"hard cider" c/d?

I like cider, but I grew up in an orchard town where everyone had "homemade hard cider" that was lightweight enough that kids could drink it. I guess I can't really imagine not liking it, but I don't seek it out, either.

I heard that American cider is generally-speaking non-alcoholic (possibly hence the 'hard' cider) - is this true?

Chillin' skateboarding.
Explosive popcorn.
Hip-hop flava rap

the hard cider over here doesnt have bits in it. it does have about a pound of sugar in every bottle so it is best mixed with lager, unless you want your teeth to rot out

Although I've gone on record as liking hard cider, esp. some of the ones you can get in Britain that are relatively dry, I will say that if you drink more than two, well, just don't drink more than two.

The last bottle? You went through 20 bottles a day?

i wonder if this is gonna turn out to be some summer thing

I drink Strongbow Drys on occasion, which I think is about 5 or 6%, but yeah boy howdy does it give me a shitawful hangover. And all that fizz bloats me up bigger than that bloated kid in Willy Wonka.

*actually vodka

Ace Hard Ciders are yumm-o.

If you've never been pissed on cheap British cider, you'll never understand British punk.

http://www.midfielddynamo.com/images/people/england/viz_8ace_100x120.png

I really hate cider, and erm....well it has some nasty side effects we'll say.
-- Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, April 6, 2004 5:35 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

Back in high school, a friend had nasty side effects in my bathroom for about two hours after drinking a sixer of Woodchuck.

I've never gotten drunk on a proper hard cider - is the next day as bad as it is with malted cider/crap (Smirnoff/Mike's Hard Lemonade/etc.)?

Contains lots of fruit acid, so there's bleeding gums and sensitive teeth to contend with. Also, still-drunk, not-real, can't remember zombiness.

Strongbow is good stuff but I prefer

http://www.skurnikwines.com/attachments/edl004lab_hi.jpg

I'm in the UK, so this concept of "hard cider" is a new one on me, but this seemed to be the best cider thread I could find so...

What ciders do folks like and recommend? I'm not a fan of Magner/Bulmers in general. I used to like Kopparberg, but then tried some other types and have now really gone off its overriding sweetness.

Ones that I've enjoyed recently include...

- Henry Westons 2010 Vintage 8.2%
- Thatchers Vintage Of 2010 7.4%
- Aspall Dry Premier Cru 7%

I'd like to work my way through the better UK supermarket available offerings over the course of the next few weeks, so pointers are welcome.

Thanks.

Are you in Glasgow Krakow?

If you are and can get yourself to the Southside, the Clockwork Beer Co on Cathcart Road do a Weston's vintage on draught that's very nice, but will knock you sideways after 3/4.

Thanks scotstvo! I am indeed in Glasgow, so will have to check that out. I've heard plenty of good things about the Clockwork before, but have never been myself, yet.

Wondering about starting a 'Cider S/D' thread to more suit my purposes and UK-centric status...

I don't know the name of the stuff they served me when I was in Somerset, it was from a cask, but basically if yr west I recommend anything you find in some middle-of-fuckin-nowhere town that comes from a cask cause that shit was A+++

Did it have chunks of apple still in it?

no, but it tasted of very fresh apples, and the fellow at the bar told me "if you have about four of these it makes your legs wobbly"

I bet.

Scrumpy, no?

The best cider is flat, apparently. I spent last summer drinking a vast amount of Asturian cider in Spain. Flat in the bottle, but aerated by pouring a small amount into a glass from a great height. Delicious, if you can get it into the glass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nikgKDJuWrU

From the Westcountry, so was raised on the stuff. I like Westons Organic if you want something sweet-ish but nowhere near as sweet as Kopparberg or Brothers - there seem to be a few like these that are like pear drop alcopops or something rather than actual cider. There's some orange stuff they serve at one of my old local pubs - can't even remember the name, maybe Cheddar Valley? - that was rough as hell yet strangely addictive.

In the US it is indeed 'hard cider' - there's one called Samuel Smith organic that's not bad, it's apparently British but I don't think I've seen it down south. Hardly anything else decent in the pubs, maybe you'll find Blackthorns here and Magners but I'm not fussed about them.

can't front on a Cider S/D tip, obviously good shit is better than bad but hey it's about getting drunk not being some food critic-esque fanny

"food critic-esque fanny" is my middle name. :-)

Cheddar Valley is the most violently orange one on popular sale, yes. xpost

Cider needs to be bought from farms in old fertiliser containers - if you're paying more then £7 a gallon, you're paying too much. As far as pubs go, Blackthorn with a slice of lemon.

