Cider Review: Portland Cider Co.'s Imperial Abbey Apple Cider

Another whirlwind of holiday and birthday fun has come and gone. This past week has been full of movies, food, friends, family, dice rolling, and yes, cider. When a mysterious cider package arrives when your house is filled with family, of course you have to open up it up and show everything off. Portland Cider Co. was kind enough to surprise me with a cider arrival just before Thanksgiving! 

What I know about Portland Cider Co. is that this company is wild for flavor combinations and experimentation. The company uses Northwest apples but a whole slew of additional flavor elements. Over the years, I’ve tasted their take on peach, pineapple, pumpkin, and more.

I’ve reviewed a slew of Portland Cider Co.’s offering in the past decade. Here’s the rundown.

Bloody Hell: https://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2021/07/cider-review-portland-cider-cos-bloody.html

Lemon-Lime Ciderade: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2021/06/cider-review-portland-cider-companys.html

Crangerine: https://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2020/12/cider-review-portland-cider-companys.html

Razzberry: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2020/06/cider-review-once-upon-tree-wild-flight.html

Peach Berry: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2020/04/cider-review-portland-cider-companys.html

Kinda Dry: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2015/05/cider-review-portland-cider-company.html

Pineapple: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2018/02/cider-review-portland-cider-company.html

Cranberry: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2019/03/cider-review-seed-stone-cidery-heritage.html

Pumpkin Spice: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2018/10/cider-review-portland-cider-co-pumpkin.html

Pineapple Rose: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2019/07/cider-reviews-portland-cider-cos.html

Get the full scoop online from Portland Cider Co. directly. Here’s a link to the cidery website: https://www.portlandcider.com/home

My review today is for Portland Cider Co.’s Imperial Abbey Apple. Here’s how the cidery describes this release.

Juicy & bright Belgian-inspired Northwest Apple Cider

Expertly crafted by our cider makers in a unique Belgian-style cider, Abbey Apple showcases Northwest apples fermented with Belgian ale yeast. The result is a smooth, full-bodied cider with a bright, juicy finish. 8.4% ABV

Tasting Notes

Juicy, bright, subtle banana and clove, tropical aromas, unique finish.

Food Pairings

Shepherd’s pie, dark chocolate cake, spicy thai basil chicken, roasted vegetables

Ingredients

NW apples

Belgian ale yeast 

Always Gluten Free

Appearance: shining, mild warm straw, no visible bubbles

This is a lovely cider with a gentle warm straw hue. I don’t see any haze or bubbles. It’s brilliant and almost still in appearance. I do expect that I’ll find bubbles once I taste the cider.

Aromas: yeast, cheddar, bread, candied sugar, apple

The Imperial Abbey Apple Cider smells yeasty a little cheddar funk. This is undoubtedly the Belgian Beer style coming through. The aroma initially reminds me of bread but also of dark candied sugar. It’s fascinating! I do get some apple notes, but the are secondary to the yeast character.

Sweetness/Dryness: Semi-sweet

This cider is semi-sweet, but it’s also got some bitterness that add complexity.

Flavors and drinking experience: Bittersweet, belgian-beer influenced, full bodied, high acid

This is a cider for beer lovers, specifically for Belgian beer lovers! The Imperial Abbey Ale’s taste is notably bittersweet with a fun balance of these two elements. The Belgian ale yeast profile is prominent. The cider comes across petilliant and full bodied with that heavy imperial ABV.

There’s plenty of malic acid and apple present, but neither are as powerful as the yeast flavors. I find it pleasingly complex. This would be a perfect pairing for a hot plate of fish and chips. 

As we head into the darker days and longer nights approaching the northern hemisphere’s Winter Solstice, don’t forget to give yourself quiet cozy time to hibernate! 

Cider Review: Wilson Orchard's Late Harvest

What a scare! Life without much of a sense of smell really felt different for me. I didn’t like that difference either. Thankfully, it’s back. I couldn’t be happier about it. We have guests and holidays arriving imminently. It’s just so much more fun to enjoy the scents of every meal and every moment. On this last evening before the happy chaos begins, I took a moment for a quiet asian meal with my tall companion and a cider that I suspected will be delicious.  I chose Wilson Orchard and Farm’s - Late Harvest.

This is the first time any Iowa cider has made it onto the blog, and I’m so excited to taste another place. When investigating Wilson’s Orchard and Farm, I noticed the strong emphasis not only on local produce but on communicating the larger environmental and economic reasoning behind their investment in the local. The site made succinct points about their goals. I’ll quote one section because I liked it so much. 

Giving Back

The strength of our food supply chain relies on farmers providing reasonable access to locally-grown food and beverages to the entire community. Each season we partner with various local food pantries and community programs that support our neighborhoods and make our products easily available to as many as possible.

