With regard to hard cider, America has played the role of a fickle lover. There have been times when we couldn’t get enough of the stuff. And there have been times when the drinking public almost forgot that cider existed. Could the cycle be repeating itself?
How much cider do Americans drink? That’s hard to get a handle on. Until recently, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms lumped cider with wine for statistical purposes. After Congress created a new tax bracket for cider in 1997, the ATF added a column for cider on the production reports that wineries must submit.... View Article
1840–Rapidly losing ground to cheap whiskey, cider stages a comeback during the presidential election. The Whigs tout their candidate, General William Henry Harrison, as a cider-swigging, hardtack-eating man-of-the-people. To drive home their point, they ladle out free cider by the barrelful at their political rallies. 1899 to 1919–Hard cider consumption decreases from 55 million barrels... View Article
BLACK RAT CIDERS This Australian import, fermented from fruit grown outside of Adelaide, comes in three flavors. The Black Rat Premium Australian Cider is pale gold, light-bodied, refreshing and tart. The Black Rat Lemon Cider is a pale straw color and has an unusually spritzy carbonation that reminds one of an Alka-Seltzer Plus. The Black... View Article
Biggest. Brightest. Loudest. Strongest.
The lexicon of beerspeak is rich with descriptive names. Stylistic terms can denote any number of beer characteristics, including origin (pilsner, Dortmunder), appearance (pale ale, witbier), and strength (barley wine, tripel), among others.
Nineteen-ninety-five was a bad year for cask ale. The summer’s unexpected, prolonged period of hot weather undermined all the good work of the previous five years. Following changes in legislation in 1990, which opened up the pub market to small brewers, dozens of microbreweries had thrown open their mash tuns and hundreds of exciting new... View Article
The word “export,” in regard to beer, brings to mind a panoply of exotic brews from faraway lands. These ales, lagers and hybrids come in shades, styles and strengths to suit any palate. But more specifically, export refers to the indigenous pale lagerbiers of Dortmund, Germany, known simply as Dortmunder export. Understated and firm, export... View Article
