Cider Review: Crispin's Browns Lane Imported Classic English Dry Cider

It has been so long since I've reviewed a Crispin cider that I feel like the whole cider world has changed! Crispin used to be a Minnesota cider company. At some point they bought the perry company Fox Barrel. The whole time I've been reviewing them, they've been owned by MillerCoors, but they have tried a few different things with the brand in that time.

I've had some great experiences with Crispin Ciders and tasted a few that weren't really compatible with my preferences. But I've always head about more interesting Artisanal limited release ciders than I've seen for sale. Many of these are differentiated either by interesting yeast choices or experimental barrel-aging techniques.

Here are all of my previous reviews of this brand, some of which go pretty far back:

The Saint: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2013/05/cider-review-crispin-ciders-saint.html This review of a fun and approachable cider includes the first appearance of any of my cats in a the blog!

Georgia: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2013/12/cider-review-crispin-georgia.html This was a wild cider that had so many flavors like mint and peach that it scarely felt like a cider at all.

Honey Crisp: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2014/01/cooking-with-cider-crispins-honey-crisp.html This is a different post as the Honey Crisp cider was used to make a cider maple glaze for scones as well as for drinking.

You can read about Crispin on the website: http://www.crispincider.com/  

One bit of evidence for the change since I started reviewing Cripin can be seen in thattwo of my other previous reviews were then Fox Barrel Perries but are now Crispin Pear Ciders!

The sweet and juicy Blackberry Pear: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2013/08/perry-review-fox-barrel-blackberry-pear.html

And the first Perry review I ever wrote Fox Barrel Pacific Pear: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2013/07/and-now-for-something-completely.html

This is how Crispin introduces their Browns Lane.

Crispin Browns Lane is a dry, classic English style cider made from traditional English bittersweet cider apples. Named for the original Jaguar® auto factory in England, it pays homage to the great motor-racing heritage of Britain. 

AppearanceDeep golden straw, slight amber hues, brilliant clarity. 

AromaEarthy, ripened apple, slight honey, slight Brett saison farmhouse ale aroma. 

TasteEarthy flavors, slightly musty, bittersweet overripe apples, honey nutty toasts 

MouthfeelDrying, bitter, medium body, slightly woody. 

FinishLingering dryness and woody finish.

Now I'm curious to see how much I will agree or disagree with these fairly specific descriptions.

Appearance: popcorn kernel gold, brilliant, visible bubbles

This cider pours with a lot of exciting effervescence! The color separates it immediately from most american ciders because of the depth and vibrance of that popcorn kernel color. I'd also call the cider brilliant which is the style of some english cider but far from all.

Aromas: cooked apples, mellow, cellar, wood

This smells mild but distinctly like more English ciders. Smells a little sweet and musty and cooked but in a very good way.

Sweetness/dryness: semi dry

Definitely semi dry and definitely drier than other Crispin ciders including their Brut.

Flavors and drinking experience: fruity, barely bitter, well balanced, mellow, ever so slightly funky

I like how this cider is a little bitter, a little aged, teensy bit funky but fruity well balanced mellow and semi dry. I think I like more it than any other Crispin cider.  A cider that reminds me of baked apples and hints of barrel richness that don't go overboard is a good thing.

For pairings, I've had this one a few ways, but my favorite was drinking this with friends while watching the excellently silly film Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1374989/). But I could also make some more taste oriented suggestions like a potato and mushroom frittata, which would would go rather well with this cider or a vegetarian roast once the weather cools off just a bit more. I'd rather pair this with rich and salty flavors than things too light or sweet.

CiderCon 2015: Friday and Wrap Up

 
Here's part three of my documentation of CiderCon.

If you want to see my earlier posts on this amazing event please follow these links:

Tuesday's Sensory Analysis Training: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2015/03/cidercon-2015-sensory-analysis-training.html

Wednesday USACM meeting and Cider Swap: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2015/03/cidercon-2015-usacm-business-meeting.html

Thursday Clicker Session, Keynotes, Panels and Workshops: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2015/03/cider-con-2015-thursday-clicker-session.html

 
I started my day with a marketing and sales panel, "Cider Sales Strategies & Tactics" a shared panel with Bob Egan,Vandermill Cider; Patrick Gould, Windy City Distributing; Michelle Foik, Eris Brewery & Ciderhouse; Anthony Belliveau-Flores, Rowan Imports LLC. This group had energy to spare and so much to share with cidermakers ready to sell their products. They spoke about building relationships with the accounts (bars, restaurants, bottle shops and more) that sell the cider. Everyone emphasized both educating consumers and being educated by them. I think one of my favorite takeaway ideas was to find out where your customers are and what they are doing then bring cider to those activities whether that means bars, museum events, renaissance fairs, fine dining or night clubs.

