A new chapter in NCW's fruit legacy: The rise of Pear UP Cider

EAST WENATCHEE— Starting from his great-grandparents’ century-old pear orchard, East Wenatchee resident, Kevin Van Reenen, works as a pioneer for the nation’s pear cider industry. Van Reenen runs Pear UP, one of the United States’ first true pear cider production companies, revolutionizing the world of cider-pressing right in the Wenatchee Valley. 

Van Reenen grew up helping his grandparents, the Neigel-Vintners, in their pear orchard each season. Though they prepared their pears in nearly every way imaginable, the Neigel-Vintners never tried their hand at pressing cider. Only after returning to the area with a master’s degree in finance did Van Reenen begin seeing pear cider as a possible new chapter in his family’s local pear legacy. 

He began pressing his grandparents’ pears as a side hobby to his career in Boeing, using a 120-year-old cider press from the Blewett Pass area to churn out his first batches. After bringing a small first batch to his wedding, people were blown away by the cider’s sweet yet uniquely light palette. When partygoers told him that they would pay for more of his homebrewed cider, Van Reenen knew he had struck gold.

“They were like, ‘I would pay you for this,’ and I was like, ‘I would let you pay me for this. Is that all it takes to go pro?’” he chuckled, owing part of his initial success to beginner’s luck. “I was working at Boeing, so I started kind of doing it on the side. And my first batch that I did, we blew it out of the water. Amazing. Or lucky, I should say.” 

Van Reenen began producing seriously, founding the Pear UP company and looking for distributors to spread his cider across the country. As production increased, he turned to Peshastin’s Hi-Up growers for exclusively local pears, allowing him to press larger quantities of cider. Though he had no issue with finding demand for his uniquely tasty cider, Van Reenen quickly found that he was one of the first hard pear cider pressers in the entire county, leading to a variety of legislative issues for his business. 

One of the largest initial challenges for Pear UP’s cider came from taxes, which targeted the untapped pear cider market with much higher taxes than apple cider. Van Reenen reacted to this unbalanced taxation by pushing for more defined federal pear cider legislation, working alongside lawmakers to forge a path ahead for his emerging industry. 

“The tax class in the US for pear cider was apple cider with pear flavor. So there was pear cider out there, but there wasn’t; it was apple. I found out there was a reason why [there was no hard pear cider], I was [paying] three times the tax of apple when I started because basically, the feds had no idea what to do with me,” he explained. “So, all you had to do was go to the Library of Congress and spill some white-out on the ‘apple,’ and then it would just be ‘cider.’ So, I worked with a congressman out of Oregon to help get that written so I could be on a level playing field for taxes.”  

Another major challenge for Pear UP came about within the cider-making process itself. Though many cider producers claim that pears are a much simpler fruit to ferment into hard cider, Van Reenen believes the opposite is true after years of pear cider experience. 

For one, pears lack many of the nutrients required for a healthy ferment, making it more difficult to produce consistently fermented batches of cider. To tackle this issue, Van Reenen worked alongside a lab in California, which helped him find the perfect composition for his unique cider. 

“I’ve had a lot of brewers tell me, ‘It’s the easiest ferment there is. From a scientific perspective, it is arguably the exact opposite. It’s arguably the hardest because it’s cane sugar and water, what that’s bringing to the table nutrient-wise is nothing. Like, no nitrogen. It’s not bringing anything to the table for a healthy ferment,” Van Reenen revealed. “So, I got a lab in California that I worked with on seltzer, and they just nailed the composition to get it very clean.” 

Van Reenen now runs The Orchard Cider, Seltzer, and Mead House, at Valley Mall Parkway in East Wenatchee, just down the road from the location of his family’s old orchard. The upstairs of The Orchard features a welcoming lounge and bar for locals to gather, mingle, and sip some cider away from the Summer’s boiling heat. Their downstairs is where the entire production occurs for not just Pear UP, but also Van Reenen’s other up-and-coming businesses, including Mead UP and Eastmont Seltzer Works, all owned under his overarching Neigel Vintners company, an homage to his family’s legacy. 

One aspect of this new growth that has helped Van Reenen maintain such a high level of production is the ability to hire staff to assist in production and distribution. 

Nathan Tschritter from Wenatchee has been working at Pear UP’s production for over three months, helping with the laborious task of checking, marking, and filling bottles. This long process entails inspecting every single bottle with a flashlight for dust or debris and then marking each one for its planned flavor. 

While knocking out a few cases of bottles in the morning, Tschritter commented on his satisfaction with his job at Pear UP.

“I’m pretty excited. I know that on the production side because we are a growing business, it can get a little hectic. But, it’s consistent hours, fun workplace, great coworkers, and a boss that’s really chill,” Tschritter chuckled with a smile.

As Pear UP continues to grow as an internationally recognized brand, Van Reenen just enjoys seeing locals kick back and enjoy themselves at The Orchard. He still works with friends and family from the community to workshop fun names for Pear UP’s new cider flavors, including ‘raspeary’ and their 10th anniversary special, ‘Pear Necessities.’ 

As Van Reenen keeps up with his rapidly expanding business, running between The Orchard and his kids' soccer tournaments, he has no regrets about leaving his job at Boeing to pursue the pear-cider business and add to his family’s local legacy in pears. Through Pear UP and his other locally sourced businesses, Van Reenen helps represent Central Washington’s uniquely delicious fruit in a fresh and popular growing industry, continuing NCW’s long-held tradition as the world’s fruit basket. 

For more information about Pear UP, visit their official website at pearupcider.com 

Will Nilles: (509) 731-3211 or will@ward.media