Eirik Nå Aga never planned to make cider for a living. Though he’d learned to ride a tractor on his family farm when he was 11 years old, the city called to him; he eventually left home to study chemistry at the University of Bergen.
He didn’t stay away for long. Farming ultimately drew Nå Aga back to Hardanger, a fjord region of Norway about a six-hour drive west of Oslo, where today he oversees an orchard and cidery, Store Naa Siderkompani, on his family’s estate. He learned cider-making from his father, who’d learned from his father, and so on, back seven more generations. Though Nå Aga was the first in his family to produce cider commercially—Store Naa was founded in 2018—the cider is fermented using a strain of Norwegian kveik yeast that traces to 1864.
On a sunlit Tuesday in April, Nå Aga, 35, had four bottles set up on a picnic table when I arrived at the farm for an early-season tasting tour, the first of a three-day trip around Norway’s premier cider region. (Store Naa runs tours for the public May through September.) Nå Aga’s mother, Ingrid, who was taking care of the grandkids, walked over with a question about nap time as he poured the flagship cider from 57.2—his cidery’s brand, named for the designated number of the family farm.
“This is blended with three different varieties of apples,” Nå Aga explained. My glass of straw-hued fizz caught a glint of sun. I took a sip. Its bright apple-and-honeysuckle sweetness, tempered by a slight dryness, evoked fruit-glazed sunshine.
Hardanger is oriented around the Hardangerfjord, the 113-mile sea inlet (one of the world’s longest) that dramatically cleaves much of the district from the coastal city of Bergen, which is 50 miles west of Hardangerfjord as the crow flies. Along the fjord’s edges, the steep slopes, long summer days, and the area’s particular microclimate make conditions ideal for growing apples, brought here from England by Cistercian monks in the 13th century. There are four primary varieties in the region—Discovery, Aroma, Gravenstein, and Summerred—with varying levels of acid, sugar, and tannins. Most cider makers here will use multiple varieties, honing the proportions over years of practice to create a drink that’s both delicate and aromatic.
Historically, families in the area made cider on their farms for personal use: It was a strong, recreational tonic, not an epicurean or commercial effort. But in 2003, the cider makers formed a guild that worked to establish a Protected Geographical Indication for Sider frå Hardanger. The government-regulated designation, which was instituted in 2009, can be used only for cider produced entirely in Hardanger and made solely with apples grown in the region. Today, its 2,470 acres of orchards are responsible for 80 percent of cider sales in Norway, and Hardanger has become a popular day trip for travelers spending time in Bergen.
The Utne Hotel’s back garden looks out onto the Utnefjord, a branch of the massive Hardangerfjord—one of the world’s longest.
Photo by Thomas Ekström
Now that there’s a standard, a new generation of Hardanger producers is starting to riff on it. Women are becoming more represented in the industry: Recent local winners of Norway Cider of the Year include Kvestad Sideri, a family operation launched in 2018 by partners Ellen and Haakon, and Hardangerbonden, founded in 2021 by fruit farmer Ingrid Sekse and her husband, Bård Vedvik.
The following day at Aga Sideri—whose products have claimed the coveted Cider of the Year title multiple times—I met Joar Aga, Eirik’s cousin, a lively cider maker with an energetic smile who founded his own operation in 2018, about a five-minute drive north of Store Naa. Like many of the roughly 30 producers in the area, he welcomes guests for tours and tastings; when you visit, you can also stop by his compact farm store to get fresh eggs and recently picked produce.
As we sat at the long wooden table in his rustic tasting room, Aga explained how playing with tradition led him to create his most popular product: a distinctive hopped cider. He popped open a bottle. The hops, which steep in the cider the last few days of fermentation, lend heft and a lightly bitter edge to the drink. Where a traditional Hardanger cider is a sweet, soothing string quartet, the hops make it a booming symphony.
“If my grandfather saw me putting hops into a cider, he would be kind of mad,” Aga, 38, said with a grin as he topped off my glass.
Olav Bleie grows apples for Alde Sider on his orchard in the village of Vikebygd.
