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As you can tell, we’re having a hard time getting back into the swing of things here at Bad Rider. But your regularly scheduled reviews have returned! (Hopefully. More or less.) First up in the new year, a cider I tried earlier in the winter which made me immediately think, “I have to review this because it’s so strange.”

My last interaction with maple in cider was Woodchuck’s spring seasonal, which was (to my own great surprise) not particularly to my taste. Usually I will be first in line for anything with maple and brown sugar.

Perhaps it’s something specific to maple in cider, because this Oaked Maple is also…weird. It starts off well enough, with a straightforward apple aroma and some of the oak notes underneath.

When I taste it, I get maple — but scarcely any sweetness. Which is bizarre, right? Maple should be sweet! I have a hard time wrapping my head around something tasting like maple but not being sweet the way maple-flavored things generally are.

Other than the strange non-sweet maple taste, Oaked Maple is fairly tart, and a little bitter. The bottle copy says it’s fermented with oak chips and raisins, and there is something of wrinkly dark fruit about it, an aftertaste like raisins picked out of a cake.

Seattle Cider needs to keep their website up to date (AHEM), as it currently only lists Pumkin Spice and PNW Berry as the available seasonals, but you can still use their locator to track yourself down some cider here.