Colorado Common Hard Cider February Visit

We finally hit our first cidery! Yay! This time around, the CoBrewTalk wives came with us, and I have to say, we all really enjoyed it!

Jesse and his lovely wife beat us there, and already had the entire line up of available ciders at the table, and were generous enough to let us sample.

I have to say, the only two ciders I didn’t really care for were the ones which had ingredients that I don’t particularly like, namely ginger and Elderberry, and you can’t blame them for that. I settled on the Golden Brown and the Winter Roosevelt.

Golden Brown – 4.5% ABV – This was a semi-sweet cider, was just plain delicious. The honey complimented the flavor of the cider really well, and it was as clear and bright as you could want.

Winter Roosevelt – 6% ABV
“Semi-Sweet Apple cider aged in whiskey barrells, aged on long leaf black tea, local honey, and fresh peppermint leaves” – Colorado Common

When I read the description, I was a little hesitant because whiskey flavor isn’t really my thing, but was really surprised at how mild the flavor was. The cider finishes with a light peppermint flavor that was really pleasant. I really enjoyed this cider.

I’m really looking forward to coming back to Colorado Common, and I’m going to make sure to try and find them in my local stores.

[Jesse]

I was looking forward to your visit when Mike and I discussed where we would be going this week. As much as I am enjoying trying many of the local breweries and beers in Colorado Springs, I do love a good cider every once in a while and Colorado Common was the perfect place to get some.

Personally, I wasn’t a big fan of the Winter Roosevelt. I agree with Mike that the whiskey flavor was very mild, in fact the tea flavor was more pronounced, but I just didn’t care for the whiskey flavor in the cider. I think I’m simply not a whisky guy. The other ciders we had in the flight that I found to be interesting were the Frizzante, which my wife commented that it reminded her of a wine more than an apple cider, and Imperial Ginger which had a pronounced ginger flavor that I enjoyed, but thought would be a bit “too much” if I’d gotten a whole glass. In the end I tried the following:

Golden Brown – Of the six that we tried in the flight, I think I liked this one the best. The crispness of the apple was mellowed nicely by the tea and honey. I typically think of ciders as a more “summery” type of drink, this one was mellow enough that I could easily enjoy it on a cool fall evening.

Summit House – 6% ABV – This is the type of cider I was hankerin’ for when Mike suggested a cider house. A nice crisp, not-too-sweet apple. Definitely something I think I would prefer over some of the large, commercial apple ciders. Since this is one of the flagship ciders we tried, I’m going to be looking for this at some of the local distributors.