2 Towns Ciderhouse The Bad Apple

This is what cider should taste like! Seriously. It has just about every single thing that I want in a cider. Perfect tartness verging on sour, nimble effervescence that almost stings, distant sweetness, and warm drying. The only knocks I have are that it sticks a little long on the back of the tongue and can taste a bit like a Granny Smith. Really though, I love this cider. You can drink a fair amount of it and not wake up with a brain that feels like a cleaved flank steak laid on a low-wattage electric fence, provided you get plenty of sleep.

Poured, the cider has a gorgeously crystalline straw hue that is almost sparklingly translucent and the bubbles swim to the top in a single cascading burst. The vanilla notes the cider boasts are most present in the nose rather than on the tongue, though they are faintly there. Despite being rather stiff in ABV (10.5%), it doesn't really have that alcoholic heat on the throat and it is very gently warm in the belly which is nice for drinking as a refreshment but dangerous for drinking in volume. I'd happily drink these end on end were it not for the absolutely crushing hangover my bank account would take. You have to pay for good cider and bad cider alike, unfortunately.

On ratebeer.com, somehow Spire Mountain Dark & Dry is rated almost twice as highly as this gem, if I am reading their rankings correctly. I'm going to go ahead and chalk that up to mainstream morons not getting it. Perhaps that's an unfair assessment or particularly harsh but I can't really justify any other reason. The simple fact is, this cider is twice as good. It's cool. Artistic genius is rarely recognized in its time. "The Big Lebowski" barely broke even in the states while "Armageddon", released the same year and not worthy of being a trailer on a Blockbuster VHS copy of Lebowski, grossed over $200,000,000. The Eagles' greatest hits is the second biggest selling album of all time and "Hotel California" is 8th while the The Kinks, Miles Davis, James Brown, Black Sabbath, the Wu-Tang Clan, Prince and many other musical titans don't have a single album ranked in the top 25. You can't account for taste, I suppose. Maybe if 2 Towns dropped a couple of Jolly Ranchers in each bottle of the Bad Apple before capping them, people would appreciate it more. Maybe if De La Soul had added some sexpot, they could've been The Black Eyed Peas. And maybe if the Coen brothers would have blown more shit up in "The Big Lebowski", more people would've packed the theaters to see it. But probably not. It doesn't really work that way, does it.

That's okay. 2 Towns will keep turning out fine cider. In 2012, they planted their own orchard along the Willamette and plan to add 700 new cider apple trees a year over the next three years. Cider apples are hard to find in the U.S. and most cideries use desert apples, or canned apple juice bought in bulk off the back of a Schwan's truck. I appreciate that 2 Towns is dedicated to the craft of making authentic cider from legitimate cider apples. I respect their dedication to quality over ease and their devotion to true cider over candy-apple alcohol. Long live authenticity!


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Learn more about 2 Towns Ciderhouse at http://2townsciderhouse.com/index.php

Spire Mountain Dark & Dry

Let me start by saying that I really wanted to like Spire Mountain's Dark & Dry. I was hopeful. Spire is owned by Fish Brewing and I have enjoyed their fine organic ales for several years. Furthermore, I like to support local and regional businesses, even ones from Washington. However, it didn't happen. Not only was the cider egregiously sweet but it was downright flat and syrupy, leaving behind a thickish mouthcoat. Spire's website describes the Dark & Dry as having an assertive tartness to it that is "balanced" by a "hint" of molasses and brown sugar. In reality, the reverse is true. It's all sappy and sweet with a vague notion of tartness. Someone on ratebeer.com described the flavor as tasting something like apple pie filling. They're not wrong.

I picked up six of these babies for two reasons. First, it was on sale for $2 less than the regular price of $10.95, and second, because I confused it with Ace Hard Cider, a cider a friend recommended. I was also encouraged by the claim of dryness. Calling this cider dry is like saying it's dry on the Oregon coast or that Dane Cook has a dry sense of humor (or any sense of humor at all), which is to say that it is not dry even in the slightest... I suppose they did get the dark part right. It's a pretty reddish amber verging on maroon.

Perhaps I'm a snob or I just don't get it but sweet ciders remind me of top 40 pop music. They are massively popular and seem specifically designed to appeal to a simple palate. One that isn't discerning. One that prefers a steady diet of pre-digested pap to variety and complexity. With each candied cider sold, America further embraces it's rabid and borderline pathological addiction to sugar.

Spire isn't new to the game, they started making their cider back in 1985 and they claim to be America's oldest operating craft cider maker, and they certainly aren't the leading cider maker by reputation, consumption or sales, but they are in the running for sweetest. I mean seriously, it tastes like they grabbed some cans of frozen Tree Top apple juice concentrate and let them sit in a cooler in the sun all summer. I think they might just be mashing up red deliciouses and letting them ferment in carboys in a garage somewhere. Perhaps they did. There is no information on their website about the process they use to make their cider or what varieties of apples they use. I did find a blog where someone wrote about their attempt to make a mimic cider of Dark & Dry (http://www.beerik.com/spiredark.html) and they used Kirkland's apple juice the first time and Tree Top the second time - don't ask me why they went back to the well a second time. It's baffling to me why someone would go through so much trouble to make something that tastes so specifically pedestrian.

In the end, this is a great cider for someone who is just starting to drink alcohol, would prefer an apple soaked in sugar or is trying to ween themselves off of Capri Suns. If that sounds like you, run out to the nearest market and grab yourself a few. Cheers!


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For more information on Spire Mountain ciders, you can visit them at http://www.fishbrewing.com/spire-mountain-cider/