Post-Gazette – Three Western Pennsylvania producers of cider, cheese and barley earned top honors earlier this month at the 2025 Pennsylvania Farm Show.
Considered the largest indoor agricultural show in the country with over 1 million square feet of exhibits, the farm show was held Jan. 4-11 in Harrisburg.
Threadbare Cider House on the North Side won the Secretary of Agriculture Cup, Best in Show and a gold medal in the modern dry category for its Farmhouse Cider.
Allegheny Mountain Malt’s barley won a blue ribbon in the corn and small grains category, and Goat Rodeo Farm & Dairy in Indiana Township won again in three cheese categories — Best in Show for More Cowbell, a cave-aged, cow’s milk cheese; first place in the goat’s milk category for Fresh Chevre; and first place in the mixed milk category for Wild Rosemary.
Threadbare Cider and Mead’s flagship Farmhouse Cider “was crafted to be our main staple since the beginning,” said Brian Bolzan, head cider maker and the first person hired by Threadbare, a sister company of Wigle Whiskey Distillery.
“Farmhouse is the second cider we ever produced and sold and has a sweetness, acidity and flavor profile that people associate with traditional Pennsylvania cider,” he said.
Farmhouse Cider (8% ABV) is made with English farmhouse yeast and uses between five and seven apple varieties. The apples are grown by Soergels Orchards in Franklin Park.
“We want to preserve the history and heritage of apple growing and honor the fruit,” Bolzan said.
Threadbare’s 16 ciders and meads are sold at its Ross Park Mall bottle shop and at beer distributors across the region.
“While cider is marketed as a beer, it’s really more like a wine,” Bolzan said. “We feel like apples are universal with people and that our Farmhouse Cider represents what cider used to be as well as what it can be in the future.”
Goat Rodeo cheeses are perennial winners at the Pennsylvania Farm Show “because we have happy goats,” said farm manager William Loevner, son of owners India and Steve Loevner.
“Our goats live in nice, heated areas and always have access to the outside. They know when their milking time is and they know they get grain (a goat treat) after they are milked.”
Loevner believes the farm’s low-stress environment and three goat species are big reasons Goat Rodeo, which opened in 2015, has won awards at the Pennsylvania Farm Show for the past eight years. The farm has about 100 Alpine, Nubian and LaMancha goats.
“Alpines produce the most milk, Nubians have the highest butterfat/protein and LaManchas are right in the middle,” he said.
They have different personalities, too. “LaManchas are the troublemakers.”
Retirees head to Allegheny GoatScape and spend their days clearing brush on hillsides. “It’s a pretty good retirement,” Loevner said.
The farm’s six “hands-on” employees produce six cheeses. In addition to the award winners, they make Bamboozle, a semi-soft, mixed-milk, aged cheese flavored with prosciutto and peanuts and washed with beer from Cinderlands Beer Co.; Cowboy Coffee, an aged, mixed-milk cheese rubbed with Commonplace Coffee’s Perpetual Blend Espresso; and Hootenanny, a spring and summer goat’s milk Gouda cheese with notes of hickory nuts and wildflowers.
Since most cheeses take eight months of aging to reach their full flavor, it can take well over a year to bring a new cheese to market, Loevner said. Goat Rodeo cheeses can be found at Giant Eagle Market District stores, Whole Foods and other outlets and restaurants. For details, visit goatrodeocheese.com.
For Allegheny Mountain Malt, Vince Mangini buys the barley seed and distributes it to 10 Western Pennsylvania farmers, who plant it along with other grains as part of their crop rotation. The farmers grow and harvest the barley for Allegheny Mountain Malt, a project of the regional nonprofit Food21.
The grain, which is distributed by by Zilka and Co. of Hunker, Westmoreland County, is turned into brewers malt by Butler County-based CNC Malting Co. and sold to 20-30 regional brewers.
Mangini, Food21’s value center manager, chose this year’s farm show entry from a Laurel Highlands field that produced barley with “a vibrant color and plumpness to the kernels,” he said.
This was Food21’s first submission and it took first prize in the corn and small grains category.
“It took about three seasons to get the hang of growing barley,” Mangini said. “It can be tough to grow.”
This crop was planted late in the season, he said.
“We typically plant barley in September or early October, but this year they put it in the ground Nov. 15. In the spring, the frost affected the other barley that was further along, but didn’t harm ours. That taught us a lesson that we should spread our plantings around to hedge bets against spring frosts.”
Barley, a profitable cover crop for farmers, is planted in the fall and helps to prevent soil erosion and reduce weeds. Since Food21 takes only the heads of the barley, farmers can use the rest to make hay as livestock feed.