Here’s a link to Wilson’s Orchard’s page about the cidery’s beverages: https://www.wilsonsorchard.com/wilsons-beverages

Here is the full description of this seasonal release.

Late Harvest

Spontaneously Fermented hard cider rested on oak

With a chill in the air, even sometimes snow on the branches, late harvest is a time for our orchard staff to exhale and start to unwind. Only a few more varieties to pick - one of which is our favorite apple, Gold Rush. The perfect time to slow down and celebrate a season of hard work, a fruitful harvest, and of course plan the coming winter’s Wassail. 

Tasting notes: Light, fruity with hints of plum, melon, and subtle toffee.

Sugar at harvest: 14.6 degrees brix

Residual Sugar: 0 degrees brix

Appearance: shining trumpet brass, brilliant, fine bubbles

The color is just so strikingly shiny. I’m reminded of my years playing in band and seeing all of the brass instruments with their shining gold hue. I see just a few little bubbles in the glass.

Aromas: white wine, lemon, minerals, tropical fruit, dust, and cedar

The Late Harvest smells immediately like a white wine in a wonderfully appealing way. I also get notes of lemon, dust, minerals, cedar wood and tropical fruit. Somewhere in the mix, you can find a deep note of dark ripeness.

Sweetness/dryness: Dry

This is a perfectly dry cider, and I wouldn’t want it to be any other way.

Flavors and drinking experience: petillant, barrel character, candied orange peel, butterscotch, paper tannins

What I notice first about the late harvest is its petillance. The bubbles are present but not intense. The cider uses its barrel aging beautifully. I’d say that barrel character creates the headline for the cider’s flavors: candied orange peel, butterscotch, dried pineapple, and ripe apple. The cider brings high acid and slight papery tannins as well. I appreciate its full body with some zesty tartness.

The overall impression I gather is that the cider is robust and vigorous but not too boozy. There’s just a hint of warmth on the finish. It manages to simultaneously be stony and yet pervasively apple-y.  The cider’s spontaneous fermentation is a tertiary quality that doesn’t overshadow the apples or the time on oak. Instead the fermentation feels clean and straightforward. This is a lovely cider that I’m so glad to enjoy peacefully with all of my senses returned. 

There's more to Fall than Thanksgiving! : )

Hey cider lovers. My nose is alternately running and completely stuffy, so I cannot bring a new cider review to the blog this week. It’s such a key time for cider, so I hate to skip out entirely. Everyone is talking about Thanksgiving. It’s a big food holiday. The menu is tremendously cider compatible. That’s wonderful. I feel like I’ve helped contribute to the thinking about cider and Thanksgiving already. I don’t have much that’s new to say about it. 

Here are a few Thanksgiving and Cider resources for those who want them!

My traditional Thanksgiving food and cider pairing guide: https://www.ciderculture.com/thanksgiving-cider-pairing/

Vegetarian dressing with cider and my 2018 Thanksgiving cider choice: https://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2018/11/thanksgiving-ciders-eves-ciderys.html

Pairing at my house for Thanksgiving and my birthday back in 2016.

The plan: https://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2016/11/pick-cider-for-thanksgiving-and-my.html

The results: https://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2016/11/happy-to-pickcider-for-thanksgiving.html

Cider Culture’s Plant Based Thanksgiving Cider Guide (by the awesome Emily Kovach): https://www.ciderculture.com/plant-based-thanksgiving-recipes/

Thanksgiving isn’t the only big event of Fall in my house. I’m pretty fond of my birthday. 

It’s not the easiest birthday to love, since it falls in the shadow of a holiday that’s both major and controversial. The weather isn’t often inviting; the time isn’t easy to schedule; people are often recovering from a very heavy and traditional meal. But the beauty of a birthday is that we get to make its style of celebration and its meaning. 

I don’t need a giant feast the day after Thanksgiving, but I do want to enjoy something other than leftovers for my birthday. Here’s the plan and the cider.

Dinner will be a Delicata squash salad with arugula, baby spinach, fresh apples, dried cranberries, pecans, a crumbly blue cheese, shredded carrots, radish, roasted quarter rings of Delicata squash. I figure we’ll make a big salad and then an array of different protein options to go on top: marinated tofu, dijon salmon, and chicken breast for the meat eaters. The dressing will be a homemade maple dijon vinaigrette. 

To pair with this, I want a bone dry super sparkly cider with only apples. I prefer something twice twice fermented so either a method ancestral or a methode champenoise. I’m planning on looking through my cellars for options by cideries really committed to aromatic bubbly ciders. I haven’t chosen yet, but don’t be surprised if it’s from Eve’s Cidery, Snowdrift Cider,  Eden Specialty Ciders, Albemarle, Haykin Family Cider, or Seminary Hill. Then again, my cider sometimes surprises me. There’s at least one bottle I’ve been saving since a friend sourced it for me a few months ago. Only time will tell.   

