Hood River’s Double Mountain Brewery & Cidery continues to produce some excellent beers and, over the past couple of years, ciders as well. I’ve been receiving a number of these ciders, including the most recent, Wickson Crab Cider, released this spring. It’s a single-varietal cider made from Wickson crabapples, a sweeter-than-normal type for crabapples yet still tart as the variety is known for.

Here’s what the brewery wrote about them in the press release:

Tiny on the tree but big on flavor, the Wickson Crab apple lends itself perfectly to a distinctive cider, especially since they are grown just up the street from wheret hey are pressed and fermented. These little gems impart a wonderful earthiness and incredible aromas of ripe honeydew and Meyer lemon. The finish? Pure prosecco. Grab yourself a glass and never look back.

This is a robust cider at 8.2% ABV and a good one to share.

Appearance: Clear, light pale golden color, ample carbonation feeding a fizzy, yet quickly-falling head.

Smell: Mellow tannic apple—mild flesh, apple skins. There’s a light kiss of acidity, a tart juice note. It comes off to me as rustic, but not in a farmhouse, possible-wild-yeast kind of way.

Taste: There’s a tart note, befitting the crabapples, that’s slightly earthy and reminiscent of green apple skin. A very light touch of sweet juice is present but overall the cider is fairly dry and has that soft malic acid kick I like to find. It’s bright and earthy, and I don’t taste the alcohol, which could be dangerous at over eight percent.

Mouthfeel: Light body, dry, and petillant. There’s a crisp and lingering dry, lightly-tart juice character lingering into the finish.

Overall: This is a nice cider, rustic, dry, and fairly subtle and mild. There is a good essence of crabapple captured here.