‘What fellating God must taste like’

Beer fans are no strangers to hyperbole – particularly the dedicated masses that record their thoughts on ratings websites. As regular BeerCast readers might be aware, every so often I join in with a RateBeer tasting group hosted by Edinburgh tickmeister Craig Garvie. Usually we gravitate (pun intended) towards the stronger or rarer brews, as is the norm for Raters (about whom, you can read my thoughts here).

These hard to get hold of beers often score higher, for a variety of reasons (scarcity being just one). The other night, however, we entered the complete unknown, as Craig slammed down his De Molen tasting flute and proclaimed to have had “the best thing to have ever passed my lips”. Which, coming from a man who has slipped almost 8,500 things between them* was quite something. Even more so, as it wasn’t actually a beer we’d been drinking.

* steady

The grandly titled La Face Cachée de la Pomme Neige Recolte d’Hiver is a 9% ice cider, of all things. I don’t think we’ve ever featured cider on the BeerCast before (other than when whining about alcohol taxation). I’d never even heard of the frozen variety. If my French is up to it, the producer loosely translates as ‘The Hidden Face of Apples’, and they put out their ‘Neige’ brand of iced ciders from Quebec, growing the fruit in Montérégie.

The inventive chaps leave the apples on trees throughout the summer heat (cooking them) and then winter (freezing them), before picking in a single week in January. This seriously concentrates the sugars – if wasps got hold of the juice there would be carnage. After pulping, the resulting liquid is fermented for eight months before being boiled. The final product – which retails in the UK at £45 for a 375ml bottle – is known as ice cider (or apple ice wine).

Ratebeer accepts ratings for cider – and indeed has a distinct category for ice cider (of which, La Face Cachée de la Pomme have the three highest ranked). The Winter Harvest that we tasted is top of the pile, and utterly adored, judging by some of the other raters (the post title comes from a reviewer in Orlando). Other comments – “Perfection in a bottle”, “Liquid heaven”, “Every sip I take, I cannot help but smile”.

Justified? Well, yes and no. It is lovely – we drank it at room temperature so it was brilliantly sweet. It smelled almost exactly like an apple Danish pastry, with a slight spiced hint of something mild and warming coming through. Sweet, apple honey syrup is the best way I can sum it up. There was a touch of Botrytis on the finish, giving a sweet honeysuckle ending – it really reminded me of a dessert wine, or as us trendy drinkies now call them – stickies.

Sticky is probably the best adjective to describe it – like an apple strudel you struggle to finish, having taken too large a piece. It was lovely, no question – although it did remind me of a decent dessert wine or fruit liqueur. Tough to pigeonhole, it should probably be considered as either of these styles. Beer drinkers might not normally lean towards dessert wines – but a few sips of this “orgasm in a glass” would seem to push them in the right direction.