This one will get your juices flowing. Amber, effervescent, and crabby, it packs sour and bitter bites with very little perceptible sugar to offset them. It’s most definitely unique, complex, and interesting. Whether it’s pleasant, though, is another matter…to me it seems to lack [...]

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 [...]

Summer Solstice is that rarest of animals in the commercial mead world: a relatively dry mead from a small producer who tends his own beehives. Medovina is the creation of Mark Beran of Niwot, Colorado, who has been keeping bees since the 90’s and who–as I’ve been reminded of a [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Overview: Ace Joker Hard Cider is made by California Cider Company of Sonoma, California, and is that company’s driest offering, at 9g of sugar in a 12-oz bottle. Tasting Notes: Joker is drinkable, but I have to say I’m disappointed in it—it’s reasonably dry and refreshing but [...]

Overview: Glider Cider is a hard cider made by Colorado Cider Company of Denver, Colorado. It’s a relatively dry, natural cider whose ingredient list is all of two entries long: yeast and apple juice. Like the other Colorado Cider products, it is sulfited, however (this is generally done [...]