Vintners have a saying: It takes a lot of beer to make good wine.

Harvesting and crushing grapes can be hot, thirsty business. Sometimes, you want something with a little more pep than water, said Gary Stewart, winemaker and co-owner of Four Brix Winery in Ventura.

But Stewart isn't much of a beer drinker. That's especially true since Karen Stewart –his wife and the winery's operations manager – was diagnosed as being gluten intolerant.

"Karen started bringing home a lot of ciders. And I found them ... not great," he said. "I wondered if I could do better."

The result is Pier City Cider, the hard-cider experiment Gary Stewart started more than two years ago.

Thought to be the first cider made in Ventura for commercial release – and certainly the first made by one of the city's handful of working wineries – the label will make its official debut during Summer Solstice-weekend festivities at the combination winery and cider house.

The event will include the unveiling of five cider flavors on June 21, when the Farm & Flame food truck will be on site from 5:30 p.m. and the Summer Concerts in the Cellar series will feature the classic-rock band Ignition from 6 to 8:30 p.m.

The party will continue from noon to 5 p.m. June 22-23, when games like corn hole and Jenga will be available.

The celebration is a long way from Stewart's first attempts at making cider, which he described as "tasting like the stuff that was already out there."

But after hitting on the idea of adding unique flavors to his Champagne-like ciders, Stewart started offering sample pours to Four Brix patrons to get their feedback.

"I was trying to come up with something that wasn't so sweet you took a couple of sips and were done, but not so dry or austere that you need food with it," he said.

"We were looking for light and refreshing. That's what triggered the Pier City name. We wanted something that was in tune with Ventura and going to the beach."

The informal polling process helped Stewart select Pier City's introductory flavors: sour apple, persimmon-lavender, pineapple-habanero-basil, mojito-inspired lime and Maggie's Melons, a margarita-esque cider flavored with watermelon.

They will be $8 per glass and $24 for a four-pack of bottles.

Each cider has an alcohol content of about 7%.

"It's a much lighter drink, compared to wine. Cider is for drinking while you're firing up the barbecue to grill a steak to go with a nice cabernet," Stewart said.

Pier City's flavors were inspired by life experiences, he added.

"One of the ladies we purchase grapes from in Paso Robles has a mile-long driveway lined with persimmon trees. For the past 10 years, I've been driving down that road, watching these orange fruits go by. I was not a huge fan. Then she handed me two bags of dried persimmons and, wow, the flavor is so good," Gary Stewart said with a laugh.

Karen Stewart hand-writes the name of each flavor on the labels, which have undergone a makeover since the project's near-introduction last year. Designed by Orange County-based FRW Studios, they now feature the Ventura Pier silhouetted against the ocean, with Channel Islands National Park in the distance.

"We wanted it to be geographically correct, with the pier facing the right way," she said. "That's something our locals are going to notice."

Owned by the Stewarts and two other couples, Four Brix opened to the public in 2011, making it the first full-scale winery and tasting room in Ventura since the owners of Leeward Winery retired and closed up shop four years earlier.

After expanding into an adjoining business-park space about two years ago, the winery includes a special-events area that hosts private events and regular Friday-night concerts, all within view of its wine barrels and fermentation tanks.

Those same stainless-steel tanks are also used for the ciders Gary Stewart makes from Washington-grown apples that are crushed into juice and sent to the cider house in a refrigerated truck within 24 hours.

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"We already have to deal with what's left from crushing grapes, so this is easier," he said. "After that, we treat it just like white wine, but with the addition of Champagne yeast and natural flavors." The latter come in the form of purees and essences, like lavender.

By introducing Pier City Cider to its production mix, Four Brix joins an elite group of Ventura County wineries that have added to their made-on-site beverage options. That group previously consisted solely of Camarillo's Cantara Cellars, which unveiled its in-house brewery, Flat Fish Brewing Co., in spring 2018. (Vintner-brewmaster Mike Brown plans to add a distillery at some point.)

But while Flat Fish required a small beer manufacturer license and the creation of designated service-counter areas to operate under the same roof as Cantara Cellars, Four Brix's winegrower license allows it to make almost anything, so long as it starts with fruit.

Further, bottles and on-tap pours of Pier City Ciders can be served from the same counters where tasting room patrons order Four Brix wines by the flight, glass and bottle.

"We see it as a way to reach out and find that audience that is looking for something different, like the couple where one of them likes wine and the other likes cider," Stewart said.

Dual offerings have worked well for Cantara Cellars and Flat Fish Brewing Co., said Brown. "We've had a great response from clients pleasantly surprised to find beer and wine together. Beer is selling well, and wine sales have grown more than we expected."

Interest in ciders is on the upswing.

Other labels in the area include Anna's Cider, launched by the husband-and-wife team of Dominic and Anna O'Reilly just a month before the Thomas Fire destroyed their original Santa Paula facility in December 2017. The O'Reillys have since rebuilt Ventura County's first cidery, and their hard ciders made from California-grown apples are sometimes found on tap in the tasting room at Ojai's Topa Mountain Winery, where Dominic O'Reilly serves as winemaker.

Anna's Ciders are also available in bottles and cans via mail order and at stores and restaurants in Ventura, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties. A tasting room is in the works at what used to be the offices of a used-car dealership on Main Street in downtown Santa Paula (https://annascider.com).

