me, cider was apple flavored sugar.
Don’t get me wrong, I love sugar, but despite being described on the board as sweet, the demi sec Pilton cider sitting in front of me wasn’t at all what I thought it would be. It was sharp, crisp, and on a cool summer evening, refreshing, delicious. Another world from the Strongbows or the Angry Orchards I remembered.
Leaving Joran that evening, I remember not being able to wait till the next time we would come back. However, it would be well over a year before the opportunity presented itself again.
As autumn set in, and COVID accompanied it, Joran’s Cidrothèque was forced to suspend all bar activities and function only as a bottle shop. Open only a couple days a week in the evenings, Joran himself would personally greet patron after patron, one by one, as they perused the bottle selection he had to offer. With raincoats and boots, always with a mask, my wife and I would make the nearly hour-long walk to Schaerbeek for cider.
When we’d arrive, usually dripping wet from the autumn rain, there was almost always a line. We would wait patiently for our turn to escape the cold and be welcomed by the shelter the Cidrothèque provided.
I would always have so many questions, to the point Joran often would run the gauntlet, describing each and every cider offered until my wife and I landed upon two or four that would pique our interests. In our first haul, back in November of 2020, only a few months after our first visit, we returned with a cider from the Basque region, and barrel-fermented Pilton from the UK. We’d return again towards the end of the winter, this time landing on a Hérout from northwestern France and a Normandy cider from 2017. Back again a couple months later for two more bottles of Hérout, a bottle of Vinot from Jérôme Forget in Normandy, and our first Belgian cider, a brut from Toubon Cidre, south of Liège in Wallonia.
Cider fit nicely into our ever progressing beverage journey. We learned more everyday about the craft side of alcohol. The bottles we brought home from Joran took their place in our small liquor cabinet next to bottles of craft beer, wines, and spirits. We started to see cider more and more. If there was a cider on a tap list at a craft beer bar or festival, I’d try it. In fact, it started to seem that the more and more we looked, cider was popping up everywhere.
* * *
When it opened, Joran’s Cidrothèque was the first cider bar and bottle shop in Belgium. It would have been the first of its kind in Europe, had a similar place not opened three months prior in Paris. “We didn’t know each other,” Joran says, but says they’ve become friends since. Five years ago, before the Cidrothèque opened, cider in Brussels was almost nonexistent. Other than the industrially produced ciders one can often find in the various Irish pubs around town, the only other place to find a selection of ciders had been Fermenthings, a small shop specializing in fermented and preserved food and beverage.
Despite being established in a country where beer reigns, and will continue to reign supreme, Joran says that it’s much easier to get people interested in cider here in Brussels than it would have been in a traditional cider producing region. “You can’t be a prophet in your own country,” he quips, “People in Brussels are more open-minded and willing to try.”
Cider to many Bretons and Normans is something that is rarely valued. It’s a two euro bottle in a grocery store. Joran insists that even many of the producers, of which he sells various single varieties, blends, and experimental ferments, don’t often sell these ciders in their local regions, but rather export them to Paris, London, New York and even as far as Tokyo.
Being that cider in the traditional sense hasn't experienced the same industrialization that wine and beer have, most ciders remain natural and spontaneous. In turn, this has been an appealing factor to many drinkers who had previously been interested in other spontaneously fermented beverages such as sour beers, geuze, and natural wines. Not to mention it’s also naturally gluten-free.
In many countries, cider has traditionally found itself as a “number four” beverage, behind beer, wine, and spirits. Today, hard seltzers are gaining ground fast, and, along with ready to drink (RTD) malt beverages, cider is finding its place more and more toward the bottom of drinking customers’ lists. In Brussels however, this trend seems to have been bucked, and it’s much in thanks to Joran himself.
“[Cider] fits everywhere. It belongs everywhere. It should go everywhere. But until now,” Joran remarks, “it was pretty much alone.” Among those interested in the craft beer scene, Joran says they’re often more interested in the dry hopped ciders, or the barrel aged ciders. Gastronomic restaurants want cider on their menu as a way to appeal to the natural wine crowd. Due to his proximity to producers, knowledge, and ever-budding cider experience, Joran had worked his way into becoming not only the owner of a cider bar, but an importer and curator as well.
Popping up at multiple craft beer festivals, including both last year’s SWAFF and Brussels Beer Project’s Wanderlust, Joran was invited to curate and serve a selection of craft ciders. At Wanderlust, he even served a collaboration between himself and producer Ross on Wye Cider & Perry from the UK called Déjà Bu. The cider, oak barrel aged, was a blend of Dabinett, Reinette d’Orbry, and Somerset Redstreak apples. With its aromas of tropical fruit, banana and vanilla on the palate, the cider was a fitting addition to the Wanderlust lineup.
