English cider in America

[EJM3]

A few months back I happened upon a "Imported Classic English Dry Cider" from Crispin by the name of Browns Lane (a salute to Jaguar and British racing, etc, etc). I have to say that I like it a LOT better than almost all American ciders with their sickly sweetness (no doubt to cover the real flavors of bog water, sweaty boot socks, etc), and garish adverts in and out of the stores (no TV here!). It's sharp, tannic, with a nice bite, subtle sweetness, a smooth lingering PLEASANT aftertaste, light apple flavor throughout, and none of the retch factor of most American ciders. I know that it is probably the dregs of the cruddiest stuff they sell over there, but I find it quite drinkable, sessionable at 5.8% in 500ml cans, and worth every penny. Now if we had apples capable of this around where we live I'd be brewing this by the 55 gallon drum (and drinking it in quantity!!).

I would love to recreate this, but without the real English apples I don't think I can by myself. I just have too little knowledge of flavors, and how to accomplish them via brewing. BUT I can enjoy it once in a while from my local liquor store owner. She decided to make this a regular item, at least as long as Crispin carries it...

My main purpose here has been to tell the world (the GotMead world anyway) of what I consider a product superior to almost every American (and a few others to boot) ciders I have tried to date in my neck of the woods. Sorry I can't be more descriptive, but my sense of taste is frelled a bit by a couple of my meds...

 

[fatbloke]

Well, I'd guess it's mostly about the lack of variation of Apple stock......

Without a lot of digging, I wouldn't know whether that's a "west country" style or a "Kentish" style (west country is mainly bitter sharp apples, whereas Kentish is a mix of sharp and sweet apples).

Maybe you could do some small scale batches. Straight sharp and sweet (cooking and eating apples) would likely be available, then maybe extra tannin and fermenting dry could get you there ?

Maybe have a look around and see if you can find any Normandy cider to try. After all, if you just used as many different varieties of Apple as you can find, including crabs and ornamental ones, you could likely achieve something more European in style than the stuff that's aimed at the perceived "American" taste ?

Just my tuppence worth..........

 

[ostensibly]

I've sampled a few good crisp, dry ciders produced by orchards or wineries here in MI - there may be some good stuff coming out of smaller places out your way since eastern Washington is such a huge apple producer.

 

[Shelley]

This is exactly why my husband started our small (12-tree) orchard. Nine of the trees were selected for their cider qualities, not their edibility. We're only three years in, so the trees haven't produced a lot yet, but last year's random batch of apples made a tastier (and drier) brew than your standard Woodchuck. Now it's up to me to master the art of blending them to find our own perfect brew.

The things I do for love...

 

[Chevette Girl]

I picked and pressed the feral apples in the nearby city park and they made a really good batch of sparkling cider, I just pithced in some rehydrated K1V-1116 and it took it nice and dry. All I can tell you about the apples is that some of them are yellow, some of them are red and only one tree had clean enough apples to eat off the tree, I had to cut the worst of the creepy-crawlies out of the rest. I'm probably going to end up doing a 1-gal batch using my new juicer to see how it compares to the more traditional-shred-and-press jobbie in taste. Mine stood up quite well to the (local-ish) Thornill Cider my friend brought by. Different flavour from different apples, of course, but equally clean, clear, enjoyable taste.

I had a chance to compare Strongbow (which I like) next to Alexander Keiths's Cider last year, and I could tell the difference just from the ingredients. Strongbow: apples. Keith's: water, apples and natural flavour. I don't think either of them were sweetened but I definitely preferred the strongbow, had a more honest apple taste. I'd imagine the typical American stuff you don't like has been sweetened like a cooler instead of left dry like a cider's supposed to be. Check the ingredients (or do the even list ingredients in the 'states?) and I'm betting you'll find this one you like contains apples and the ones you don't contain other things...

 

[WVMJack]

You are in one of the states that is part of the revival of cider in American, you aint looking around very hard if you cant find good cider in WA state. Craft ciders are popping up everywhere planting bittersweet and bittersharp English, French and Spanish cider apples. Its pretty easy to find the sharps and sweets in any orchard, its the high tannic acid that differentiates the euro ciders from the alcopop mass produced ciders here. Search around for some ciderworks, many of them make several different forms of cider, like they have to have their version of the alcopop to draw in the crowd, then they introduce them to the still tannic ciders and tell them its more like a white wine than a beer! Many are oak aging and putting their cider through MLF. Our local ciderworks in Maryland, Distillery Lane Ciderworks, makes the whole range of ciders, their best are the ones with the euro and American cider apples and aged in oak like their Kingston black cider. You will still have to wade through the bubble sweet stuff to find the serious ciders but there are more and more of them out there so just keep looking, but maybe not in the liqour store but in the orchards themselves for the craft brewers. WVMJ

 

[WVMJack]

Shelly, What kind of apples did you plant? My wife in an excellent blender, once we get enough cider apples growing I know she is going to have her say in how they get blended in the bottle. We go a little further than just cider though, more like make a good cider and then boost it with honey to make a cyser but not so much that it ends up to sweet, just off dry, the honey adds some extra body to the tannins in the apples. One thing that is funny, we are used to the tannins in elderberries so these guy keep trying to give us an apple that is a spitter, tannins so high you have to spit it out, but we love them, our crabs are like that also, you get hit with the acid up front, then the sweetness starts to cut through it and then the tannin tries to dry you face off. Have you guys gotten into grafting yet? WVMJ

 

[EJM3]

Well, I'd guess it's mostly about the lack of variation of Apple stock......