To the north, The Apiary in Carpinteria specializes in cider, mead and hard kombucha made from local honey and apples grown in Santa Barbara County. Its comparatively tiny business-park taproom marked its third anniversary this month (http://www.theapiary.co).

To the south, 101 Cider House is billed as the first cider house in Los Angeles, and one of the largest in the state, two years after it outgrew the custom-crush facility at Aldabella Custom Crush Winery & Storage in Westlake Village. A grand opening is planned this summer in Los Angeles for its new tasting room and attached outdoor venue, both of which are already available for private events, said Mark McTavish, 101 Cider House founder and president (https://www.101cider.com).

The Stewarts plan to limit Pier City's production for now.

"Don't forget: Karen's writing on the labels by hand. We're starting with a whopping seven cases of each flavor," Gary Stewart said.

And there's still wine to be made.

Four Brix's first pinot noir – a 2017 vintage from Zotovich Vineyards in the Sta. Rita Hills – could make its debut this fall, the Stewarts said. Meanwhile, this year will see the winery's first syrah harvest from a new-to-the-label vineyard.

"We'll be out there with our own cider this time," Karen Stewart said with a laugh.

For information about Pier City Cider, visit the website at http://piercitycider.com. Starting June 21, it will share hours and an address with Four Brix Winery, which is open from noon to 5 p.m. Thursdays, noon to 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays (2290 Eastman Ave., Suite 109, 805-256-6006, https://fourbrixwine.com).

'TITANIC' EFFORT

Even after more than 20 years of replays on VHS (!!!), CD, DVD and various streaming services, chances are you've never seen "Titanic" quite the way it will be shown June 22 in Thousand Oaks.

Described as an outdoor concert-film event, "Titanic Live" will pair the Academy Award-winning 1997 film with singers and the 130-piece New West Symphony as they perform the Oscar-winning score by late composer James Horner in the William Rolland Stadium at California Lutheran University.

Come hungry – and thirsty. At 5:30 p.m., a pre-movie festival organized by Brian Hynes of Borderline Bar & Grill will include a beer garden, food trucks and picnic space in the courtyard just outside the stadium. The featured brewery will be 14 Cannons of Westlake Village, joined by food trucks Baby's Bad Ass Burgers, Maria's Mexican, Smiley's Hot Dog Cart and The Grilled Cheese Truck.

Free ice cream will be available while supplies last; students from the symphony's Laby Harmony Project will perform.

Stadium doors will open at 6:30 p.m., followed by the main concert-film event at 7:30. Beer, wine, coffee and tea will also be available for purchase inside the stadium.

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General admission tickets are $25 to $59. Reserved tickets are $120. VIP tickets, $175, include a red-carpet entrance, cocktails and appetizers, reserved seating and a reception with a tribute to Horner.

Call 805-497-5800 or click on https://newwestsymphony.org.

FARM TO TABLE

Slow Food Ventura County is traveling over the Los Angeles County line for its next event, An Open Fire Dinner in Malibu. The dinner from 5-10 p.m. June 29 at Plumcot Farm will feature "plant-forward" dishes by chef Matthew Roberts using "an abundant harvest of over 50 vegetables, herbs and fruits, picked and prepared just in time for service," according to an email from SFVC chair Charles Barth.

Herbalist William Siff will greet attendees with strawberry-rhubarb fizzes before they settle in for a menu that includes avocado gazpacho with cascabel chile and fermented spring garlic, charred carrots with Fresno chilies and grilled stone fruit with pickled mustard seed.

The non-vegan main course will include whole roasted lamb from Jimenez Family Farm of the Santa Ynez Valley and smoked heritage pork from Apricot Lane Farms of Moorpark – and of a theater near you, thanks to the recent release of "The Biggest Little Farm." Dessert will be lemon verbena-duck egg custard with fresh figs and prickly pear syrup.

For tickets, $85 per person, click on https://bit.ly/2R9uUpH.

Local farms, ranches and purveyors will be showcased during the Farm to Table Gourmet Event, presented in Ventura from 4-7 p.m. July 13 as a fundraiser for the Ventura County Sheriff's Foundation.

Jason Collis, co-owner of Ventura County-based Plated Events by Chef Jason and the newly named director of global procurement for World Central Kitchen, will oversee the menu featuring produce from Deardorff Family Farms, Rio Gozo Farm and Underwood Family Farms, among others. Dishes will include pork from Atmore Ranch, cherrywood-smoked tri-tip, Earl's Gone Wild habanero jam-glazed salmon and table-side service of a Limoneira-Channel Islands Distillery citrus margarita sherbet dressing.

Opolo wines and selections from a local microbrewery will also be served.

For tickets, $100 per person, go to https://bit.ly/2Zn2A6l.

OPEN, SHUT AND IN BETWEEN

In case you missed it, the Open & Shut column in the June 8 Business section of The Star included information on the grand openings of Braxton's Kitchen in Camarillo and Fun Burger in Simi Valley, the impending closure of Outback Steakhouse in Thousand Oaks, and the coming-soon status of Vineyard Cafe in Oxnard, Barone's Pizza in Thousand Oaks and DW's Country Cafe and Sanay Gourmet Noodle in Ventura.

To read it, click on https://bit.ly/2I8hUxL.

Lisa McKinnon is a staff writer for The Star. To contact her, send email to lisa.mckinnon@vcstar.com.