They also spoke specifically about the cider market of Chicago, its growing pains, idiosyncracies, and educational network. I was massively impressed, and I know I wasn't the only one who really appreciated how much immediately interesting and useful information this panel had to share.

A few other useful thoughts I noted particularly:

This Multi-Step Approach
Be engaged: Talk with everyone about your expectations
Plan-not just one year but three years or more
Support- not just at the point of sale but everywhere, educate people, sales materials
Partnership- Be an advocate for yourself, make distribution and marketing and sales work together, nothing happens in a vaccuum.

Understand the law.

Don't sell to the store. Sell through the store.

There were great questions at this panel as well. I love being part of a motivated audience and CiderCON offers those consistently!

My last panel on Friday at Cidercon was a fantastic one, "Surviving the American Dream: Cider Business Startup" by Bruce Nissen. This is an anther panel to which I showed up early because I knew the room would fill, and fill it did. There are so many people who want to start cideries right now, and they are hungry for good specific information about that process. Nissen is in a great position to share good information because of his history in the industry; he started Fox Barrel Perry with Sean Deorsey in 2004 and is in the process of some fantastically interesting new projects (http://hoodriverbizbuzz.com/?p=6006)

Nissen's first and primary emphasis was on planning. "Have a plan. What are you doing?" he said to us.

He encouraged people to plan for scale and profitability and to be honest about the need for human capital. This is a point I've seen in action. People need to plan to pay themselves and have have enough money to hire other people. So many businesses struggle with this, especially small businesses and young businesses. Products don't look good because the company cannot afford a professional graphic designer for their packaging. Websites go offline or become outdated because a company doesn't spend the money (or necessarily even have the money) for well-supported website. Products languish because there isn't money to pay for adequate sales staff. Tax issues because no one hired an accountant who knows and understands the tax laws. I've seen all of these things mulitple times in the cider world. I hope people listened when Bruce told people to budget for all of these things before even starting.

He told folks to think about format: tap room vs tasting room? bottle size? kegging?

Who are your customers? Where are they? Can the business have ancillary revenue streams? It should.

Next Nissen spoke about timing. Many businesses underestimate how long it will take to get up and running. There will be delays and they can be expensive. When can a new cidery owner afford to quit her or his day job?  How long does the start up phase last? Things take more time than most folks expect.

But the presentation wasn't just a list of questions for potential cider owners to ask themselves. He also talked about grant opportunities.

It was a very thorough completely riveting talk. Once the materials go online, I'll link to them here. I don't have the notes necessary to completely recreate his talk here, but I wish I could, because it was that good.

Sadly, after this I had to fly home. I missed the guest speaker: Congressman Earl Blumenauer from Oregon. But from what I understand, he appeared to discuss the CIDER (shorted from Cider Industry Deserves Equal Regulation) act, which is a bipartisan Act, HR 600. Blumenauer reintroduced this with Congressman Chris Collins from New York with the goal of improving taxes codes relevant to cider and especially small or farm based cideries.

All in all, CiderCON was a wonderfully inspiring and education experience in addition to being a fun and delicious one.  I'm so grateful for the opportunity to attend and meet so many fellow cider lovers.

Perry Review: Fox Barrel Blackberry Pear

To start with full disclosure, this was another sample perry gifted to me by the kind folks at Crispin, Fox Barrel's parent company. This is one of the last ciders I got to photograph and taste in New York City before moving to Ithaca. You can check out their really nicely developed website that has tons of photos, info, and extras at: http://www.foxbarrel.com/. I have reviewed one of their perries before here: http://alongcameacider.blogspot.com/2013/07/and-now-for-something-completely.html.  I timed my tasting for maximum fruit relaxation during our massive July heatwave.

I couldn't get the Fox Barrel website to work for me, so here's what they say that I could find on a different review site "Naturally fermented using 100% pear juice, not from pear juice concentrate,or flavored hard apple cider. Filtered cold for extra purity and infused with natural blackberry juice. With no added colorants, sugar, sorbate or benzoate preservatives. No added malt, spirit, grape or apple alcohols. Naturally elegant, refreshingly adult with an authentic blackberry dark-fruit taste and a sweet-sharp fresh tang. Mouthwatering juicy complexity. Luscious pear-berry bouquet."There are a lot of claims and descriptions in there, but we'll see how it tastes.

Color and Appearance: blood orange, no visible bubbles, brilliant

This is a beautiful beverage.  It appears intensely colorful and completely still. The clarity is such that you could easily read text through it in good light, so brilliant.

