Cider Review: Tieton Ciderworks' Smoked Pumpkin Cider

Okay, I know I give pumpkin stuff a hard time. It's not that I don't absolutely love the orange gourd that has come to represent all of fall. Therefore, I'm not going to apologize for trying most pumpkin ciders that I see anywhere and anywhen. Finding one I actually really like doesn't happen even half of the time, so its a difficult hurdle and yet and interesting one.

Perhaps I've tipped my hand too soon, but here's my review of a fall seasonal by Tieton Ciderworks. 

That's alright.

You can visit their website here: http://tietonciderworks.com

My only previous review of anything by Tieton Ciderworks has more of a company intro there:
http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2015/07/cider-review-tieton-ciderworks-yakima.html

Smoked pumpkin by Tieton cider works

Official description

An earthy nuanced cider filled with tannins and acid and smoked over apple wood – the same wood that produced the apples – which gives it a light sweetness. the earthiness of pumpkin is your first experience The apple juice steps back, allowing the smoke to be your first experience, followed by a light smoke and finishing with the acid of the cider.

This cider has the familiar 6.9% ABV of many craft ciders. at this point, its almost reassuring that this is the fermented juice of apples instead of a blend leaning too heavily on unfermented ingredients.

Appearance: aged intense gold

Like popcorn kernels and the eyes of certain cats, this cider offers a mesmerizing intensity of old gold. Its an exciting cider to see with all of those big clinging bubbles and gorgeous clarity. 

Sweetness/dryness: semi-dry/semi-sweet

Tieton's Smoked Pumpkin falls in the middle of the road in terms of sweetness, at least to me.  Truly, I'd be hard pressed to say if its more a semi-dry or a semi-sweet. Tieton calls it a semi-dry and I think most cider drinkers would find that a reasonable description.

Aromas: spicy, peppery, fruity, dusty 

Smells sweet dusty peppery

There are good notes of anticipation in here. So often I love the ciders that smell both spicy and dusty. This has that going on but also sweet and peppery.

Flavors and drinking experience: spicy, vegetal, tart, woody

I'm not sure the official description gives a guidebook the my experience of this cider! It rather rates a guidebook though because it does have multiple stages and plenty of complexity. I can taste lots of smoke, plenty of pumpkin and what feels like savory spices. Before I read the description I would have called white pepper, nutmeg, and clove but not in a "pumpkin spice" way. I taste these spices are bitterness, heat, and savory because the cider isn't very sweet and there's no cinnamon brown sugar softness to sand down the angles. But once I read more, I learned it's just pumpkin juice. Fascinating.

My tasting companion instead found tons of squash and vegetal notes and much less smoke. he noted the tension between sweet and bitter with fibrous woodiness.  Our different impressions were far more distinct than usual. 

We did agree about the full mouthfeel and medium sparkle. I'd say its tastefully fizzy but that could be even stronger.

This pumpkin cider definitely pairs well with food. I'd recommend it with a fall quinoa salad and the first roasted brussels sprouts of the season. Or have it for yourself when you open up your door for tricker-or-treaters this weekend!


Happy Halloween


Conclusion

Cider Review: Tieton Ciderworks' Yakima Valley Dry Hopped Cider

In the name of seasonality, I've been focusing on fruit ciders more than usual lately. Summer suits them and in summer, they suit me more than the rest of the year. But that's far from the only direction summer-friendly ciders can take. One of my other favorites has to be hopped ciders. I love them year round, but I find they work especially well in the summer. Hence, my first review ever of a Tieton Ciderworks Cider, the Yakima Valley Dry Hopped Cider.

Since this is, surprisingly, my first actual blog post about a Tieton Ciderworks beverage, I'd like to introduce the company a bit. Here's what they say about themselves on their website:

Our fresh pressed juice comes from apples grown in the Pacific Northwest. We blend American heritage, English and French cider varieties with our organically grown dessert apples to capture the best of what each variety brings to the bottle: sweetness, acidity, tannin and aroma. The results are ciders with body and a depth of finish.

I appreciate how much this introduction focuses on the taste features of their cider. That's relatively rare. More commonly, I see a narrative about location, personal connections to cider, preserving heritage apple varieties, and various values that are somewhat more mediated. Mind you, those things can also anchor a wonderful cider company, so I'm not dissing that. But I prioritize taste, and when I see a cider company that speaks about taste, I have a feeling that we might speak the same language.

Taste isn't all that Tieton writes about when it comes to their history and identity. Their orchard is organic and currently worked by the third generation of this Yakima Valley farming family. And they spend a whole paragraph on the concept of food pairing with cider. 

Quick aside, the current labeling and visual branding for their ciders no longer looks like the bottle I photographed and tasted. I highly recommend taking a look at their website because the new graphic design style is simply gorgeous. I love the changes they made.

Here's the site: http://tietonciderworks.com

Tonight's cider is Tieton Ciderworks' Yakima Valley Dry Hopped Cider. Here's what the cidermakers say about it.

The Yakima Valley is known worldwide as a premier apple growing region and a prominent source of hops.  We have chosen a select blend of traditional and exotic hops to marry with our cider. This blend of hops produces an aroma of fruit-forward nuttiness followed by a citrusy palate.

500ml – 6.9% Alcohol

Our most versatile food cider:  it plays well with citrus; it loves dishes with lots of herbs, and blends with the diverse flavors of many cultures.   It is amazing because it pairs with pork in our Spicy Pork Stew; Red Posole and Tomato Fennel Soups and with fish in our White Bean and Tuna Salad, Raviolis with Prawns and our stunning Cider Battered Whitefish sandwich.   Keep several bottles of this cider around and make any meal special.

Appearance: brilliant, medium numbers of visible bubbles, bright straw

This is a lovely cider to look at. I enjoy the active bubbles and bright straw color.

Aromas: citrus, pine, green grapes

Primarily I can smells delicate green grapes, but spices take their role as well. Pine needles make it smell clean and citrusy fill out that classic hopped cider profile. Gorgeous smells. My husband gets notes of Lychee and a little rubber. All in all, it gives me the anticipation for apple citrus herbal hoppy goodness.

Dryness/sweetness: Dry to semi-dry

The cider tastes like a fruity citrusy semi-dry to me, but I'm guessing many folks would find it drier than that. The acidity and gentle bitterness of the finish balance out the fruit nicely.

Flavors and drinking experience: herbaceous, appley, balanced, fruity

This hopped cider tastes both appley and hoppy in that pine soap and lemon sort of way. Very pleasantly so. It has really lovely level of sparkle, just enough and not too much. Everything about this cider is a little on the gentle side. there's a quick initial taste of pine that melds into mild pear and peach. The midpalate generally strikes me as warmer. Then two seconds later I'm headed off into that lingering herbal grassy bitter finish. The body is light and lithe and summery.

We had this with both supper and dessert. Supper was a bruschetta with tomato, mozzarella, toasted walnuts, red bell pepper all chopped and macerated together with olive oil, garlic and salt heaped onto toasted baguette rounds. This works well with a hopped cider! I think the citrus notes bring it together the most.

The dessert, to my surprise, worked even better. This time the Yakima Valley Dry Hopped Cider complimented leftover birthday cake. That doesn't sound as epic as it tasted, because this was not just any cake. My dear friend Marybeth made a triple layer chocolate cake with caramel chocolate ganache, and, just as she promised, the cake tasted even better a day or two after it had been assembled. This is the cake that we had with delightfully light and semi-dry hopped cider. If you take any one thing away from this post; try a hopped cider with cake. You deserve it.