While I’ve spent a lot of time and placed emphasis on the pursuit of traditional, dry English ciders, in fact there are multiple other regions of Europe that have their own cider traditions. Of these, Normandy is perhaps the best known, and this is where Clos Normand Brut is produced. In some [...]

This week I was fortunate in that a friend, Joe, visited from California and brought me a few ciders from Tieton Ciderworks of Tieton, WA–which is about 30 minutes away from Yakima. The first one I tried is the Apricot Cider–a semi-dry hard apple cider made with–you guessed [...]

Hard Cider Tutorial, Part One: Obtaining, Grinding, and Pressing Applesd Yours truly with press, carboys, and Winesap and Rome apples. At long last, it begins… What begins, you ask? The 2013 hard cider-making tutorial I’ve been promising, that’s what! Specifically, I’ll be [...]

This is the best cider I’ve had by Crispin…significantly better than the Crispin Natural that I reviewed previously. The difference is pretty stark–while both are crisp, clean, and come across as relatively dry, Browns Lane is woody, earthy, and bitter by comparison…but in [...]

Today I made the trek through cold, drizzly weather to meet my friend and former coworker, Chris, at Colorado Cider Company in Denver, CO, on their 2nd anniversary celebration. Tucked into an industrial corner of Denver, Colorado Cider Company can be a difficult location to find, but if you make [...]

I discovered Blue Mountain Cider Company‘s products recently at Scrumpy’s Hard Cider Bar in Fort Collins, Colorado, and overall I’m liking their products.  Their Dry Creek semi-dry is particularly noteworthy, being remarkably champagne-like, refreshing, and festive. Like Dry [...]

At about .3% the size of the beer market by sales, hard cider consumption  in the U.S. still utterly pales in comparison to that of beer, wine, and spirits. But it’s a very fast-growing segment, and the trend is encouraging. One factor that will quickly limit the upside growth of high [...]

  Main Scrumpy’s tap line–there are several more handles not pictured. I recently made a trip to visit Scrumpy’s, a hard cider bar and restaurant on the North end of College Avenue in Fort Collins, Colorado, and I can’t tell you how happy I am that I did. Ok, actually [...]

Overview: Today, I’m happy to share with you a rarity in American hard cider—at least in Colorado—a hard cider from a small-batch, artisanal cidery in Cedaredge, Colorado, which distributes only locally, through farmers markets, and to four different liquor stores on the Colorado front [...]

Samuel Smith’s Organic Cider is an import from the United Kingdom produced by the Samuel Smith Brewery of Yorkshire, which has produced some excellent, traditional English beers and was founded in 1758. It’s a great example of a traditional English cider—relatively dry, with some [...]