Aromas: blackberry, punch

This doesn't have much in the way of pear aroma, but I can easily smell blackberry and a sweet fruity punch sort of melange. I'm tiny bit worried about how sweet it will be, based on the aromas.

Sweetness: sweet, fruity, tart, but a clean finish

The Blackberry Pear tastes sweet, but its acidity makes the sweet balance well with its tartness. It is refreshing and clean on the finish. No syrupy issues here, as I've had with some ciders blended with fruits or fruit flavors. Using only real ingredients makes a definite difference, so congratulations to Fox Barrel there.

Flavors: not very pear, more blackberry with zing

This is a lot more than just a sweet fruity blackberry drink, though it starts there. The Blackberry pear offers warmth with a yeasty nutty loveliness. Definitely enjoyable even on hot hot night.

Drinking Experience: tremendously easy drinking

My worries were for naught. Fox Barrel has blended blackberry tartness with pear sweetness in a lovely and totally easy to enjoy way. It isn't a beverage I'll add to my regular rotation, because when push comes to shove even a very nice perry just doesn't compare to cider, but I like it. Put most simply: not a cider, but tasty.

The Blackberry Pear would be a fantastic party perry that would pair well with sushi or light desserts like sponge cakes, gelato, or sorbet. One could easily play up either the sweet or tart side of this beverage or even just slip in a fresh sprig of mint and put it in a pretty glass to offer to guests.

And Now for Something Completely Different...Fox Barrel Pacific Pear

 I got a lovely sampler box from Crispin Ciders a few weeks ago, and I'm making my way through it slowly. It is my first box of free cider for reviewing after all. Tonight though I wanted to try something light and refreshing, cooling if I could get. it. So I decided to pick up one of the perries they sent from Fox Barrel. Fox Barrel calls them pear ciders but makes a point to emphasize that they come completely from pears. In my mind, that makes them perries. I know that perry is not a familiar term in the United States, but I'm a bit of a stickler for words. A mildly alcoholic beverage made from pressed pears is a perry. Anyhow, I'm curious to try one. I've not had more than a sample pour of a perry in quite a few years.

The specific beverage in question is Fox Barrel's Pacific Pear. Here's what Fox Barrel says about their Pacific Pear: "Naturally fermented using 100% pear juice, not from pear juice concentrate or pear-flavored hard apple cider. Filtered cold for extra purity, and smoothed with pear juice. With no added colorants, sugar, sorbate or benzoate preservatives. No added malt, spirit, grape or apple alcohols. Naturally elegant and refreshingly adult with a sparkling clean natural pear finish, and a subtle woody complexity, completed by an intense fresh pear bouquet." The alcohol content is relatively low at 4.5% ABV. It comes in 12oz bottles. You can find out some additional information on their website: http://www.foxbarrel.com. I honestly don't know enough to make any educated guesses about what's coming. Let's find out.

Color and Appearance: brilliant, jasmine or straw

Pours beautifully. In the glass, I was surprised by the level of brilliance. The color is somewhere between Jasmine and Straw. I just learned about the "Shades of Yellow" Wikipedia entry, and it is quite useful for color distinctions. I tend to get a bit fuzzy and associative on my own. While I don't want to abandon that, I also like to check in with real color words regularly.

Aromas: Ripe PEAR, banana, ginger

Oh my gracious! This isn't cider. I suppose it is only natural and good that it smells this much like pears. The smell is emphatically ripe pear with a secondary fruit note of banana and a teensy bite of ginger.

Sweetness: sweet!

The Pacific Pear offers fruity and floral sweetness. It stays light and lively on the tongue. The sweetness is so intrinsic to the pear fruitiness of the cider; I'd not actually ask it to be drier. That said, folks who cannot abide a sweet drink will not find this as enjoy able as I did.

Flavors: pear, candied orange peel, lemon

The foremost flavor cannot be mistaken for anything but pear. The Pacific Pear tastes like pears. I can also note some citrus and almost a ghost of spice but mostly pear and sweet citrus.

Drinking Experience: refreshing, light, easy

This perry is much lighter than many ciders. It is also extremely refreshing. The Pacific Pear suits my goal for a cool beverage. The level of carbonation is understated and delicate.

Lately, New York has been beastly hot. So warm, that taking a cool shower has been the highlight of some days. This drink was completely lovely and appropriate for this hot July night. I'm not going to become a perry person. It just isn't as absolutely appealing and enjoyable and perfect as cider. I'm sorry. But it is delightful for conditions like we've been having. Survive the summer with a cool cool perry, along with the usual cider regimen of course. Whether alone or with friends, just stay cool.

I want to end with a quick shout out to one of my cider friends. Congrats to Patrick of Crafty and The Beast for his new job with Great Shoals Winery! What a great time to love cider.