September 98 Sudzers cider tasting

September 1998 Volume 21, Issue 9

This section comes by way of Roger and the members of the Silcon Valley Sudzers. Thank you for allowing us to reprint it. -M. Wood

SILICON VALLEY SUDZERS CIDER TASTING STEWARD’S REPORT

by Roger St. Denis

The August 15, 1998 SILICON VALLEY SUDZERS meeting theme was ciders and we did it right! The idea was for members to bring either their favorite cider or one they wanted to try. We ended up with 15 different ciders, I hadn’t realized there were that many commercial ciders available.

Beverages & More, on Camden in San Jose, had done a Cider tasting the week before and Joel shared the results with me. He indicated that, of the ciders selected, the Dry Blackthorn Tunton Cider was acclaimed the best overall and that the Bev Mo cider ranked fairly well too. Joel encouraged me to try the Rhyne Cyder if price wasn’t an object as it also got favorable reviews.

Overall we noted that all the ciders had malic acid and preservatives added. It would have been interesting to try a homebrewed cider for comparisons but none of us had brewed any. Generally we found there is a large variety in cider styles. There are excellent ciders for any event from toasting the New Year in to just kicking back by the pool with some liquid refreshments. Many of the ciders were very sweet and we tended to knock those that were over the top.

I generated the following chart with ratings to make the data more readable. The ratings are totally subjective and in NO way a scientific sampling.

	SVS Rating	CIDER NAME	SVS RESULTS
1	90	Dry Blackthorn Tunton Cider	Probably the best of the lot. Good apple nose and taste but not overly sweet.
2	89	Rhyne Cyder	Very dry,Champagne like beverage made in Sonoma. Suitable for use instead of champagne. The group felt it was good.
3	85	Westons Medium Oak Conditioned Cider	The most body or mouth feel of the session. Nice apple nose and taste. It also has a real buttery taste apparently from the "oak conditioning".
4	85	7 Sisters Raspberry Cider	A beautiful maroon colored fermented beverage. The slightly dry raspberry-apple combination makes for a very drinkable cider. We all liked this one.
5	75	Vermont Draft Cider (Amber)	Average cider with fair apple nose and taste, kind of sweet. It was lighter in color than the Dark.
6	75	Vermont Draft Cider (Amber)	Average cider with fair apple nose and taste, kind of sweet. It was darker in color than the Amber.
7	70	Hardcore Apple Cranberry Cider	Nice apple nose and taste. Very sparkling, sweet but not sickingly sweet.
8	65	WoodChuck Draft Cider	Too sweet.
9	50	Spire Apple Cider	Mild apple nose and taste but too sweet.
10	50	Spire Dark & Dry Cider	Mild apple nose and taste but too sweet.
11	50	William Tell’s Pear Cider	Too sweet, not much pear taste or aroma.
12	45	Wyder’s Raspberry Cider	Clear, fizzy, sweet liquid. Disappointing because the raspberry extract flavor is very evident and no lovely raspberry color. We preferred the 7 Sisters brand.
13	45	Archers Pear Cider	Too sweet.
14	45	Woodpecker Cider	English cider with great label. Fizzy, clear liquid but not much aroma or taste. Unimpressive.
15	0	Maria’s Manzana Dulce Apple Cider	The bottle was bad! It was undrinkable, people across the room could smell it!

All in all we felt the Blackthorn, Rhyne Cyder, Weston’s Oak Conditioned and 7 Sisters Raspberry ciders were the best of the lot. The rest generally got poor reviews because they were just too sweet.

I empower you to go forth and sample these and other ciders available. I know that I will.

Updated: October 28, 1998.