Dollar Bill Brewing Cider Way Vintage 2021

Dollar Dollar Bills Y’all. Dollar Bill Brewing just dropped the Cider Way Vintage 2021 cider. Oh and it’s a hopped cider.

Dollar Bills Brewing is all about fresh local ingredients fermented with wild yeast in French oak. Using Pink Lady and Granny Smith apples blended Peckham Pears for this cider. So they ticking all of my boxes. This Victorian brewer takes a lot of inspiration from the Belgians when it comes to their beer styles, this has seeped over into the Cider Way 202 cider. They take advantage of wild yeasts and mixed cultures of saccharomyces, Brettanomyces and lactic acid bacteria to create flavours.

There is something nice about playing in the world of microbiology rather than adding other fruits. But here’s where things come unstuck for me. This is a hopped cider meaning it has had American and Australian hops steeped in the cider. I am pretty open about not being a fan of hops. It is one of the reasons I shunned beer and found cider over 15 years ago. But I know cider legends like Tom Oliver will disagree and say “what grows together goes together” when talking about hopped ciders. So I hope they are subtle and still let the apples shine.

The Nose

I’m double-checking the label on Dollar Bill Brewing creation, is this a Belgian saison beer? It’s funky fresh lemons mix with farmhouse dank wet weather notes. There isn’t much in the way of apple notes here. The hops drown them out while the bready yeasts fight to be seen.

The Taste

Again I’m checking the labels, It says cider but it doesn’t taste like it, I’m fact I might take it back to the bar if it wasn’t for the bright straw colour of the cider. I’m trying to find elements of the Pink Ladies or the Granny Smiths Apples but they have just been sledgehammered by the hops. Weirdly the Packham Pears and their unfermentable sugars do peak through midway through the mouthful.

If you can get past the hops and their bitterness it’s a high acid cider with very low sweetness and an average amount of fizz. I want to try and taste more of those wild yeast but they have just been drowned out.

Final Thoughts on the Dollar Bill Brewing’s Cider Way Vintage 2021

This should probably be reviewed by an expert beer reviewer who could do a decent job of explaining the interplay between the hops and yeast. Me, well I can give you an amateur explanation about apples, yeasts and to a lesser extent pears but here I can’t get to what should be a classic, new world pink lady/granny smith/Packham pear combo.

This has got to appeal to someone, the creators must enjoy enough to share with the public but it’s just not doing it for me. I reckon the hop heads and ale lovers wouldn’t say no to another round.

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