Without a lot of digging, I wouldn't know whether that's a "west country" style or a "Kentish" style (west country is mainly bitter sharp apples, whereas Kentish is a mix of sharp and sweet apples).

Maybe you could do some small scale batches. Straight sharp and sweet (cooking and eating apples) would likely be available, then maybe extra tannin and fermenting dry could get you there ?

Maybe have a look around and see if you can find any Normandy cider to try. After all, if you just used as many different varieties of Apple as you can find, including crabs and ornamental ones, you could likely achieve something more European in style than the stuff that's aimed at the perceived "American" taste ?

Just my tuppence worth..........

It's made with "bittersweet" apples, so it looks like a mix of both (still got the sweets in there for the Americans palate). We have a source of some feral apple and pear trees, and the pear trees are so tannic that just one small bite left the astringent tannic flavors in your mouth for 10 or 15 minutes. I could also add some quince, those are darn near PURE tannins too, they leave the same astringent tannic flavor in your mouth, but only for 5 minutes or so. They maybe my best option, and the flavor from them is exquisite and floral once the tannic bite is toned down a lot

I've sampled a few good crisp, dry ciders produced by orchards or wineries here in MI - there may be some good stuff coming out of smaller places out your way since eastern Washington is such a huge apple producer.

I would have to hit up a local cider mill at the right time of year, and still have to add more adjuncts and other high tannin fruits at my disposal. But a great idea!!

This is exactly why my husband started our small (12-tree) orchard. Nine of the trees were selected for their cider qualities, not their edibility. We're only three years in, so the trees haven't produced a lot yet, but last year's random batch of apples made a tastier (and drier) brew than your standard Woodchuck. Now it's up to me to master the art of blending them to find our own perfect brew.

The things I do for love...

Wish we had room for some trees like that, my partner even used to own a small organic orchard up Derby Canyon in his younger days, plus I have friends in the AG department at Wenatchee Valley College, so if we but had the space... I wish you luck and many fruitful years with your babies, I mean trees... ;D

I picked and pressed the feral apples in the nearby city park and they made a really good batch of sparkling cider, I just pithced in some rehydrated K1V-1116 and it took it nice and dry. All I can tell you about the apples is that some of them are yellow, some of them are red and only one tree had clean enough apples to eat off the tree, I had to cut the worst of the creepy-crawlies out of the rest. I'm probably going to end up doing a 1-gal batch using my new juicer to see how it compares to the more traditional-shred-and-press jobbie in taste. Mine stood up quite well to the (local-ish) Thornill Cider my friend brought by. Different flavour from different apples, of course, but equally clean, clear, enjoyable taste.

I had a chance to compare Strongbow (which I like) next to Alexander Keiths's Cider last year, and I could tell the difference just from the ingredients. Strongbow: apples. Keith's: water, apples and natural flavour. I don't think either of them were sweetened but I definitely preferred the strongbow, had a more honest apple taste. I'd imagine the typical American stuff you don't like has been sweetened like a cooler instead of left dry like a cider's supposed to be. Check the ingredients (or do the even list ingredients in the 'states?) and I'm betting you'll find this one you like contains apples and the ones you don't contain other things...

We have a lot of feral apple trees my partner has been gleaning for the last 30+ years, last year we harvested enough to make ~5 gallons of apple sauce, and I still had enough to juice about 3 gallons of cider for ourselves (~2 gallons were fermented). Most of the commercial stuff down here is: water, apples, natural and artificial flavors, (sometimes) glucose/fructose (AKA: corn syrup), caramel coloring, carbon dioxide, malic acid, K-Sorbate, K-Benzoate, sulfites, etc... The best one so far (other than Crispin) is Angry Orchard, none of the others really stand out to me...

 

[fatbloke]

According to some of the cider stuff on the net, bittersweet are the hardest to grow and much more limited in variety.

I'm suspecting that it's more about how it'd actually be made, so you could likely clone or do something more to your preferred taste......

Don't forget, to reduce confusion when searching for ideas or info, it's mostly only the US that refers to cloudy apple juice as cider. To most, cider is fermented apple juice irrespective of whether clear, cloudy, filtered etc....... That could get you better search results.........

 

[Honeyhog]

Being from a German Mennonite background in Canada we always called unfiltered apple juice cider and fermented apple juice hard cider. I think calling unfiltered apple juice cider was possibly brought over and kept in use by Germans who settled in Lancaster county Pennsylvania and later Waterloo county Ontario but the term was probably abandoned later in continental Europe.

