Carling Cider

One of the newer drinks on the market is this nicely styled bottled cider from Carling, yet another lager brand entering the cider world. It comes in half litre bottles and so far, I have not seen it in a can or in any other format.
It tends to be expensive and for that reason, I have only sampled it when it is on special offer.
The taste is pretty good, the sweet apple hits you first and this is followed by a nicely rounded honey after-taste. No harshness here, no sweeteners detected and overall a very welcome and refreshing drink. The sweetness is well-balanced, and although the after-taste has those very distinctive honey tones, the result is still a refreshing medium-dry cider.
Whether it justifies it's rather bold claim to be worth £1.99 a bottle or nearly £4 a litre is doubtful. I bought this 6-bottle pack for £7.00, while the single bottle was on offer at £1.25. At these promotional prices, this is a must-try drink, but there are other equally good ciders that don't try to command the prices that Carling do. Whether this pricing policy is deliberately conjured up to make the drink more attractive when on 'special offer', or whether Carling are genuinely going to try and market this drink in the £4 a litre bracket in the longer term, only time will tell. I aim to keep an eye on this pricing policy and will definitely be flagging this up, if they drop the price in the future - not because I want to let people know that the drink has become more reasonably priced, but to make people aware of what I believe could well turn out to be a marketing strategy designed to make mugs of us, the consumers.

Price Guide: bottle £3.98 per litre - available in 6 x 500ml bottle pack
Rating: **** (4 stars)
Brewer: Molson Coors
Alcohol content: 4.5%
Sold in 500ml bottles
(500x4.5)/1000= 2.3 units of alcohol
Recommended Safe Daily allowance: 1 bottle

Can, bottle or draught?

I have got just a few reviews into this blog and it occurs to me that ciders come in both cans and bottles in the supermarket, as well as on draught in bars, I will be trying all the formats although I expect (whatever the purists might say) that the drink will be more or less the same whatever the format.

So that led me to decide that I should explain my tasting technique just to clarify the process. Supermarket purchases are chilled in a fridge for at least 24 hours before consumption, and served in a glass. The process will be the same for cans and for bottles. On occasions when I have not been reviewing drinks, I would drink straight from the can or bottle, but for the purposes of tasting for this blog, I will keep the process consistently the same.

If I get the chance to sample ciders 'on tap' in a pub or bar, I will include those reviews in this blog too. It is quite possible that a single cider may be reviewed in each of the three possible formats.

I have seen a couple of interesting drinks that I want to review including a proper 'scrumpy' cider and a 'still' cider. On the other hand, there are a range of fruit ciders that I have tried in the past and am not keen on, but will drink and review nonetheless (the pains I am going to have to endure for this blog!), I may even end up drinking that anathema.. the pear cider!! all  for the greater scientific goal of comparing all the different ciders available on the shelves of my local supermarket. Thankfully there seems to be quite an extensive choice, so I should be able to generate a lot of reviews without having to look too hard for new drinks to try..

Stella Artois Cidre

Relative new-comer to the cider market, but one of a long line of  brewers known for their lagers, that have added a cider to their range. Stella has tried to give their cider a back story by insisting that it is called 'cidre' not cider, and the can claims to drink is made to a Belgian recipe. Is the drink worthy of the hype of the advertising? Well let's see:

First off, this cider has a mellow start with a nice apple after-taste. While the 'apple' taste might seem obvious because it is cider, I have noticed that with some ciders you get a proper 'hit' of apple, but with others the apple is hardly noticeable. I would call this medium rather than dry or sweet, it's sweetness seems quite subtle and there is no mention of sweeteners on the can. The after-taste has 'boiled-sweet' sweetness roundness and warmth making it all too easy to crack open another can...

The colour is quite coppery, and as expected with all ciders, refreshment is guaranteed. This is certainly a very drinkable and pleasant cider with the addition of being a fashionable new kid on the block.


Price Guide: 4-pack cans £2.28 per litre
Rating: **** (4 stars)
Brewer: Stella Artois
Alcohol content: 4.5%
Sold in 440ml cans
(440x4.5)/1000= 2.0 units of alcohol
Recommended Safe Daily allowance: 1 can

Strongbow Original

I thought I would start this blog with a review of the drink most often found cooling in my fridge. I know from talking to fellow cider-drinking enthusiasts, that this is not a universal favourite, so I will try to review it objectively.
Strongbow is a DRY cider in the truest sense, it's taste could be regarded as harsh rather than full of flavour, but for me, it's the 'bite' of this drink that helps to make it a refreshing tipple.
Friends that I have talked to about Strongbow tend to see it as too dry and lacking in flavour, and to be fair I can see (or rather taste) what they mean. Yet I don't see the overall combination of characteristics of Strongbow as being negative, and judging by the wide availability of this drink I am quite sure that I'm not the only one.

According to the can, it has some sweeteners which probably combine to add a little extra harshness (not in a good way). It is a brash canned cider, popular enough to be widely available, but although I personally enjoy it, I readily accept that Strongbow original probably deserves no more than an average score. I think this drink could probably be improved by replacing the sweeteners with natural sugars. It doesn't have some of the complex blended flavours that come through with other ciders, yet it is still a refreshing drink. This drink is also available in many other formats as well as the can that was reviewed here. I will no doubt be posting reviews about some of the other formats such as glass bottles, plastic bottles and hopefully on draught in a pub.

Price Guide: 4-pack cans £2.42 per litre - frequently on offer in multi-packs
Rating: *** (3 stars)
Brewer: Bulmers
Alcohol content: 5.0%
Sold in 440ml cans
(440x5)/1000= 2.2 units of alcohol
Recommended Safe Daily allowance: 1 can