Moles Black Rat Cider

Brewed by Moles
Style: Cider
Melksham, England

Serve in Flute, Lager glass

500ml bottle, 5.5% - The White Lion, Norwich. Pours a clear and lively golden orange with a short-lived fizzy and disappearing white head. Sweet red apple balanced by a tangy green apple on the nose. Stewed apples with good sweet red apple at the fore. Light to mediumish body, full carbonation with a light apple peel bitterness and a lingering tang.

Bottle. 5.5%. Pale gold and still. Aromas are earthy apple and caramel with green apple and pepper. Quite clean and sharp. Flavours are sweet and sour apple with dry woody notes and pepper. Some vinegar notes with lemon on the finish. Has a warming palate. A decent bottled cider.

Cloudy with no head. Fresh, appley, juicy aroma. Tannic but sweet like a sweetened apple tea. Just enough nuance for a mainstreamish cider.

Draft in takeaway jug. Lovely luminescent orange. Yeasty throughout the aromas and flavors but then mellows into a nice tart and slightly funky astringency. Mild with sweet juicy apple flavor and a good smack of acidity without giving off any acetic or cider vinegar. Tasted from same jug a day later and the flavors came together even more with the sugars subsiding and blending better with the mellow tartness. Smooth and easy to drink.

Bottled (6.5 %). Slightly hazy yellow colour, no head. Aroma is sweetish sour apples along with some slight notes of earthyness. Flavour is more sweet than sour apples and also mild vinegary notes. Rather thin for being 6.5 %.

Cask @ Bon Accord. Hazy yellow colour, lacings on top. Aroma of sour apple. Flavour is sour apple, yeast, some spices.

Tap@RaiDOrSalisbury. Hmmm, I like my cider to be authentic, sourish and yeasty. This is pretty bland and has none of that. Pretty neutral actually and that makes it easy to drink. But that’s it.

On gravity at the Bag O’Nails, Bristol 15/06/08. Cloudy pale yellow in colour with no head. Aroma of tart apples, cloves and yeast. Flavour started sweet before more spice and a dry finish. My understanding is that Thatchers produce this for Moles nowadays - the commercial description’s reference to Somerset would seem to support this.