 

[EJM3]

For the US it's something like this: During prohibition era they needed to make a distinction of alcoholic and non-alcoholic. So since it was involving good healthy natural cider, "Juice" is clarified non-alco, "Cider" is cloudy non-alco, and "Hard Cider" is fermented alcoholic cider...

 

[WVMJack]

We do need to grow more bittersweets over here, we have plenty of sharp and sweet apples. We are growing a couple, Major is one, ordering some Bramtot and other bittersweets. So EJM3, have you searched for any craft cidermakers in your state that might happen to make a beverage like you desire? WVMJ

 

[EJM3]

You are in one of the states that is part of the revival of cider in American, you aint looking around very hard if you cant find good cider in WA state. Craft ciders are popping up everywhere planting bittersweet and bittersharp English, French and Spanish cider apples. Its pretty easy to find the sharps and sweets in any orchard, its the high tannic acid that differentiates the euro ciders from the alcopop mass produced ciders here. Search around for some ciderworks, many of them make several different forms of cider, like they have to have their version of the alcopop to draw in the crowd, then they introduce them to the still tannic ciders and tell them its more like a white wine than a beer! Many are oak aging and putting their cider through MLF. Our local ciderworks in Maryland, Distillery Lane Ciderworks, makes the whole range of ciders, their best are the ones with the euro and American cider apples and aged in oak like their Kingston black cider. You will still have to wade through the bubble sweet stuff to find the serious ciders but there are more and more of them out there so just keep looking, but maybe not in the liqour store but in the orchards themselves for the craft brewers. WVMJ

There are some fruit stands here that sell their "soft cider" during the season for it (October roughly), but they are generally made with LOTS of sweet apples & miniscule to no tart apples, but it sounds like a good base to start with anyway. I did find one ciderworks in Cashmere that has hard cider, but they want $9.95 a 750ml. I could go by good cider and make it myself for a lot less, 5 gallons of their hard cider would end up around $185 PLUS lots of taxes, 5 gallons for me would be about $50 for all the ingredients, probably under $30 for me actually.

There's a lot of alcopop (GREAT WORD!) on the market, and not very good ones at that. Over sweet, sugar and corn syrup laced, un-natural apple flavored (and others!), bottom of the septic tank kind of ferments are all the rage here. I'd like to expand my range (both from my house and my list of liquor likes), but I'm limited by funds and mobility. My mobility is limited by where the local buses can pick up and drop me off at. So local stores of one type or another are my only option. Ordering online is WAY too expensive for me. And my gross monthly income is $197.

My best option it seems is to go and get as many feral, free, and discount apples and just make my own blend. I will have to experiment with tannin & acid additions it looks like, and time for a new fermentor it seems. Well I'll just have to spend some of my honey money on a new one, and then wait till November to buy my bucket-o-honey. And it looks like some of my friends want to get a bucket so it'll be 3 buckets I'm ordering at this point, other friends may want to join us too, group honey buy anyone?? Just kidding! But it does sound like a possibility...:

 

[EJM3]

We do need to grow more bittersweets over here, we have plenty of sharp and sweet apples. We are growing a couple, Major is one, ordering some Bramtot and other bittersweets. So EJM3, have you searched for any craft cidermakers in your state that might happen to make a beverage like you desire? WVMJ

Even just a few nice bittersharps to overcome the super sickly sweetness of most American varieties. Or plain bitter apples. I'm going to play around with some of our crab apples (only half the size of a marble and VERY potent), and ask a neighbor if we can harvest some of theirs (they have 2 large trees they never do anything with but let rot) to experiment with a bit this winter. I found that 1 local ciderworks in Cashmere. I'll do some more digging though...

 

[WVMJack]

I was going to suggest searching for crabs, those little ones can pack a big punch in acid and tannins, you will be surprised at how well they boost a general mix of apples. We map wild trees also, most are high acid apples, but one day we will find that bittersweet wildling and graft a bunch of trees off of it WVMJ

 

[EJM3]

My partner has a great big old ancient thing of an apple that is kept exclusively for it's shade and fence like habit in the Spring to Autumn. Since living here for 4 years it has spawned 6 things (can't call them apples, too deformed) in that amount of time. So if we can find a friend with the knowledge and experience we would love to graft a few different kinds onto him.

Hrm, speaking of trees in yards, there is an Italian Prune tree here that always overproduces, nice flavor, so maybe a Prune Juice Melomel?? Urk! Nevermind!!

 

[EJM3]

I found an apple variety called "Zestar" that has a pleasant moderate sweetness with a nice zoyer bite to it. Not as tart as Granny Smiths, but it seems a workable one with some additions (Our crabapple, plus some of our neighbors (they have 2 trees with different attributes, mostly tart, no bitter), and some feral apples should do it nicely. Add honey, yeast, nutes, and watch it ferment in no time flat!

Yeast selection is somewhat more difficult. Maybe go with D47, or try one of my Vierka (I have 2 kinds so far, adding more later on), maybe QA23.... (Grumble, gromble... So many yeasts, so little to ferment!!!)