Shipyard Applehead Cider:
Greetings friends and neighbors.  As it’s been a while since we touched a bottle of cider, if figured it was high time to return the realm of alcoholic apples, opinions be damned.  I do have a confession to make though, I bought this bottle based mainly on the art of the bottle.  Can you blame me?  Look at it, it totally brings back memories of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and the badassness of the Disney cartoon.  Ah memories…  Anyway, Shipyard Brewery’s Applehead is one of these ciders that is made for people like me, not sweet, heavy in apples and has a caricature of the headless horseman.  The cider pours poorly for a carbonated beverage with very little head on it though plenty of carbonation is present in the cider.  The nose is sweet, smelling of baked apples and cinnamon.  The cider taste is very mellow, reminding me more of cinnamon apple sauce though not as sweet.  The aftertaste is mellow and dry leaving the taste of freshly eaten apples on the back of the tongue.  A good cider though it is a little too natural tasting for me straight out of the bottle.  I would think this would be awesome in winter, heated with Red Hots to form a nice spicy hot cider or just warmed a bit on the stove top for hot hard cider.  A middle of the road cider that shows promise and makes me curious about the rest of the Shipyard line.