HAUER APPLE

The Story of the Hauer Apple

 

This is an antique apple created by Peter Hauer in the 1890’s near Watsonville CA, one of only two varieties believed to have originated in the Pajaro Valley of Santa Cruz Co.

 

Peter’s parents had moved from Baltimore MD to Santa Cruz County in the late 1850’s and then homesteaded land in Pleasant Valley in1870. Born in 1859, he was a lifetime apple and fruit tree grower in that area until his passing in 1951. The story from his niece, Muriel Hauer, is that Peter found a wild Yellow Bellflower seedling up a canyon on his property in Pleasant Valley in the late 1890’s, and tried different grafts or hybrids until he selected the best, which was with a Cox’s Orange Pippin brought from Australia.

 

He, with his brother John Hauer, did the work in Claus Speckles’ nursery near Aptos. (Other accounts say he found the seedling which was the Hauer Pippin, a presumed hybrid of the two mentioned varieties, which were growing nearby.)  Six of the original trees survive on the family homestead along with a couple hundred younger ones from scions of the originals grown on semi-dwarf rootstock.

 

This vintage apple, which Peter called the Hauer “Special”, is also known as the 'Christmas Apple'. It is a very late-November to December ripening apple that seemed to keep forever.  Up through the 1930’s, prior to adequate refrigeration, the Hauer “Special” pippin filled an important niche of providing an apple through the late winter months though Spring. The Hauer quickly gained fame in San Francisco, where it became the main apple from February through June. The apples were even shipped through the Panama Canal to England where they were sold as premium apples in spring. A 1912 SF Chronicle’s Apple Annual page mentions the ‘Hauer brothers’ 300,000-tree apple nursery, one of the largest in the west’.

 

Described as spicy, tart and sweet, the Hauer pippin has firm, crisp, juicy, creamy white flesh. This fine dessert apple is well suited to a variety of uses and can be eaten fresh, in pies, baked, apple sauce, apple butter, and juiced. This apple is also garnering the interest of cider producers. The Hauer Apple’s resistance to disease and insects make it easier to produce organically than most commercial varieties, and it satisfies a local need for a late-ripening apple that can be direct-marketed by small to medium sized fruit growers.

 

Slow Food USA placed the Hauer in its 2009 Ark of Taste, a catalog of more than 200 fine foods in danger of disappearance. It is found in the 2017 USDA GRIN collection to be preserved as an important genetic plant resource. Specimens are at the UC Santa Cruz Alan Chadwick Garden and at the Filoli Estate garden. Trees are available online. With the help of the Monterey Bay Ark chapter, farmers are again planting Hauer Apple trees in the Pajaro Valley and other areas of California, and due to good regional demand, the apple is making a comeback. 

Flavor

Described by tasters as spicy, clove-like, and sweet, the Hauer Pippin is a round to flat-round, medium to large apple with a thick skin that blushes a rich red very late in the season. The creamy to yellowish white flesh is juicy with very high sugars and relatively low acidity even after several weeks of storage.