Cider Chat

An Apology? By a Cider Judge Busted! I am the cider judge who has been holding onto a memory from nearly 20 years ago. At that time there were very few commercial makers of cider and in turn there were very few entries into competitions. The apology stems from my time back then when I was one of the rare cider judges here in the states, thinking I knew something about cider. Looking back now I keep repeating the same phrase - "I wish I knew then, What I know now... about cider." The competition was called the Great International Beer & Cider Competition, but honestly I don't think cider was even included in the name in 2003 or 2004.  Despite that, we had three ciders to judge and likely 300+ beers. Why an Apology? Up to that point I had only tasted cider made here in the states. Despite having 10 years of experience with cider, I had no idea what a Normandy apple or cider tasted like. UK ciders were definitely not a thing in the US and are only recently becoming more available. It is only more recently th