Nice and Tart

I was helping the infamous Beer Snob Sr. move to his new and luxurious apartment Tuesday night. That's in part as to why I wasn't able to get anything posted on here yesterday. Let's be honest. There aren't many that missed me anyways.

Still, an idea for this post came out of my assistance. In gratitude, Beer Snob Sr. offered those of us that helped in said moving pizza and homebrew. His fridge was stocked with lager, white IPA and a hard cider.

In case you didn't get the reference.

I grabbed myself a cider and noticed it was quite flat. In my experience with the hard cider my dad and I have made, it takes at least six months to get any bit of carbonation present. This one had next to nothing. For the lack of carbonation, it still was nice and tart. Just the way I like my ciders.

The one my dad makes in time for Thanksgiving Day each year is a massive undertaking. He waits until nearby Trax Farms has unpasteurized apple cider and gets an "Ale Pail" full of it. We want it unpasteurized due to it having the natural yeasts already in it. We toss in the sugar to up the ABV. Then we add raisins and oak chips before letting nature take care of the rest.

The final product has a strong taste that's oak-like and boozy. Thus, we named it "Boot in the Ass." Beer Snob Sr. (not my dad if you're confused) always used Mr. Beer kits for his homebrews. Given the speed in which one is enabled to make a final product with some of those kits, I can understand why the batch of cider he had was flat.

I made a point to remind him that he had created alcohol, which in some cases is hard enough to do.  In my eyes, that's an above average cider. Obviously my palate isn't acclimated to the nuances of ciders (as I might be with beer) just yet. I've tried a a few of the local ones by Arsenal here in Lawrenceville as well as Jack's Hard Cider out near Gettysburg. All I know is that I like them nice and tart.