Waves Cider Co. Opens in Columbia

It may have been space camp and a band that brought them together, but owning Logboat Brewing Co.—and now a cider company—has kept Judson Ball, Andrew Sharp, and Tyson Hunt in sync. 

After six years of owning the Columbia staple Logboat Brewing Co., the founders were ready to open a brand new space just a mile away from the brewery. Waves Cider Co. opened its tasting room for the first time this week with limited capacity and short hours. 

“We were out of room completely at Logboat and had a lot of ideas in mind, so we just wanted to create a space that allowed us to diversify and play around on a smaller scale,” co-owner Andrew Sharp says. 

The look inside of the tasting room differs from Logboat’s with bright colors welcoming you and a large outdoor patio with seating for roughly thirty people. The front of the business is completely dedicated to cider making while Logboat uses space in the back to experiment with various new beverages.

The team is constantly dreaming up new ideas and bringing them to life with Brewmaster and Head Cider Maker Josh Rein, and making a gluten-free beverage was also important to them. This was especially true for co-owner Judson Ball, who realized he was allergic to wheat and barley two years after opening Logboat.

“We’ve had a lot of friends and family members and people that have come to the brewery and say, ‘I want to support you guys, I just can’t because I’m allergic to beer,’ so creating a beverage for people that have some food allergies like myself, I think was very important to round out our portfolio,” Judson says.

The team constantly have new drinks in the works as they look forward to the upcoming years at both Logboat and Waves Cider. 

“Being able to dream and scheme on owning our own orchards and playing around with twenty to twenty-five different types of apples over the course of the next ten years… I think there’s just a lot of romanticism around that, and it struck a chord with all of us,” Andrew says.

For now, Waves Cider Co. is mainly focused on rentals for groups of ten or more people with the tasting room open for short hours during the week. This week’s hours are Thursday and Friday 4–9 PM and Saturday 2–9PM.

“The space is done and we’re excited to share it with everyone,” Judson says. “We want to get people in there, but we want to make sure that we’re doing it responsibly and safely for patrons and for our staff.”

If you are interested in renting the space, visit WavesCider.com. See their weekly hours at Facebook.com/wavescidercompany.