Our Story

Paha Cider Story

Mark started homebrewing beer in the early 2000s. When he moved to Iowa with his family in 2017, he was inspired to try his hand at cidermaking because of the abundance of fresh apples growing in Iowa. After 5 years of cidermaking for friends and family, he was bolstered by questions from friends asking when they could purchase his cider. He entered a few ciders in the largest cider competition in the world (GLINTCAP) and took home some medals. At this point he figured he might be onto something!

During a Thanksgiving visit one year, Mark shared with his sister-in-law, Mo, his idea to start a cidery. Did she want to join? Heck yes! A year or so later, plans were well underway for Paha Cider.

Mark and his family live on an acreage outside of Waverly. In 2018, he started Solstice Farm, raising pastured poultry, layer hens, and cultivating mushrooms for sale at area farmers markets and through a CSA. The family planted 100 fruit trees and 120 berry shrubs: apples, pears, cherries, aronia berries, elderberries, and honeyberries. Once he decided to start a cidery, he knew he wanted to grow more apples! Mo moved to Iowa in 2022, and helped plant a high-density orchard of 120 cider apple trees. In 2023, we added an additional 50 apple trees along the driveway. Now we’re out of room and looking for more land to use for apple production.

We manage our orchard with holistic practices. Any controls or fertilizers that we use are approved for organic use. One of the great things about turning apples into cider is that many cosmetic blemishes do not negatively impact the flavor of the cider. We retain as much natural area as we can on our farm to provide habitat for native wildlife (including pollinators!) and encourage biodiversity.

While we hope to continue planting more apple trees so that we can grow as much of our own fruit as possible in the future, we won’t be able to grow everything we need for our cidery. We’re excited to source apples and juice from Iowa as much as possible, and we’ll be supplementing this with other regional juice. We are fortunate that the midwest is a prime region for growing fruit.

Thanks for following along on our journey—We’re excited to offer our ciders to a wider audience.

Aronia berry blossoms

We grow aronia berries in our orchard and use these and other Iowa aronia berries to flavor our cider

Chicken tractors

Mark also runs Solstice Farm, raising pastured chickens. The chickens run through our orchard, helping fertilize our trees.

Laying hens

Sometimes the Solstice Farm chickens get to eat the apple pomace that is left after pressing fresh apples for cider.

Tree planting

In 2023, Mo helped plant an additional 50 trees (apple and pear) along the long driveway to the cidery. We are squeezing in trees wherever we can.

Fruit trees

These apple and pear trees were planted along the driveway in 2023.

Grafted trees

Most of our trees were planted as saplings that we purchased from nurseries, but we also graft our own. These grafted trees go into a tree nursery for a year then if they thrive, we plant them in a permanent location.

Grafting trees

One of the trees that we grafted in 2023, Stoke Red: an English bittersharp cider apple.

High density orchard

In 2022, we planted a small high density orchard of 120 trees. We’re excited to be able to use some of our own apples for small batch, seasonal ciders.

Main orchard

In 2018, we planted 100 fruit trees (apple, pear, and cherry) as well as berry shrubs (aronia berries, honey berries, and elderberries). We’ll use home-grown fruit from this orchard for small-batch, seasonal ciders. It’s the orchard that first planted the idea of a cidery in Mark’s head.

Native pollinator habitat

Robin (pictured with Coco and Rio) helped make ‘bee condos’ that are placed in the main orchard and create habitat for native pollinators.

Tree planting

In 2022, we planted 120 trees in a high-density orchard. Mark is shown here planting a Porter’s Perfection, an English bittersharp cider apple tree.

Trellis installation

High density orchards require trellising, because the trees put more energy into fruit production than wood, so they need some support. Siblings Mo and Theresa are installing one of the support posts in 2022.

Apple picking

Timeless Prairie Orchard near Independence, Iowa, is one of the places we source fresh apples in the fall.

Our Team

MARK , owner and head cidermaker.

He’s the brains behind it all. He’s worked as a biologist, an electrician and photovoltaic (solar panel) system designer, and most recently as a market farmer. After moving to Iowa, Mark started raising pastured poultry, laying hens, and cultivating mushrooms under his business Solstice Farm. He’s been crafting adult beverages for almost two decades.

His favorite cider is imperial crabapple cider.

His favorite place to drink a cider is on the back porch.

When he’s not tending to the fermentation tanks, you can find him wrangling chickens or spending time outdoors with his wife and daughter, maybe cycling the Waverly Rail Trail or paddling a local river.

MO , sales and marketing director.

She likes to keep things organized. Mo worked in marketing and communications most of her career. She’s done everything from run a farmers market to build websites, and has worked primarily for food co-ops and nonprofits. She’s been appreciating Mark’s adult beverages for almost two decades.

Her favorite cider is something crisp and dry.

Her favorite place to drink a cider is in a canoe or while playing cards.

When she’s not slinging cider, she’s probably outside looking for bugs, weeding the garden, fermenting vegetables, or exploring her hometown of Decorah.

What Does Paha Mean?

A paha is a hill created by glacial soil deposits from the last ice age, always running northwest to southeast, in the direction of the prevailing winds. Our place is not on a paha, but they surround our little spot in Bremer County.

We wanted our name to evoke the unique place where we make our cider.

The owl in our logo is a barred owl. We hear their distinct call when they are perched in the trees around the cidery, “Who cooks for you?” Learn more about this amazing bird and listen to its call here. We love sharing this place with them.

Mark holding a cider in front a map of Bremer county and its pahas

Mark pictured with an Iowa Geological Survey map of Bremer County, IA from 1906, showing pahas in the area

Paha Cider Story

Our Story

Our Team

What Does Paha Mean?

Thanks for supporting our small family business!

Paha Cider