How to Taste Cider

How do you evaluate the cider you are drinking?

While reading Ben Watson’s Cider: Hard and Sweet: History, Traditions & Making Your Own, 2^nd Edition and Annie Proulx and Lew Nichol’s Cider: Making, Using & Enjoying Sweet & Hard Cider on how to host a cider tasting, the books gave excellent advice on how to evaluate the ciders.

A cider evaluation can be broken down into three parts – appearance, aroma, and taste. Ben Watson remarked, “Each of these individual components contributes to the overall quality and drinkability of the cider, and each should be taken into account when you evaluate it.”

When looking at a cider in a glass, you want to take the following notes:

• Is it a still cider or is it carbonated?
• If it is carbonated, is it a natural carbonation or a forced carbonation? Ben Watson describes the difference between the two as, “Naturally sparkling cider will foam up as it hits the bottom of the glass, and the bubbles that swirl up to the surface are smaller and longer-lasting than those in an artificially carbonated cider.”
• What color is it? Example of color descriptions include pale straw, golden yellow, salmon, apricot, or amber. Ciders that have a green, gray, or orange-red tint may not be drinkable, as the color would be evidence to oxidation or cider sickness.
• Is it hazy or clear? Words to use include brilliant, clear, slightly hazy, hazy or cloudy.

For the evaluating the aroma, Ben Watson explained, “A hard cider’s aroma or bouquet usually comes from the percentage of fragrant apple varieties that were used in the original cider blend… Yeasts, both natural and cultured, plus other fruits, spices or adjuncts… can also contribute to the complex aroma of a good cider. To evaluate the aroma, put your nose near the top of the glass and take a good whiff; the cider’s bouquet should be a preview of the flavor. If it smells bad or is excessively sharp or vinegary, don’t even bother tasting the cider” (page 103).

Last comes tasting the cider, in which the evaluation can be broken into feel in the mouth and how it tastes on the tongue. Take some of the cider in your mouth and do or note the following:

• “Chew” on the cider a bit or roll it around in your mouth to get a feeling for the body. Full bodied ciders will feel heaver and richer, and thinner, watery ciders will have little sensation. There is no right or wrong to this, just an observation. However, watery ciders will not be as flavorful.
• Is it a sweet or dry cider?
• Is there a nice balance between sugar, acid, tannins, and alcohol? That is to say, are all the elements balanced in the tasting, or is there an element that over powers the other elements? For example, if you pucker, it may have too much tannin.
• Is the alcohol content strong or weak?
• After you swallow, does the aroma linger on?
• Please do not fault a cider because it does not taste like apples, as grape wines do not taste like grapes.
• Other descriptors?

Most importantly about tasting ciders is, “Do you like it?”Remember, it doesn’t matter how you scored a cider in relationship to others, but that you liked the cider, as your tastes will be different from the next person’s.

Making a sweet or dry wine or cider

I have eluded to the fact that it is much easier to make a dry wine or cider than it is to make a sweet one. I think it is time to go a little deeper into the topic.

The yeast in cider and wine eat sugar, turning it into alcohol. Thing is, they will do that until one of two things happens. The first one is that the yeast run out of sugar. At this point, it is a dry beverage with no sweetness, which some may dislike. This process is the easiest to accomplish because it allows the yeast to do what it wants to do. To obtain a sweet wine or cider, one must interfere with the batch, either killing the yeast prematurely before all the sugar is gone, or making sure the yeast is truly dead before adding more sugar back. I will explore those options in the posts to come.

How do you know if the wine or cider is sweet or dry? The answer is as simple as taking a specific gravity reading taken with a hydrometer. That reading can be classified into the corresponding sweetness:

• 1.025 Very Sweet
• 1.020 Sweet
• 1.015 Medium Sweet
• 1.010 Medium Dry
• 1.005 Dry

It is not really recommended bottling much higher than 1.025, as most people would not find it very drinkable. Also, if the yeast starts fermenting again, the carbon dioxide released could create too much pressure on the bottle, causing it to pop the cork, or worse yet, explode. Ben Watson in his Cider: Hard and Sweet cautions against bottling cider higher than 1.005 if it has not been stabilized, that is, if chemicals or pasteurization has not happened to ensure the yeast will not start fermenting again.

My Taste

What do I like to drink? Well, it seems when my husband and I go and try cider and wine, we gravitate towards the sweeter stuff. In fact, we toured a brandy distillery, and after sampling their products, we only walked away with a liquor and not the bone dry spirits.

Admittedly, I don’t know much when it comes to grape wines, but I do alright with most, but again, I like it a touch sweet. We served Willamette Valley Vineyard’s Oregon Blossom blush at our wedding, which the winery describes as the local answer to California’s Zinfandel. My husband and I also enjoy an occasional Muscat wine. With a good meal, though, about any grape wine will do.

When it comes to beer, it is an interesting story. My first beer that I ever attempted to drink was a Pyramid Ale. I don’t remember what kind, just that I didn’t like it. In my mind, I knew Pyramid was a good quality beer, but I didn’t like it. Over the years, I tried and tried again, but I always made funny faces. When I started dating my now husband, who is really into beer and loves porters and stouts, he started trying to find something I might like. Frambois worked because of the sugar and fruit juice, but most bars don’t serve it. For his birthday one year, we went to the Rogue in Portland, where they allowed us to custom pick a sampler set. I found two that I liked – one was with honey and mandarin oranges, and the other had flavorings of coriander. Both of them were wheat beers. It was like something was knocked loose, as I’m able to drink wheat beers now, especially if they have fruit in them, and an occasional honey lager such as the one from a Canadian restaurant called Earls. I don’t like hops because they are bitter, and my husband’s favorites taste burnt to me. Actually, a lot of beer tastes burnt to me. I’ll taste every beer he gets, but for me, beer is either drinkable, somewhat drinkable and I’ll need someone to finish it for me, or not drinkable.

Admittedly, I’m a bit scattered at the moment with what I want to make – cider, fruit wine, or mead. Thing is, most people think of all three of these as being sweet, but they don’t have to be. I’ve had an excellent dry cider, a dry blackberry wine you drink like a Merlot, and I know there are dry meads out there. So yes, I like my drinks sweet, but it is honestly easier to make dry alcoholic beverage, which will help strike a balance between what I like best and what others might like to buy. In the meanwhile, I’ll just keep experimenting to develop my skills and attempt to narrow my focus.