Scrumpy

Scrumpy is the wild, unvarnished face of cider: cloudy dull gold to hazy amber-brown, still or barely petillant, and bone-dry, with almost none of the sweetness of mass-market cider. The nose is sharp fermented apple over an earthy, farmyard funk — leather, barnyard and wet hay from wild Brettanomyces and native microbes working in old wooden barrels, often with a whiff of acetic tang. On the palate it is tart with malic acid and drying with the firm tannin of true bittersweet cider apples, so it grips and puckers like a young red wine, finishing long, dry, astringent and warming. There is real apple fruit underneath — bruised orchard fruit, apple skin and pip — but it is rustic and savoury rather than clean or candied. Strong (commonly 6 to 8.5 percent) yet smooth and uncarbonated, it slips down far too easily, which is exactly the point of its reputation. This is a farmhouse drink, variable barrel to barrel, the antithesis of the bright, sweet, fizzy commercial pint.