Bell Celebrates... CIDER DAY!

aye, so I celebrate Cider Day instead of jeesus-day, and it's always worked out well for me. Here's what i've had so far: (six hours in)
 
Strongbow

type: Cider
origin: England
ABV: 5.0%

served: 44ml can to glass

rating: 7/12 - passable semi-chemical cider


Strongbow Pear

type: Pear Cider
origin: England
ABV: 4.8%
served: 440ml can to glass

rating: 4/12 - more lemon than pear; and not in a good way like alcoholic lemonade... or lemonade in general. Even then, it's chemical lemons. That could be a good name for a band; The Chemical Lemons. Possibly a 90's style Indy revival band with a Shoegazer influence. Think about it and get back to me.

Strongbow Dark Fruit

type: Cider
origin: England
ABV: 4.0%
served: 440ml can to glass

rating: 8/12 - the best Strongbow. seems as if fruit was involved at some stage, which is reassuring. Less chemicals apparent than the others varieties.


Kopparberg Spiced Apple with Cinnamon

type: Cider
origin: Sweden
ABV: 4.0%
served: 500ml bottle to glass

rating: 10/12 - nice. cinnamon is apparent, but not overpowering. probably couldn't drink more than a couple, but very pleasant as a change. label suggests serving it warm, but I personally find the idea of warm cider abhorrent.


Aspall Premier Cru Suffolk Cider

type: Cider
origin: England
ABV: 7.0%
served: 500ml bottle to glass

rating: 9/12- a very pleasant traditional-style cider.

Thistly Cross Traditional

type: Cider
origin: Scotland
ABV: 4.4%
served: 330ml bottle to glass

rating: 9/12 another very pleasant traditional-style cider. dry, yet sweet.


ANYROAD... that'll do you for now, eh?

PL&U

Bell Rates... Thistly Cross Original Cider

type: cider
origin: Scotland
ABV: 7.2%
location: garden
served: 330ml bottle to glass


Another product that could have been designed with me in mind: a Scottish cider with a Thistle theme.  I wasn't planning on buying any booze when I was up at Tesco (it's not like I'm likely to run low any time soon, the bierkeller looks like I'm preparing for some kind of survivalist apocalypse party) but my Cider Senses started tingling, and I was drawn to the far end of the top shelf, where I discovered this little beauty.

The bottle states they use a slow fermentation (with champagne yeast) and a long maturation, and reckon the results were worth waiting for. Not to mention the fact that the bottle cap will look fantastic when I utilise it for a fridge magnet.

Smell: A sharp apple aroma, with a little bit of alcohol present. 3/4

Colour: Golden yellow. Nicely carbonated; the right amount of head for a sparling cider, and leaves a good lacing on the glass too. 4/4

Taste: Apples! A nicely sweet (but not cloying) flavour, with a hint of crispness. Good, lasting aftertaste as well. 4/4

Overall: I genuinely really like this, and I'll definitely be buying more. 11/12


more info: http://www.thistlycrosscider.co.uk

Bell Rates... Rekorderlig Peach & Apricot

type: Fruit cider
origin: Sweden
ABV: 4.0%
location: house
served: bottle to glass, over ice


Another addition to the seemingly endless varieties of fruit cider, Rekorderlig have brought us a blend of peach and apricot. I'd have expected those two fruits to end up in a chutney more than a cider, but experimentation is to be encouraged.

Rekorderlig must always draw a comparison to Sweden's other big fruit cider exporter, Kopparberg. Their ciders are generally less sweet (from my experience, anyway) than Kopparberg's offerings, and Peach & Apricot is no exception to that rule.

There's not much in the way of tartness, which i would have expected from the apricot, which could be a good thing. It's refreshing enough, but the flavour is a shade subdued. That said, too strong a flavour may have been overpowering. I do wonder if some extra spices fired into the recipe might have been beneficial, just to accent the flavours a shade.

Smell: fruity aroma, predictably! fresh, but not overly strong. 2/4

Colour: pale pinky-orange colour. peach, basically. 3/4

Taste: a subtle, but distinctive taste. refreshing, and not overly sweet. 3/4

Overall: different, and definitely worth a try. 8/12

Bell Rates... Stella Cidre Pear

type: Pear Cider
origin: Belgium
ABV: 4.5%
location: House
served: 568ml bottle to glass, over ice


So InBev have augmented their 'Cidre' with a pear version, presumably hoping to challenge Kopparberg's domination.

I can't really blame them. After all, their standard apple version is basically a Magners clone, with toned down flavour and colour, and Magners have a pear version (to try and challenge Kopparberg) so why shouldn't Stella?

Thus, we now have a Pear version - but shouldn't that be 'Poire', keeping with the French-language branding? Or, even better, 'Poiré' - which is the French name for pear cider.

