For a change of pace, I decided to spend a weekend focused on apples … in this case, the sweet tastes of hard cider from Stowe’s own Stowe Cider. Stowe Cider recently moved from their location further up Mountain Road to the building they now share with West Branch Gallery. Here they can house their distilling operations, tasting room, and retail store in one space. The address says they are located at 17 Town Farm Lane … if you have trouble finding them, point your eyes across from Tres Amigos restaurant.
Upon entering, I was pleasantly surprised by their rather long list of ciders available for tasting, ten on offer this day (they also had two local craft beers … but I ignored them). Stowe Cider offers samples of four ciders for $6 … a little pricey, but I selected four and began my tasting adventure.
- Stowe Cider High and Dry (6.5% ABV): This is their flagship cider and lives up to its name … very dry and only slightly sweet. With a good thirst, you can easily drink a few bottles of this elixir.
- Stowe Cider Safety Meeting (6.5% ABV): Another standard of Stowe Cider, this cider is dry-hopped like an ale … in fact, if you close your eyes as you start your sip, you can almost imagine that your are drinking a beer. It then finishes with a sweet taste, and you are reminded that this is a cider. Excellent.
- Stowe Cider Snow’s Raspberry (6.3% ABV): This is one of their infused ciders … raspberry in this case. Very drinkable, but hard to recognize the raspberry taste.
- Stowe Cider Bear’s Choice (6.3% ABV): A blackberry infused cider … this was my favorite. Really nice blackberry finish.
All the ciders are available for purchase on site. You can get growlers of everything they are pouring, cans of most everything, and bottles of the infused ciders. I took home four bottles of the Bear’s Choice to add to my holiday gift horde.
The Cicerone says: Stowe Cider is still getting organized in their new space. Things are a little bit in disarray, but this doesn’t take away from the great ciders they are producing.
Stowe Cider
17 Town Farm Ln, Stowe VT
Open Fri – Sun 12pm – 6pm
Website
Stowe Beer 