Category: Cider

Crispin Hard Apple Cider Artisanal Reserve: The Saint

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Maker: Crispin Cider Co., Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Notes: Made with Belgian Trappist yeasts and flavored with maple syrup

ABV: 6.9%

Appearance: cloudy gold, especially when served in ice as recommended.

Nose: A little yeasty funk and then some bright apple tartness.

On the palate: Medium-bodied, but rich. The sweetness and woodiness the syrup brings to the table are a nice counterpoint to the funky, slightly floral notes of the yeast and the tartness of the apple. Balanced but complex.

Finish: Clean but the funk lives on in a very pleasant way and the sweetness lingers in the cheeks for a good long while with a nice banana flavor.

Parting words: This is a very nice drink. This is not a table cider, but one for contemplation as befitting its Trappist heritage. Not much else to say really. Crispin does good things with cider. I recommend The Saint.

Cinnamon Girl Hard Cider

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Maker: Left Foot Charley Winery, Traverse City, Michigan, USA

Style: Spiced cider (infused with cassia sticks)

ABV: 5.2%

Appearance: Old gold. Persistently effervescent.

Nose: Crisp apples and a hint of spice.

On the palate: Full-bodied and sweet on initial entry. As the cider lingers in the mouth a bit, the cassia/cinnamon comes through. It’s not fiery or overbearing, it’s just a pleasant twist on what is already a delicious American-style hard cider. It’s like a liquid version of my mother’s apple crisp.

Finish: Sweet and slightly spicy. The sweetness lingers for quite a long time. Pure, crisp bliss from beginning to end.

Parting words: Cinnamon Girl works fine as either a dessert cider or a table cider, especially with Mexican cuisine. It works best as a sunny fall afternoon cider or a party cider for sharing. No matter how you drink it, if you love sweeter ciders, you’ll love Cinnamon Girl. Highly Recommended. Unfortunately it is only available at Left Foot Charley winery in Traverse City, Michigan. Call ahead to make sure they have it on tap.

Review: Magner’s Original Irish Cider

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Maker: Magner’s/Bulmer’s, Clonmel, Tipperary, Ireland (C&C Group)

ABV: 4.5%

Appearance: gold with an odd pinkish hue. Fizzy, but the head dissipates quickly.

Nose: Yeasty and dry, sourdough bread.

On the Palate: slightly sweet with a hint of sourness like Granny Smith apples or the cider apple equivalent.  A hint of some other sort of fruit is lurking in the background. Cherry or raspberry maybe?

Finish: Dry fading into an assertively yeasty taste.

Parting words: This cider is firmly in the British style. Sugar has been added and it is effective at tempering the yeast and sour
dryness. It’s more amicable than some of the bone-dry English ciders that seem to take their cues from Champagne than anything else. But in sweetening itself up it loses some of the subtlety that makes the bone dry British ciders interesting.  At any rate, a nice refreshing drink, but not worth seeking out.

Head to Head How much wood?: Woodchuck Fall Cider vs. Woodchuck Winter Cider

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1)      Woodchuck Fall Cider (with added spice)

2)      Woodchuck Winter Cider (flavored with French and American oak)

ABV

1)      5%

2)      5%

Color

1)      Dark Amber

2)       Copper

Nose

1)      Sweet, pumpkin spice: allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon

2)      Pungent, sourdough bread, effervescent

On the Palate

1)      Fairly heavy mouthfeel.   Very sweet, like pumpkin bread.  Very little apple coming through.

2)      Light apple flavor, dark sweetness, drier than most Woodchuck.  A surprising amount of wood, with a very faint hint of vanilla

Finish

1)      Cloying, sweet fairly short.

2)      Still short, but dry and lightly sweet.

Parting words

I really didn’t care too much for the fall Woodchuck.  It was too sweet and too heavily spiced.  The winter edition was much better.  The addition of the wood adds an extra dimension to the latter that makes it very much worth trying.  The fact that wood barrels are not mentioned on the label, only that French and American oak was used, leads me to believe that it was flavored with wood chips, not in barrels.  So what do you say, Woodchuckers?  How about a bourbon barrel Woodchuck sometime in the future?

Review: Sleeping Bear Farmhouse Cider

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Maker: Sleeping Bear Winery (Brooklyn, Michigan)

ABV: 6%

Color: straw

Nose: rich, hint of tartness, butter, apple pie, minus the spice

Palate: Suprisingly dry and hefty, pleasantly effervescent

Finish: More surprises: sweet and delicate

Parting Words: Very food friendly particularly with shellfish and chicken.  A pleasant, delicate cider that could benefit from higher ABV , but overall is well-balanced and not syrupy or gimmicky.  A good, solid cidere de table.  According to the Sleeping Bear website, they are currently sold out, but I’m sure there are some out there on store shelves and hopefully a new batch will be coming along later this year.

