Here’s what you probably know about cider: It’s the fastest growing sector of the alcohol industry. Cider sales grew 75% last year, according to a market research firm out of Chicago. Cider hasn’t reached anywhere near the feverish pitch of craft beer, but the future is bright. Big boys like Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors are in the cider game with their own brands, and a bunch of craft shops have popped up in the last couple of years. All total, there are more than 400 cider makers operating in the U.S.
But forget about the quantity of cider on the market for a minute, what’s truly important here is the quality of the cider on the market. You still have plenty of traditional sweet options, the stuff that basically tastes like jacked up apple juice, but you also have a number of progressive cider makers who are taking a page from the craft beer industry and experimenting with different yeast strains and adjuncts. Cider makers that are squeezing every bit of flavor and complexity out of America’s most common fruit. Cider makers like B. Nektar, out of Michigan, who’s making a few different ciders that go beyond the saccharine apple juice that most of us might associate with the style.
Their Slice of Life uses lemon juice and ginger in the fermentation, and you get strong doses of both in the nose and on the palate. It’s light and dry, with a Champagne-like mouthfeel. It’s not as sweet as most ciders, but it’s still obvious that you’re drinking apples. Which is perfectly okay. If I wanted a cider to taste like a beer, I’d just get a beer. The thing that bugs me about many other ciders, is their one-dimensionality. A lot of the mass-produced ciders out there don’t offer much more in their profile than “apple.” If you’re lucky, you might get a hint of green apple. Slice of Life is far more complex than that.