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Commercial Hard Ciders

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Two Rivers CIder

Around Sacramento we have access to a great cider brand called Two Rivers. It is a local company from the Apple Hill area, and they just started bottling two of their ciders which you can get at Whole Foods, at least locally. Their Pomegranate Cider is very popular and tasty, however my favorite is the Dry Oaked cider.
 
Magner's cider

The Magner's cider was also dry, but seemed to have slightly more apple flavor than the other dry ciders I have been tasting. It had a little of what seemed like oak aroma in the background, so I checked their website (which has some great info on cider) and they do ferment in oak vats which might account for it. The carbonation was light and the aroma is as well. On the whole, it is right with the rest of the pack.
 
I happend to find Kelly's Traditional Irish Cider at Publix of all places (the big supermarket chain in Florida). The cider (or the juice) is imported in bulk and produced/bottled by the Florida Beer Company. Irish apples making a cider in Florida? That's a strange sounding combination, but the results speak for themselves.

This is a good dry cider. Much more apple aroma and flavor than the others I've been tasting, and I think a little more carbonation to boot. It has good body and a tad of sweetness in the finish. It still isn't going to match J.K.'s, but it is very tasty, dry, and a lot cheaper. It get's a big thumbs up. :icon_thumright:

And just in time for St. Patrick's day too. :)
 
Medsen Fey said:
The Magner's cider was also dry, but seemed to have slightly more apple flavor than the other dry ciders I have been tasting. -----%<-----
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Medsen Fey said:
I happend to find Kelly's Traditional Irish Cider at Publix of all places (the big supermarket chain in Florida). The cider (or the juice) is imported in bulk and produced/bottled by the Florida Beer Company. Irish apples making a cider in Florida? That's a strange sounding combination, but the results speak for themselves.

This is a good dry cider. Much more apple aroma and flavor than the others I've been tasting, and I think a little more carbonation to boot. It has good body and a tad of sweetness in the finish. It still isn't going to match J.K.'s, but it is very tasty, dry, and a lot cheaper. It get's a big thumbs up. :icon_thumright:

And just in time for St. Patrick's day too. :)
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All very strange when you mention Magners and other Irish Ciders......

It wasn't until Magners started up a couple of years back that anyone had ever heard of any kind of "tradition" of cider in Ireland.

They do a few things brilliantly, like beers (particularly dark stouts) and whiskey (Bushmills and similar is all very drinkable). Hence I suspect that "Irish traditional cider" is the invention of some marketing fantasist!

Magners is horrible stuff, even worse than the likes of Blackthorn, Woodpecker, etc etc. They do a very drinkable, if rather sweet perry (they sell it as pear cider, hence it's obvious immediately, that they're not marketing at Brits. We tend to know that "pear cider" is called Perry (no criticism intended - just that when advertising is aimed at an "American speaking" market, they do seem to be rather patronising).

It's a real shame that there's no real way of sending you over a couple of "proper" farm ciders Medsen - they'd go off if they didn't get to you in about 24 hours - so shipping would be prohibitively expensive. Most of them are flat, cloudy and give you one hell of a hangover. But if you know where to look for the choice, then damn there's a few real good ones available......

Still, keep trying friend, you may find a good locally produced one (local as in, made in the US, but in either the British or Normandy style).

regards

fatbloke

p.s. Oh and as far as I was aware, there's no big fruit growing areas in Ireland either. Not to the sort of quantities that would be required for juice exports to the US - it's probably a little bit from Ireland where and if available, plus England, France and for some bulk...... Chinese apple concentrate. If it were purely from Ireland I'd be very, very surprised.
 
Yeah, their "tradition" is only about 10 or 12 years old, but for a widely-available, commercial, dry cider, the Kelly's is better than a lot of the others I've tried. Again, that's just my take, YMMV.

J.K.'s is still head and shoulders above all the rest.

I had the opportunity to taste some French ciders while traveling through Normandy a few years ago and they were quite interesting. They had strong apple presence, but most were so overly oaky that I didn't really enjoy them that much. The Calvados on the other hand....well, that's simply superb.
 
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Well I'm jealous. Magner's is definitely more drinkable than woodpecker, but neither of them are too good in my opinion. Actually I really like Strongbow. Woodchuck is ok, the problem is woodchuck is usually the only kind I can find so that's what I've tasted the most of. This fox barrel is down there with Magner's in my opinion. Hornsby's quality seems to change with what variety I'm drinking. I'm curious to try one similar to what you're describing though fatbloke.
 
