Aha, someone else has had a go at making cider solely from Tremlett's Bitter. A brave company? Well, I should be able to judge these more accurately soon - I have a gallon of single variety Tremletts Bitter cider... just finished fermenting and now maturing in bottle. In a few months I hope to be able to add a little addendum to each of the SV's that I have tried from my own experience.
Actually, its not just Tremlett's. I have a Dabinet, Kingston Black, Harry Masters Jersey, Yarlington Mill, Michelin and, for whatever reason that seemed good to me at the time, an Egremont Russet. A gallon of each, all now fermented and resting until I cannot resist the tasting any longer:-)
Anyway. Perry's is one of my more favourite producers of cider, so I expect them to do this justice... all barring the fact that they have sweetened this to a medium. Perhaps it was a difficult SV and sweetening it rounded the edges off a bit!
One point about this cider before I review it. Its more for Perry's than anything. Whilst I *think* I understand the concept that Tremlett's make a full bodied cider, I do struggle with the idea that Tremlett's makes a full bodied medium cider (which it says on the label). It doesn't. The sweetening makes it a full bodied medium cider... unless I am just being pedantic and touchy with the 'sweet apples make sweet cider' fallacy! However, given that my last post was about sweetening and attempting to dispel the concept that sweet apples make sweet cider as the garbage it is, I hope you will allow a little pedancy:-)
It is a golden and bright cider, with a low to medium carbonation on pouring. This settles down pretty quickly and, shoving it under my nose it has a deep and tannic smell that is very typically Tremletts. Nice, but I expect it to be a challenge! I am really not getting much acid from the smell either - again, this is what you should expect from the apple that I have previously described as a condiment... it is so tannic in good years that it is inedible.
The taste is very interesting. Don't expect a balanced cider - a Tremlett cider is not going to give you that - and its clearly not what Perry's are after here. Wow. That taste tastes me back to last autumn! This is pretty much all Tremletts Bitter. The sweetening does have the effect of lifting the tannin so that the cider is only beyond dry. There is very little acid in here, although it feels a wee bit processed - again, this is to be forgiven in an all bittersweet cider - Without acid to balance, the cider may well hit problems such as ropiness if it's not either adjusted or protected. In this case, I would definitely go for protected with filtering and pasteurisation over adjustment with additional acid... but the level of filtering Perry's have used doesn't hit the deeply tannic nature of the cider too hard.
The aftertaste is long and tannic too. In fact, this cider is all about the tannin and western fruity flavour that goes with it. Stacks of character and quite unusual, I wouldn't put it among the greats on the basis that it is, after all, a single variety. However, if my version tastes this good then I will be happy (and unlikely to share it:-)
A good silver apple for this Tremletts cider with a score of 88/100. I was in danger of giving a gold to a single variety there:-)
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