Dessert has to be cheesecake. I love most kinds of cake. It’s seriously one of the best parts of being a human. I truly want a maple cheesecake with mini chocolate chips. We’re going to try a Cabot Creamery recipe: https://cabotcreamery.com/blogs/recipes/maple-cheesecake

It’s my birthday, so I get a dessert pairing as well. If you know me, you know it’s going to be pommeau. But which sweet, rich, layered, fiery pommeau will it be? I’ll probably decide next week. 

I hope everyone gets to celebrate their special days with delicious food, cider, and loved ones!

Cider Review: Black Diamond Cider's 2021 Redfield/Wickson Crab

This weekend I got to attend my first ever gaming convention. I strolled downtown to enjoy the first ever FLAG Con (Finger Lakes Area Gaming Convention). It was a brilliant and totally overwhelming experience. I played 1 board game and 4 tabletop role playing games in 3 days, and that includes my first experience running a one-off con game. At the end of each day, my voice was absolutely destroyed. When I was home Sunday evening after my game, I needed something calm, mature, and sophisticated for my cider choice. That’s why I choice Black Diamond Cider’s 2021 Redfield/Wickson Crab to accompany my dinner and relaxation.

Black Diamond Cider is based out of Trumansburg, New York. It’s a great small cidery out of truly incredible orchard. You can find more background information in my earlier reviews. I bought this cider as a returning member of Black Diamonds Apple and Cider CSA.

Here are all my Black Diamond Cider reviews. 

The Moosewood Black Diamond Pairing Dinner: https://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2022/10/cider-week-new-york-moosewood.html

2021 Black is Gold a collaboration with Redbyrd Orchard Cider(My #1 cider of 2021): http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2021/11/cider-review-black-diamond-farm-and.html

Black Diamond Cider's 2018 Rosé: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2020/09/cider-review-eden-ciders-peak-bloom-and.html

Shin Hollow: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2020/08/cider-review-mountain-west-ciders-sweet.html

Jaywalker: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2020/03/cider-review-alpenfires-dungeness-and.html

Geneva Tremlett’s: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2019/03/cider-review-black-diamonds-geneva.html

Somerset Jersey: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2019/05/very-perry-may-with-vandermills-ice-ice.html

Slatestone: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2018/11/cider-reviews-big-hill-ciderworks.html

Hickster: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2016/12/cider-review-black-diamond-ciders.html

Porter’s Pommeau: https://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2017/09/finger-lakes-cider-week-and-birthday.html

Solstice: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2017/08/cider-review-black-diamonds-solstice.html

Rabblerouser: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2015/09/cider-review-black-diamonds.html

Black Diamond Cidery’s website is the best place to find out the latest news with this Finger Lakes cidery: https://www.blackdiamondcider.com/

2021 Redfield/Wickson Crab

The berry-filled essence and soft tannins of Redfield combined with intense acidity and rich sugars of Wickson Crab create this cider which is full-bodied, fruit-forward and with just enough sweetness to temper its racy acidity.

In the cidery: Field blend of Redfield and Wickson Crab pressed 1 month after harvest. DV10 yeast. Bottled still after 8 months of aging. 20 Cases produced.

In your glass: Aromas of stone fruit and white grape. Mouthwatering acidity, cherry and peach.

Varieties: Wickson Crab (80%), Redfield (20%)

Alcohol: 8%   Residual Sugar: 0.75% 

Knowing that this will be a still semi-dry cider with my favorite crab apple makes me extra curious about it. 

Appearance: delicate straw color, brilliant, still

This cider is completely still and brilliant. The color is a gently warm straw. 

Aromas: star fruit, peach, apple, cherry & minerals

One of my favorite things about Black Diamond ciders are the aromas. They never fade away; 

I’m amazed by the intensity of the Star fruit, ripe peach, apple and mineral aromas. The peach and cherry from the official description is completely accurate. 

Dryness/Sweetness: Semi-dry

This is a semi-dry cider. I usually have the dry end of Black Diamond’s ciders, but this has loads of appeal. 

Flavors and drinking experience: fruity, citrus, extremely high acid, wine like

The first thing I noticed when the cider touched my tongue is its extremely high acid. The cider tastes fruity, with loads of citrus. The particular way that this cider is semi dry is that it approaches sweetly and then goes to semi dry. It’s a still and luscious cider with a heavy mouthfeel. The impression that lingers is one of peach and apple. I think this would be a huge hit for fans of cool-climate semi-dry white wines like Riesling or Gewurztraminer.