Lobo Lenswulf

Lobo Cider are never scared to put a wolf on a bottle of cider. They have done it again with the Lenswulf Cider.

Keeved Ciders are made with a process that adds pectic enzymes and calcium chloride with the juice during fermentation. As the yeasts in the juice eat away at sugars in the juice the a gel forms and floats to the top and forms a hat on top of the juice. The hat or raft is thick and solid, it doesn’t allow the yeast to get the nutrients it needs, slowing and stalling the ferment. The yeast cannot convert all the sugars into alcohol resulting in a naturally sweet cider with a bit of funk. It’s most often seen in French ciders.

Keeved ciders are hard. sometimes they don’t work. When Lobo combined Kingston Black and Brown’s Apples it didn’t go to plan and it wasn’t fully keeved. The result is still a drinkable cider, but it is going to be dryer than they had originally hoped for.

The Nose

The Lenswulf isn’t backwards in coming forwards. It is full of nice barnyard and horse scents mixed in with autumn leaves and just a hint of hay and grass.

The Taste

This dark golden hazy cider is bold. Absolutely bold. It’s got that unmistakable bottle-conditioned fizz that looks tame in the glass and then aggressively goes at your tongue like a swarm of wasps wielding tiny jackhammers. It’s dry but it’s not mucking about with being so dry that it’s basically a powder. The taste itself is full-bodied, heavy with cider-making apples, without overbearing tannins or bitterness which makes it really easy to drink. maybe too easy.  As for pairing it needs something salting and savoury to really bring out the apples, a salty cracker and a bit of soft brie should work well.

Final Thoughts on the Lenswulf Cider

This has got to be the save of the cider-making year. It is so good. I can’t imagine liking it more if the keeving went to plan. The real question is, can the Lobo team make the same mistake again next year? I hope so.

Updated with a correction to the keeping process.

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