Strongbow Cider

Brewed by Bulmers Cider (Heineken UK)
Style: Cider
Hereford, England

Serve in Flute, Lager glass

Clear gold with a touch of white head. Aroma is apple, tart, apple juice. Taste is dry, a little bit tart. A pretty basic cider.

330ml bottle. Pours like a ty[pical cider with no head at all and only a few small bubbles around the glass edge. Pale, clear and light amber in colour with the aroma of freshly picked green apples. While it may not be much to look at the taste is quite good with a fresh apple flavour. Dry and crisp on the palate.

Aroma is pretty non-existing, unless you count the fizzles on your upper lip. Appearance is that of a very light orange lemonade without any head at all. Taste is of apple juice with a light fizz. Palate is very watery and disappears quickly. Overall not a very bad drink, but as a beer, neh.

It’s dry cider which to say cider with the best part of the apple sucked out. It pours like apple juice but is crisp with little palate Only drink if there is no Bulmers available.

Every time I go beer shopping I get the uncanny sense of being watched. This phenomenon is partly because I’m typically the only warm body near the “Luxury Beer” section. But another part of it is a creeping assemblage of of bottles just a few refrigerators down. These are the ciders, and for whatever reason, they are cruelly placed next to the store’s beer stock. Their plight is to watch their cousins snapped up and taken away to welcoming homes and glasses. It’s a kind of cruel, Sisphyean exercise, and whenever I return to restock my beer stores I see the same, dusted bottles. They sit there, chilled and primed, but never really studied with interest. They’re not even abandoned, since I rarely see anybody dole out hard earned currency for them. But the other day I popped open a friend’s refrigerator and saw, amongst scattered tupperware of green and brown globs, a Strongbow Cider. It seemed time to risk social ignominy and see what the lack-of-fuss was all about. Strongbow prides itself on being a “dry cider”, meant to dispel the cider you may have had as a child. Those, I remember, were like chugging liquid candy, and washing it down with high concentrate apple juice (a sparkling version of the Japanese Qoo apple juice, if you’ve had the pleasure.) The Strongbow was decidedly dryer, which means it had more of the savory apple taste yielded when cooking with apples. The carbonation and alcohol were both light, and the apple and cider flavors were flattened. In other words, it’s a mild drink, and as I sipped it I repeatedly thought how it would make a much better ingredient than a drink. This may put it in the same category as Guinness, where even if you dislike the iconic drink, few can deny the appeal of a Guinness chocolate cake or a Guinness stew. The same holds for Strongbow, where careful restraint insures it wouldn’t overwhelm any dessert with too much sugar.

500 ml can from the Utah State Store. Pours a clear golden color with a medium white head that quickly dissipates into my New Belgium Globe Glass- this glass makes everything look good. A smooth sweet apple nose. A nice flavor; sweet apples, some light grains perhaps, smooth and tasty. Nothing offensive here.

Slightly hazy golden amber with a modest head. Tart apple aromas and flavors. nicely carbonated.

Draft served in a pint glass at The Royale. Pours a clear, pale gold color with a small white head that instantly vanishes. Aroma of apples, minerals, and a sugary note. Flavor is better, a nice fresh apple taste with a little bit of minerals and sugar but not like in the nose. Light-bodied, with high carbonation and a crisp, juicy mouthfeel. Pretty basic cider, but just what I needed to break up a night of drinking much bigger beers.