While we're on the subject. B. Nektar and JK's Scrumpy Cider are working on a collaboration project. More information will be released as it's known. I've been talking to the owners at JK's for a while now, and we're both very excited for this collaboration. I think JK's makes some of the finest cider available.
 
Brad Dahlhofer said:
B. Nektar and JK's Scrumpy Cider are working on a collaboration project.
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Oh mannnnn! That sounds like something good is coming.


I did try Samuel Smith's Organic Cider in my recent tastings. Let me start by saying I'm a huge fan of Samuel Smith's Old Brewery Pale Ale - one of my favorite beers of all time (their Taddy Porter and Oatmeal Stout aren't bad either). So when I saw this sitting on the shelf, I had high hopes.

Unfortunately they were dashed. The apple aroma was nearly non-existent until it warmed up to room temp, and the flavor was just another drop of dry mediocrity in the vast pool of commercial cider with a bit of yeasty character in the finish. It was not better or worse than most that I've tasted - just a slightly larger portion.
 
I tried Crispin - The Saint last night. I've never tried their regular ciders sold in four packs, but the lone bottle of Artisanal Reserve was too tempting. It's fermented with belgian trappist yeast and organic maple syrup. I can't really pick out the flavor of maple syrup, but it does leave the cider dry and refreshing. Especially if you follow their recomendation of pouring it over ice.
 
Brad Dahlhofer said:
While we're on the subject. B. Nektar and JK's Scrumpy Cider are working on a collaboration project. More information will be released as it's known. I've been talking to the owners at JK's for a while now, and we're both very excited for this collaboration. I think JK's makes some of the finest cider available.
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Oooooooh!

This sounds promising!
 
Finally! A cider that can compare with J.K.'s.

Kerisac cidre bouché is imported from France (Brittany) where the tradition of cider (as well as mead) remains strong. This cider comes in a 750 cc Champagne style bottle with cork which is wired on.

It is a light amber color with an excellent apple aroma and a moderately high level of carbonation. The taste is bursting with apple, and there is enough sweetness to balance lots of acidity and carbonation and contributing to a full body that dances across the tongue. It is very low alcohol (2.5% ABV) and has a ton of residual sugar (about 67 g/L) and the gravity is a bit above 1.020, but that gravity number is deceptive because it doesn't taste "sweet" like a dessert wine or mead.

In fact, the reason I measured the gravity is that I couldn't believe the amount of residual sugar according to the label. It didn't taste all that sweet, but yest, that sugar is in there. However, with the carbonic acid, and apple acids, and apple flavor, it results in a nicely balanced, refreshing, full bodied cider, with a bit of oak character.

The only problem I see is that it costs as much as J.K.'s
 
wouldn't the carbonation give you a lower gravity reading than the drink actually has because of the bubbles? Or am I just assuming incorrectly.
 
The CO2 bubbles stick to the side of a hydrometer and tend to buoy it up possibly causing an artificially high reading. However in this case the de-gassed gravity is about 1.025 so that sugar on the label is correct.

I've come to the conclusion that I like my ciders with plenty of residual sugar. Otherwise they come across as thin and lacking flavor in many cases.
 
I've tried quite a few ciders since my last posting on here so I'm going to give a bit of a rundown of my impressions.

Woodchuck Seasonal Summer Cider: So it's woodchuck cider w/ blueberry as an extra ingredient. At first taste it was damn good. Then the more I drank it the more I tasted a medicinal flavor. And yet, it was still good. This tastes noticeably different from other Woodchuck ciders I've had before, it's quite unique in comparison.

Original Sin Hard Cider: Tastes exactly like Magner's, but with a touch more apple flavor. Crisp is the word I would attach to this, though certainly not the best of its kind.

Ace Hard Cider: Ace hard cider is, to me, what Magner's and Original Sin tried to be and failed. It is dry, crisp, has a distinct apple flavor, and it isn't too heavy or too light, and certainly not thin.

Hey what's the word on the B. Nektar and Skrumpy collaboration?
 
Tried woodchuck's vanilla cider. It's definitely drinkable, but some people who I've drank it with tend to find it a bit offputting while others simply find it 'meh.' I am in the 'meh' category. It is nothing special.
 
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