Cider's become a bit of a thing here, I always drank it as I never really got into beer and its a good substitute at the pub, but bars never sold it. Til recently, now there is all this fancy gourmet stuff like Kopparbergs and Reyorkjerersomething (too sweet ugh) and even Magners/Bulmers I find too sweet now. I like my cider strong, dry and sour. Local applegrower/cidermakers Henrys of Harcourt make an excellent dry in a longneck but it's terribly pricey. I dont mind Strongbow to be honest if all I'm doing is knocking back a sixpack.

Oh and I dont mind some perrys either but they can be a bit soft and sweet for my liking.

Rekorderlig is the other Swedish 'premium' cider and is again incredibly sweet and comes in a variety of fruity flavours (strawberry & lime etc).

I had a cider (I think it was some kind of Devon cider) down in London at Cafe OTO that was so incredibly tart it was almost vinegary and at first I wondered if it was off, but was actually really nicely interesting and refreshing for it.

Confession: I never really liked real cider, or even Strongbow etc, but I would drink all these pear-drop alcopops.

The first time I drank Kopparberg, it was something like 7% (it's now 4.5% iirc, supposedly something to do with import tax bands) and just as sweet and non-alcoholic-tasting as it is now. Drank several, tried to get down from my barstool, hilarity ensued, etc etc. Good times!

(This is just the sort of conversation I roll my eyes at listening to teenagers have on the bus. Sorry all.)

Rekorderlig thats the one - yeah they do all those weird fruit ciders ugh. No thanks. I've had a few hardcore scrumpys from a boutique shop nearby and one was utterly undrnkable. It was about 14%, and it tasted like vinegar paint stripper. I mean I like my booze sour but that was just stupid.

warm scrumpy is generally rank. Biddenden's is a good drink if u like to party. There used to be one called maybe Addlestone's? that u could get on tap in some pubs, it took half an hour to pull a pint cos it used to just ooze out of the tap, it wd take u where u wanted to go without fucking about

I was curious how UK strongy is diff to Aus ones. Darker, tastes a bit more bold. From the tap at least. Also, omg white lightning! Holy crap what is that shit.

Is that the one I'm thinking of? Large plastic bottle cider from like Tescos. Horrid.

it's essentially car battery acid. i'll admit i had a phase. Pato hates Strongbow big time but has he tried our verzh?

best way to drink stuff like White Lightning is one part battery acid to one part ice. on no account should u mix it with Special Brew to form Snakebite of Death

Yeah honestly UK Strongbow is decent pub draught. Nothing like the crap here.

My dad used to make snakebite out of Ice Dragon and Tennents Super.

lol yes been there too. also MD 20/20 and that Barley Wine shit

Henry Westons Vintage stuff is grand & my personal favourite so far - I'm stockpiling that while it's cheap at a couple of local supermarkets.

Cider, and only cider, makes my left arm and chest ache. Anyone else? No? Carry on.

...it gives you angina!? o_0

Just googled the symptoms and yes, everything except the 'squeezing' feeling. Hysterical angina. Angina cidra.

My guess is its bad reflux? Cider's pretty acidic.

Yeah, that might be it - although I never get reflux from anything else, no matter how acidic. I've just remembered that I also got the same effect once from fermented elderberry champagne stuff - homemade booze someone brought to a hen weekend.

I had gone through a couple of big cider kicks—the summer of 2009, for example—but have mainly been various degrees of beer snob or beer prole since then. This summer, however, I seem to drink nothing but cider. Beer now seems to have a disgusting compost flavour that leaves a film on my mouth and makes me want to retch. Cider is clean like Perrier compared to all the disgusting IPAs and yeasty vile saisons and blanches I usually drink. Cider is uncomplicated, admittedly it's sweet but it doesn't have that toxic diesel hop flavour that beers have to mask their own sweetness, which probably means it's about the same amount of sweetness really.

I also don't seem to get so totally rat-arsed as I sometimes do on strong fancy beers. Cider is even and steady. I drink quite a lot of them but I feel more lucid and patient somehow. Is all the hops and malts and that in beer contributing to the intoxication somehow? I've sometimes felt a bit psychedelic from certain types of hops in strong beers...

But does this really mean I'm part of that luminary group of habitual drinkers who are just really hardcore and switch to strong cider because it's a more efficient delivery mechanism?

Is all the hops and malts and that in beer contributing to the intoxication somehow?

no