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Black Star Farms Carbonated Apple Hard Cider

Maker: Black Star Farms Winery (Traverse City, Michigan)

ABV: 7%

Is there anything Black Star Farms doesn’t do well?  One may well ask.  At the most recent Michigan Wine & Spirits competition they did fairly well: Best of Class Dry White: Black Star Farms – 2009 Arcturos Pinot Gris, Best of Class Semi-Dry White: Black Star Farms – 2009 Arcturos Riesling, Best of Class Sparkling Wine: Black Star Farms – 2008 Sparkling Wine, Double Gold: 2007 A Capella Pinot Noir.  Not too shabby.  They also have an aged apple brandy and numerous eaux de vie.  Rumor has it that a 10 year old apple brandy will be hitting the shelves of their Traverse City tasting room soon.  I’ve put my best dusty-hunting friends on the case.

Anyway, this apple cider, presumably the younger cousin to their brandies, is not exception.  It is in the dry-ish British style (of the mass-produced ones we get here, anyway) but doesn’t go off the edge like the one I reviewed from Motor City.

The nose is light, almost like a Riesling, sweet apple blossoms and a bit of citrus.  In the mouth, it’s all crisp, early season golden skinned “eating” apples, like Golden Delicious or Ginger Gold.  The sweetness then comes in, but fades away quickly.  The finish is light and sweet.  This is one of the best ciders I’ve had since I’ve started this blog.

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Woodchuck Summer Cider (Limited Release)

Maker: Green Mountain Cidery, Middlebury, Vermont.

ABV: 5%

Wow, I hadn’t realized that it had been this long since I posted!  Well I haven’t stopped drinking, but I have stopped writing.  So let’s remedy that right now shall we?

This cider is the special summer release for Woodchuck.  The bottle is mostly blue.  Initially I thought it was just to project a cool summer image of lakeside living.  But as it turns out there’s another reason.  As their website states,

“If there was going to be an official drink for the summer season, it would be our Limited Release Summer Cider. It was inevitable; we were going to come up with a Summer Cider at some point, mostly because the two just fit together so nicely. Our Summer Cider is light, crisp, and leaves the tingle of fresh-picked Blueberries on the tip of your tongue.

“Blueberries are a New England tradition that everyone looks forward to. They’re found in the cool shady spots off the trail when you least expect it. You’ve got to hunt for them, but the reward of sweet Blueberries on a hot summer afternoon is not to be forgotten. Neither is the stain they leave on your shirt.”

Wow, what a cool New England tradition!  I’ve never heard of those before, what are they called again?, blue berries?  Wow, us midwestern slobs have nothing like that around here!

All sarcasm aside, I did sense something a little different about this cider when I first tried it but I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time.  It’s a testament to how seriously the folks at Green Mountain take their produce.  The cider itself is a pale straw color (not some blue kool-aid color) and the blueberry is subtle but adds a perfect tang to the finish and to the nose.  Like blueberries, this cider has the perfect balance of sweetness and tartness.  As a refreshing summer drink, it suceeds wildly.  Buy some.

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Motor City Hard Cider

ABV: 6.5%

Dry.  I’m not an expert on such things, but I think the folks at MCBW let this puppy ferment a little too long.  I’ve gotten more apple out of bourbons and white wines that I get out of this.  Not to say it’s undrinkable, it’s not, in fact it goes very well with food.  But if you’re looking for a little hit of apple, you’re barking up the wrong tree.  It’s a murky tan color and has a strange tangy smell to it.  It has a bitter finish too, that is not very pleasant.  If you see this in the store, skip it and get the ghetto blaster ale.

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Round Barn Apple Demi Sec

Region: Lake Michigan Shore AVA

Maker: Round Barn Winery, Baroda, MI

ABV: 12%

Round Barn is a jack-of-all-trades winery.  Located in the heart of the SW Michigan Lake Michigan Shore AVA (American Viticultural Area), they cut their teeth on the white wines and fruit wines that are the lifeblood of the Michigan wine industry.  They have branched out into brewing and distilling, producing (or at least bottling) a vodka made from their own grapes.

The concept of an apple wine still seems odd to me.  Why not drop the prentense and call it a cider?  But after a few drinks, I understand why they call it an apple wine.  First of all, as you may have noticed, the alcohol content is much closer to a wine than a typical cider, which frankly is a little dangerous, I can already tell you.  It is also more acidic than typical ciders and has a delicate dryness that is as close to a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc as it is to a glass of Woodpecker, for instance.

Still, the apples are leading the charge.  It is in the lighter, dry style of most British ciders.  The smell reminds me of working my way through grad school in the childcare industry and the hordes of apple juice guzzling children I shepherded through their single digits.  It lacks the robust body of my favorite ciders, but has a lightness that makes a good change of pace on a summer afternoon.