Brendan Coyle helped put Park City’s High West Distillery on the map as one of the leading boutique whiskey producers in the U.S., and now he’s aiming to change perceptions of hard cider with his newest venture, Dendric Estate. But really, it all began with mountain biking.
Coyle, who grew up outside of Minneapolis, came to Utah in the late 1990s with two goals in mind: to get a college degree and to mountain bike as much as he could. In fact, he didn’t even downhill ski at the time, although back in Minnesota he had, unsurprisingly, cross-country skied.
Eventually, while he studied at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Coyle discovered a third goal. A neighbor had gifted him a homebrew kit, and making beer soon turned into more than a passion project. “I was spending all my free time and money homebrewing,” Coyle says, “So I realized I should think about a career in it.” He soon landed an apprenticeship at Salt Lake City’s Red Rock Brewing.
But Coyle didn’t stop with beer. After four years at Red Rock, he enrolled in a two-year master’s in brewing and distilling sciences at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. When he returned to Utah, he got connected with the team then starting High West, which was looking for a master distiller. “I was interested in building something from the ground up, and I came on as a managing partner,” he says.
In 2016, when Constellation Brands acquired High West for its portfolio of liquor companies, Coyle stayed on, but his role shifted as he oversaw production quality for Constellation’s global spirits group. After traveling the world for the job, working with not just whiskey but other spirits too, he also homed in on what he valued: hands-on craft. “I gained some great experience,” he explains, “but it also taught me how far was too far. I needed to have a close connection to the product.”
While still at Constellation, Coyle says, he got the “entrepreneurial bug” again and began workshopping the idea of a high-mountain estate winery, which is how he describes what became Dendric Estate. “Most people don’t know that cider is a style of wine,” he suggests.
Indeed, as cider’s popularity has grown in the U.S., it’s viewed as more of an alternative to beer than to wine, thanks to its carbonation and a similar alcohol content. “I thought that was crazy,” says Coyle, who encountered the more wine-like European ciders during his travels. “I got really interested in the side of the cider world that you don’t see in the United States. By using classic winemaking techniques and heritage apple varietals, you can create a product that is far closer to wine than beer.”
With his new business, Coyle is drawing on his experience in upending expectations. “I’m pretty proud of disrupting and blurring the lines within the world of whiskey and spirits,” he says of his time at High West. One of that distillery’s innovative blends he points to is Campfire, which includes bourbon, rye and peated scotch that impart just a hint of the scotch’s smoky flavor.
Dendric released its first cider, Dry Cut, last summer. A light and refreshing pour, it has no residual sugar, which makes it taste bone dry. Coyle calls it intentionally versatile and food friendly. “Cider plays the same role as dry, sparkling white wine,” he says, “and Dry Cut has a nice, bright acidity that accents tropical notes. It drinks very much like a high-acid, sparkling sauvignon blanc.”
Future releases will have different flavor profiles, but you won’t see pineapple cider or jalapeno guava cider. Coyle emphasizes, “We’re not going down the alcopop road.”
For now, the Dendric team (which includes Coyle’s wife, Carly) sources most of the apples from orchards around the Mountain West. The goal is to eventually have 15 acres of fruit growing on Dendric’s 20-acre property near Kamas, which the Coyles bought in 2019. But, just like the estate’s cider-making process that requires most of a year due to two fermentations, aging time and patience is required.
The Coyles spent the past five years experimenting with which apple varietals can thrive on their 6,500-foot-elevation land. Of the more than 40 types they tried, they’ve selected a half-dozen or so to continue planting, including red-flesh apples that will eventually be transformed into a dry, sparkling rosé cider.
In addition to saplings, Dendric focuses on sustainable, organic agricultural methods, with perhaps the biggest initiative being water conservation and reuse. The orchard is testing a system that uses aerobic digestion to convert wastewater into a means of irrigation and hopes to eventually procure a state permit for the process, which Coyle says will save more than one million gallons of water a year.
Later this year, the cidery will break ground for a tasting room. In the meantime, cider connoisseurs can find Dry Cut in local bars and restaurants, at liquor stores in Utah and for purchase and shipping to eight states on Dendric’s website.
Brendan Coyle’s Park City Picks
Go-to eats: There’s a new place called Matilda that does wood-fired pizzas that are outstanding. Handle is still one of my favorite places to eat and drink — I’m a huge fan of what they’re doing. A little off the radar is Twisted Fern, which has a great culinary and drink program.
Fave High West quaff: The Hemsedal, of course. [The drink is named after a mountain village in Norway.] It has Dendric Dry Cut in it and a touch of aquavit [as well as rye, apple brandy, fino, lemon and thyme]. It’s a twist on a mountain spritz.
Best bike rides: Park City is one of the cross-country mountain biking meccas in the Lower 48, with over 450 miles of singletrack in the valley. The first trail I ever rode here was Grave Digger, so that one’s near and dear to my heart. I’ve also started to ride more in the surrounding area, like Slate Creek Trail in the western Uintas. And I love desert riding, getting down to southern Utah.
Digging into history: The silver mining history behind Park City, and how the town came to be, is really interesting. A lot of people don’t know anything about it. You can tour the historic mining sites by looking at a map [skiutah.com] that shows you where they exist. And there’s a nonprofit [Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History] that raises money to protect them.