Smell: As with the apple version, there's hardly any aroma at all. A slight hint of pear, but . 2/4

Colour: A very pale greenish-yellow. Actually looks a bit like weak soda water and lime, certainly more than it looks like cider. 1/4

Taste: Definitely less sweet than Kopparberg, and less flavoursome. About on a par with quite a few of the generic pear ciders, and definitely drinkable if no alternative exists. 2/4

Overall: No cider brand is complete without a pear version these days, it seems, but the Stella version is pretty generic. Another basic cash-in, rather than any attempt to make an interesting new product. 5/12
  
"C'est poiré, not pear cidre!"

Bell Rates... Stella Artois Cidre

type: Cider

origin: Belgium

ABV: 4.5%

location: Biergarten

served: 568ml bottle to a glass, over ice

"C'est Cidre, not Cider" the billboards claim, as the makers of Stella Artois try to convince us that their new product somehow transcends mere fermented apples, and is actually some sort of high-class, luxury drink that is the toast of Belgian high-society.

I'm not convinced.

It's a served-over-ice cider, and call me cynical all you like, but it's going to fit into the same bracket as Magners, Bulmers and Kopparberg. It's InBv's latest attempt at plugging a hole in their all-encompassing market strategy. It's a great BBQ cider, ideal for a lazy summer's evening, but it's not a Martini, or a fine bottle of Beaujolais... whatever that is.

It's cider. People in pubs will order it as such:

"Bottle of Stella cider please."

"Want a glass with ice with that?"

"Aye, please."

is how it's mainly going to play out.

That said, it does look good in a beer garden. The bottle is a fairly classy design, with a chunky, high-quality look, and a gold label that complements the colour of the cider well. Once poured (over ice) you get a refreshing, easy to drink pint, politely described as 'rounded'.

It's a cider that 'non-cider-drinkers' could probably drink quite easily. There's very little taste of alcohol, and very little aftertaste. There is a little bit of apple in there, but you need to be looking for it. It's not unpleasant by any means, but it's clear that InBev aimed directly for Magners with this one, and only missed the mark by a short way.

Smell: There's nothing bad to say about the aroma, but most of that has to come down to the fact that it hardly smells of anything. 2/4

Colour: A very Magners-like pale orange, but just a little bit paler, in my estimation - outdoing their Irish rivals in getting their watered-down Irn-Bru tone one step lighter than Magners itself. 2/4

Taste: Less sweet than Magners, with less aftertaste and less prominent flavours. Slightly acidic, but overall very drinkable due to its inoffensive nature. 2/4

Overall: Not bad, but not Magners. Slightly less of all the important bits (or at least the bits I use for ratings, anyway) and slightly more of the premium branding. 6/12


The 'Stella Artois' part of the name becomes clear when you consider all of this, as this really is the cider equivalent of Stella Artois Lager. It's got the same sort of characteristics as its namesake - generic, commercial, mass-produced - and will probably sell just as well. The marketing strategy might as well have been "Reassuringly Expensive" again... or just "More Expensive than Magner's" since everything else about Stella Cidre seems to have been developed using that as a yardstick.

It's disappointing that InBev just rolled out a generic cider, with no real uniqueness to it, stuck a familiar brand label on it and were satisfied with that. They could have created something new, launched a genuinely new product, with a genuinely new brand identity, but they weren't feeling adventurous enough.

The Premium over-ice cider market has a few 'big-guns', and Stella Cidre is a 9mm with '.44 Magnum' stamped on the side.


more info: http://www.stellaartois.com/cidre/

Bell Rates... Bulmers Red Apple

type: cider

origin: England

ABV: 4.5%

location: house

served: 568ml bottle to glass, over ice

Right, to clarify who makes this product, it's HP Bulmer of England not Magners of Clonmel, Ireland. That might seem obvious to you, but in Ireland Magners is sold under the 'Bulmers' label, despite not having had anything to do with HP Bulmer for many years.

Outside Ireland, of course, the difference is obvious.

Anyroad, this is their 'Red Apple' limited edition cider, introduced at the tail end of 2010, and is an attempt by Bulmers to carve out every niche-within-a-niche they can. But who can blame them? The 'over ice' cider market has boomed in the last decade and it's Magners who've got the best market position.

Red Apple is a subtly different version of Bulmers' main product - which is clearly what they set out to achieve, so mission accomplished there. As the name suggests, the cider is brewed using red apples, and while some ciders don't have a lot of 'apple' taste left after the yeast is finished transforming all that juice to alcohol, this one does taste of apples, and red ones at that.

It's also very refreshing, which is the other must for this type of product.

Smell: apples! but quite faint and I think they've missed a trick by not going for the heavy-apple smell to reinforce the 'apple' label a bit more 2/4

Colour: again, I'd have preferred a more red colour - it's supposed to be a 'limited edition', so why not make it a bit more distinctive looking? 2/4

Taste: this is where it pulls the points back - refreshing, sharp, not overly sweet and with a definite red apple flavour. 3/4

overall: tastes just different enough to stand out from the crowd without being a 'speciality' taste that will alienate less adventurous drinkers, but not adventurous enough to carve out a new niche in an already crowded market. 7/12