The Garden Orchard
Log the descriptors, not the diagnosis. What your nose and mouth did is data. The organism is a guess.
Identified 2026-08-08 from description — not lab-confirmed, but it fits.
Favoured by: low free SO₂ (under ~10 mg/L), high pH, oxygen exposure, spontaneous ferment, light hygiene.
Micah's pattern: occasional not constant · worst by far in plum · long bottle conditioning seems to age it out.
Plum is low-acid / high-pH, which is what LAB want — so plum being worst fits the pH story. Plum is already retired, so the biggest driver is likely gone.
Literature says there's no reliable way to remove it once formed. Micah's cellar disagrees, and his cellar wins on this one — see below.
| you notice | compound | culprit |
|---|---|---|
| barnyard, horse, band-aid, clove | 4-ethylphenol / -guaiacol | Brettanomyces |
| vinegar | acetic acid | Acetobacter (needs air) |
| nail polish, solvent | ethyl acetate | yeast stress, acetic bacteria |
| sherry, bruised apple, tired | acetaldehyde | oxidation |
| green apple/banana + milky haze | — | Zymomonas, cider sickness |
Glass: ? · Palate: ? · 10–20 s after swallowing: ? · Did anyone else agree? · Age, vessel, headspace, last racking.
Micah's ciders almost universally improve with age. Stinkers have been rescued in year 2 or 3. Four years of direct evidence, and it lines up with the documented (if unexplained) tendency of mousy wines to come round in bottle.
So: don't drink young, and don't write a batch off early. A bad one at six months is not a failed batch, it's an unfinished one. Bottle it, forget it, try again in a year.
(An earlier note here recommended drinking young. Wrong — that's the general advice for mousiness, and it doesn't match this cellar.)
Oxygen during aging enables all of them. Minimal headspace, wet airlocks, gentle racking.