For nearly a year now, Schaerbeek restaurant Chabrol has been tapping Joran for a cider to pair with one of their weekly rotating dishes. You can find bottles of Famille Martin’s Joran labeled cider in Boentje café, as well as other bottle shops around Brussels. Even Michelin Guide recommended Màloma offers a cider pairing–the first of its kind in Belgium. Now, the more and more you look, you start to notice that cider is everywhere.
A celebratory dinner calls for a restaurant worthy of celebration, and although I’ve never really liked the French to English translation of comptoir to counter, conjuring up memories of the lunch ladies at school doling out macaroni and cheese or boiled beef and egg noodles, Màloma, describing themselves as a “culinary counter,” is one of Brussels' best restaurants.
The Michelin Guide boasts about Màloma's mico-seasonality, their locally grown and sourced ingredients, minimalism, and of course the restaurant's namesake–malolactic fermentation. They shout out the local producers they feature in their nightly menu, and seem to understand the importance of place like few others. They are also the first restaurant in Brussels to offer a cider pairing alongside their discovery menu. The pairing is curated by no one other than Joran, himself.
The October night is calm and cool in Schaerbeek, and the residential streets outside are quiet for a Friday night. After grabbing a cocktail from the bar across the street, my wife and I find our table–a small two-top where the chefs working diligently at the counter are never out of sight. Despite the work the chefs are putting in, the atmosphere is unstressed and assured. The restaurant is small, and the soft-lighting makes the setting warm and intimate.
After trying not to eat all the homemade sourdough bread, we’re welcomed with a charcoal-colored crisp, topped with black sesame seeds and an ornate tuile, served alongside a squash puree topped with a diced tomato mixture akin to a salsa, surrounded by the thinnest, crispiest, most delicate chips in the shape of tree leaves. The first cider is in fact a poiré (or Perry in English). Traditionally made from pears, this particular poiré comes from Jérôme Forget, and his La Ferme de L'Yonnière in Torchamp, France. It’s acidic, tannic, and, as the name Vinot implies, carries with it the complexities often reserved for wine.
My glass is refilled, and we’re presented with an oyster, topped with a smoky, bubbly foam, which pairs smoothly with the poiré’s lemony notes.
A bottle of Pilton’s Jester is brought out to accompany the next dish. Made by macerating Seville oranges, roasted over ash logs with juniper berries and branches of fresh bay and rosemary in a masonry oven, and matured in Jamaican rum casks, the cider is a perfect balance of orangy acidity, bitterness, and sweetness. With a fresh scallop, adorned with a floral herb nut topping and served in a thin layer of citrus broth with herb oil, the cider, with its charred spice notes, pairs perfectly.
One of Màloma’s signature dishes arrives next. Fanned like a flower, the various preparations of beetroot–puffed balls, crunchy strands, ribbons, thin slices, and sauce– gracefully touch all the textural bases. The earthiness of the beetroot pairs well with the Jester as well.
A Belgian cider from the Flemish region of Borgloon, from Wijndomein Optimbulles is the pairing for the main course. Named Apples and Pearls, the cider is unfiltered in the traditional method. With a sparkle and creamy notes, the cider pairs divinely with the main course of fish in a brown butter sauce, served with the smallest, finest sauteed mushrooms and cabbage.
Dessert is a black-pepper ice cream, served alongside a mouse-topped chocolate brownie with shortbread biscuit edges. The earthiness of the pepper and chocolate couples perfectly with the final cider. A Breton cider celebrating Breton buckwheat, Kystin’s Cuvée Sarrasin can be described best as an ambrosia–a nectar of the gods. The roasted buckwheat flavor, akin to a fine soba-cha, melds seamlessly with the sweet richness of honey and the savoriness of a baked apple. Though hyperbole, I sometimes think that if I could only drink one liquid for the rest of my life, it would be this.
Full, satisfied, and feeling accomplished, the wife and I cannot stop gushing over the service, the sarrasin cider, the brown butter sauce, the beetroot, the attention to detail. A celebratory dinner calls for a restaurant worthy of celebration and Màloma is one of best examples of what this city has to offer, not to mention the importance of community.
* * *
At the time of opening the Cidrothèque, Joran only knew of three of four Belgian cider producers. He now has a list of over 22. Many Belgian cider producers disappeared when apple trees were removed to make way for other crops such as grains, but this is beginning to change. Dozens of new apple orchards have been planted throughout Flanders and Wallonia by a new generation of young producers, interested in revitalizing crafty cider. Other producers are buying up the apples from old growth trees and buying the fruit for nearly three times of what industrially produced apples go for on the market.
Joran says what's impressive about the Belgian craft cider producers of today is the high average quality being produced. “It’s probably because they’re new people who understand the value [of the apples] and want to make the best out of it.” He speaks highly of a number of Belgian producers and the innovative and high quality ciders they’re currently producing.
The first kegs of Belgian craft cider were actually produced for the Cidrothèque. For many producers, the small demand for their ciders meant only producing bottles. Now, with ramped up interest, many producers are starting to supply kegs. “If you want to get on the tap list,” Joran jokes, “you must make kegs.”
