Woodchuck Hard Cider announced the limited release of Woodchuck Private Reserve Barrel Select.

If you were to ask Bret Williams a year ago whether he would ever sell Vermont Hard Cider Co., the answer would have been, “No.” When the president and chief executive officer of the Middlebury, Vt.-based company originally purchased the Woodchuck hard cider brand and facility in 2003, it was not about developing a big company or brand; it was about saving jobs.

Vermont Hard Cider Co. President and Chief Executive Officer Bret Williams estimates that when he joined the Middlebury, Vt.-based company in 1996 as its first sales associate that the company shipped approximately 300,000 cases a year. In 2012, the company shipped 3 million cases of its Woodchuck Hard Cider brand, he says.

Vermont Hard Cider Co. LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ireland-based C&C Group plc, announced that construction is under way on its new, state-of-the-art cidery in Middlebury, Vt. The $30 million project is being built less than a mile from the current Middlebury facility, it says.