Raglan Cider Mill (Medium) Draught Cider

The third festival cider I tried was another Welshy - South Wales this time by the Raglan Cider Mill from Monmouthshire.

Those who know such things will know that this company are heavily involved in the annual Clytha Cider Festival - the Clytha being a pub that each year holds a major cider festival. Keeping tabs on such things via Twitter helps - and I can safely say that if you are in that universe the Clytha festival was all over it... to say it was well advertised would probably be a bit of an understatement!

Anyway, this isn't a review of the festival, its a review of some of their cider that made it all the way to my local festival. Again, this is another producer I have been looking forward to trying. They make Perry too (but I am still an innocent as far as Perry's are concerned - I have tried them, I am trying to understand them, and I still have plenty of cider yet to try before I start on them with any kind of seriousness... if that is a word!)

This cider is hazy and dark. I have put pale brown on the scoresheet, but I think copper may be more accurate. It smells sweet and earthy - there seems to be a lot of fruit going on in here by its smell. And boy, is there a lot of fruit in here!

The first taste is, however, a mouthful of sweetness. Why people think that this is a medium is a little beyond me - its more like a sweet. However, accepting that perhaps I don't know mediums and sweets that well as they are not really my thing, I persevered. And I am glad I did. There is so much fruity taste in this cider. Sure, it has tannin and not a lot of acid in it, but the fruit is surely the element that wins out. OK, this may be because the sweetening is drowning out both acid and tannin, but its very interesting all the same.

Fruit and sweetness run all the way through this cider. It has a surprisingly long aftertaste - again, could be the sweetening doing that. I actually don't mind it after a few mouthfuls of the stuff. Ok, I would prefer a medium dry or dry version to see how this compares and to see what effect the levels of sweetness bring or detract from the true cider. But never the less, this cider deserves its bronze apple from me, with a score of 74/100.