Some of the first kegs tapped at the Cidrothèque were produced by actually dumping bottles of cider into stainless steel kegs. Today, Joran always tries to have at least one Belgian producer on tap. Often you can find a couple.
During COVID, Joran borrowed a friend’s van, and drove to six Belgian cider producers, filling it with bottles and bottles of Belgian cider. Creating a Belgian Cider Box featuring ciders from three Flemish producers: Ganzenhof, Hoppug, Fruitdas; and three Wallonian producers: Pierre Toubon, Cidrerie du Condroz, and Cidrerie des Croisiers; Joran spent the summer on his bike, hand delivering the discovery box to those with Cidrothèque withdrawals. At the time of COVID, “the reputation of the Cidrothèque was still developing,” Joran says. “It was important to continue to exist.”
* * *
For four years, the See U in Ixelles has been the country's largest temporary occupation. Occupying the old Ixelles military barracks on Avenue General Jacques, the See U has provided thousands of visitors a place to shop for sustainable produce, attend workshops and dance classes, see a movie, ride their bike around a community built velodrome, and spend their evenings with friends at the guinguette. Touting sustainable innovation, learning and experimentation, the project would occupy the space until Usquare, a new urban and university district, which their website describes as an open, international, innovative, diverse, sustainable and friendly place will be constructed.
It’s the last weekend of August, where the warmth of summer goes hand in hand with a cold beverage. It’s also the last weekend of the See U. The week leading up the site’s public closure has been filled with a plethora of events celebrating the occupation's success. There’s DJ sets, roller skating, a pétanque and beach volleyball tournament, the painting of a children’s mural, and POMPOMPOM–the first artisanal cider festival in Brussels.
Booths of cider producers from Belgium, Germany, and France, including eleven cider producers from Belgium alone, line the wall western facing wall of one of the site's old barracks. I can’t quite contain my excitement as my wife and I collect our festival cups and tokens. We stroll down the line of booths, making note of which rank where on our list of must try. It quickly becomes evident that we’re going to need more tokens.
There’s bruts, demi-secs, fruited ciders, ice ciders, hopped cider, wild ciders, perrys, blends of cherry, quince, and currant. The innovation is staggering, varied, and complex. From Wallonia we sip Magma, a hopped cider from Atelier Constant Berger; Apple of My Eye, a wine-barrel aged cider De Mederie; and the Cidre Brut from Cidrerie du Condroz. For Flemish ciders we try Druug’s Pom De Djus, made with apples from the Flemish Ardennes and blended with currant wine; the Demi-Sec from Ganzenhof Cider; and the Wilde Peer from Hoppug, a perry pitched on Geuze dregs.
As we soak up the late summer sun, cider seems like a natural choice for an accompaniment. Yet, as we sit here, celebrating a closure, it seems more and more like a beginning. In a country dominated by beer festivals, it seems as if POMPOMPOM has captured my interest, intrigue, and desire to learn, more than any festival so far.
At home, I light the barbecue and we grill up some chicken wings. The sun soaks our terrace as the birds chirp away in the courtyard. We decide to continue with cider, popping a bottle of Basque cider we picked up in Spain from earlier in the summer. The label on the bottle, a dry, natural cider from Sidreria Etxeberria, instructs me on how to pour it. I lift the bottle, letting the golden liquid run the recommended 30cm from the mouth to the POMPOMPOM glass below.
* * *
Joran’s influence on Belgian craft cider is more evident than ever. Last August, the See U hosted POMPOMPOM, Belgium's first ever craft cider festival. The event featured 11 different Belgian cider producers along with others from France and Germany. Though Joran had originally wanted to organize the first ever craft cider festival in Belgium for the Cidrothèque’s fifth anniversary, he was beaten to the punch.
His lack of involvement in the organization and execution of the festival is an indication of just how popular cider has become in five years. He’s not bitter about the festival going off without him, he even praises the group's organizers for pulling off a successful event. “[POMPOMPOM was a] really big kick and big exposure of cider in Brussels,” he says.
Even today, he’s not the only cider bar in town. Badi, which opened in January on Rue de l'Hôtel des Monnaies in Saint-Gilles, touts ciders, pet’nats and more. The minimalist design and vibe of Badi are quite different from that of Joran’s Cidrothèque–a look at their Instagrams will only exemplify these differences–but like with cider itself, the more varieties and styles the better.
It’s hard though to imagine POMPOMPOM and Badi existing in a Brussels without Joran. This cider renaissance isn’t something that just happened overnight. The number of producers, pairings, and placements, throughout various Brussels food spheres and scenes, only goes to show how the reach of cider has grown in the nearly six years since that inaugural Breton Brunch. “Of course you don’t wake up one morning, oh, I’m going to open a cider bar,” Joran says of the journey. “It’s a very long story, a very long process.”