Photos by Thomas Ekström
A 15-minute drive south along the fjord that afternoon—with dramatic mountains visible across the water—brought me to Alde Sider, set in a fjord-side red barn above the valley. Owner Olav Bleie was outside on his 17-acre orchard, pruning apple trees one skinny branch at a time. He pulled off a blueberry-size bud and explained how, once pollinated, it would swell and become a tiny apple by mid-May. After the harvest of the tiny apples in October, they would be pressed and fermented in stainless steel tanks for his award-winning cider, a process that takes about two weeks. The finished cider is left to mature for about a month; then it’s bottled.
Bleie, 44, isn’t sure when exactly his family started making cider. Use of the farm goes back at least 20 generations, to the Viking Age, as evidenced by the stone tools found on the property. (The date his family settled on the land, he deadpanned, is “probably closer to Jesus than [to] us.”) But he is the first in his family to sell the drink commercially. In the early 2000s, while pursuing a master’s degree in chemistry at the University of Washington, Bleie watched the Pacific Northwest craft beer scene evolve and saw an opportunity. He returned home and began commercial production in 2015; today, Alde Sider is one of the largest cider makers in Norway and offers daily tastings Tuesday through Saturday.
Bleie isn’t sure when exactly his family started making cider. The date they settled on the land, he deadpanned, is “probably closer to Jesus than [to] us.”
A merry group of Belgian tourists was saying their thanks and heading out from the airy, barnlike cidery, where Bleie showed me to the bar and presented a plate of aged Fanaost, a Norwegian Gouda-style cheese. Its nuttiness made each cider’s fruitiness seem brighter as I made my way through the tasting. Bleie explained how his chemistry background still inspires him to tinker; he experiments with combinations of apple varieties and dozens of yeast strains, which yield vastly different results. “[Maybe] you won’t figure it out, but you have fun for your whole career,” he told me. “You’re like a detective.”
The 17-room Utne, open since 1722 and now owned by Margaret Hystad, is one of Norway’s oldest continuously operating inns.
Photos by Thomas Ekström
That evening, I headed to the nearby Utne Hotel for a final night before returning to Bergen. The 304-year-old inn is adorned with antiques, portraits of austere women—all former owners—and cozy furniture arranged around a fireplace. The manager, Bjørn Hettervik, is a longtime chef who has worked in kitchens around Norway and sometimes commutes to work by motorboat from his home on an island to the west. He also helms Utne’s restaurant, where he pairs local cider with every course. At dinner, my entrée of fermented, lightly smoked trout with cider sauce and caviar was served with an especially dry pour, which Hettervik explained would accentuate the briny flavors of the dish.
The hotel also has a high-caliber restaurant, where dishes such as trout in cider sauce are served with an optional cider pairing.
Photos by Thomas Ekström
With each newly popped bottle Hettervik brought over, as I listened to his lyrical description, I held the glass to my nose for a moment and appreciated how these young, unpretentious cider makers had managed to concentrate their home—the land where they were raised, as were generations before them—into a single sip. My mind flashed back to standing with Bleie in his orchard earlier that day, both of us looking out over field and fjord. “We’re working with nature here,” he’d told me. “You taste the rain and the sun.”
Best bets for a Bergen stopover
As a younger generation of cider makers market and distribute their products more widely, ciders from Hardanger are easier than ever to find elsewhere in Norway, especially in Bergen, which most visitors will need to pass through on their way to the orchards. Here’s what to do in town.
Where to stay
In Bergen’s central harbor district, the 41-room Hôtel Charmante Skostredet has a whimsical design reminiscent of fin-de-siècle Paris. At reception, guests receive a flute of hopped cider from Aga Sideri—a rosé style made with red-flesh apples—as they check in.
Where to eat
A playful sibling of two-Michelin-starred Gaptrast upstairs, Bark offers many ciders—including one the restaurants developed in collaboration with Kvestad Sideri. When paired with a dish of langoustine, its freshness and acidity shine.
Where to drink
Bergen native Tanja Borge spent years working in Hardanger hotels before opening Siderbar, Norway’s first dedicated cider bar, in March 2026. A classy affair reminiscent of grandma’s drawing room, the bar has shelves of about 100 different bottles from throughout the country.
