Do you drink cider? I don’t now, but I will in about 2-4 weeks when our new local cidery in South End opens.

Red Clay Ciderworks will produce a drier tasting cider that appeals to beer and white wine drinks (not Angry Orchard style).

Yesterday at 3 pm, I popped in on Jamie, Jay and Jonathan (solid team alliteration) as they were hard at work finishing up the taproom and connecting ginormous silver, cider maker thingies.

10 things to know

• Opening their doors for a few soft openings in roughly two weeks (around July 1), then to the general public, followed by a grand opening in mid-July. Exact dates are TBD.
• Likely to launch with four ciders on tap.
• Recently acquired an awesome hand built regulation curling / shuffleboard game (photos below).
• Tap room is 1,300 square feet. Production facility in the back is huge – 8,500 square feet.
• Red Clay Cider core team: Jamie Bradish, Jay Bradish, Deanna Bradish & Jonathon Repholz. Know more.
• Shortly after opening, Red Clay Ciderworks plans on having a few local beers on draft as well as regional ciders.
• Eventually will have a “bottle shop” type offering where visitors can purchase a fairly wide array of bottled and canned craft ciders from around both the country and the world.
• It’s likely that 2-5 local breweries around Charlotte will serve Red Clay Ciderworks on draft shortly after they launch. It’s cool that this is complimentary to the growing brewery scene in town.
• Bar will be upfitted with USB wall outlets because no bartender likes to deal with charging people’s phones (Birdsong has this too). 
• Follow Red Clay Ciderworks’ progress on their Facebook and Twitter accounts.