Cider Tasting and Brewing

So I finally kegged up my cider that I brewed last Spring. The nose had a nice apple to it. The taste was dry with a very light apple flavor. There was a hint of brown sugar in the taste and the aftertaste had quite a bit of brown sugar to it. I thought this was from the addition of 2 cups of brown sugar that I used primarily to bloom the yeast rather than for taste, but...I also kegged up my test batch of Raspberry Apple cider. This was made with just under 1 gallon of unfiltered organic apple juice and about half a can of sweetened raspberry puree, no brown sugar or anything. The nose to that one has quite a bit of raspberry to it. Similar dry taste with just a hint of raspberry and...brown sugar. Not real sure what is causing this. I will do some research, but I am not complaining. They both tasted great and I started to make an altered version of apfelwein where I swapped out the corn sugar with brown sugar and used an ale yeast rather than a wine yeast. If it is as good as what I already have, I will be brewing this year round.