Cider

[Spearmint Rhino]

Had a can of this on the weekend. It has the reassuringly orangey hue and sugary, frothy taste of childhood appleade, and slips down nicely with none of the sourness that can sometimes makes Strongbow-drinking feel like a grim chore, or the strangely intrusive banana-ey taste of Magners. Tastes good at room temperature, without needing to be chilled. Gets you pissed, and pissed with a smile on your face. Will be buying another.

[ian.64]

Cider

Try St. Helier's Pear Cider. A bit on the sweet side, but good in 'near tastes like kid's pop' kind of way.

Strongbow's a haul, but good for Saturday nights in. Or Scrumpy Jack, for that matter.

[Spearmint Rhino]

Cider

Oh yeah, the new pear ciders (Kopparberg, Brothers etc) are great. Or 'perries', as I believe they ought to be called. (At least, that's my understanding from examining Babycham labels.)

They're a good first pint, anyway, to set you off, but if you do a whole night on them, they get very sickly.

[beak]

Cider

There can be only one:

I get some scrumpy occasionally from a friend in Hereford. Scary stuff.

It's all a long way from jumpers for goalposts, 3 litres of White Storm for £2.19...

[ian.64]

Cider

True enough. St. Helier's had me in hums of approval on first taste, but three bottles later was a bit much. Still okay, though.

[beak]

Cider

I find St. Helier's very very sickly. And all this Kopparberg bollocks.

I'm not a snob mind, I really rather would drink white cider than this oversweet stuff they're pushing these days.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Cider

Is St Helier's from Jersey or that not very nice place near Sutton?

[Spearmint Rhino]

Cider

I can't get along with cloudy cider, or any of that thick, heavy scrumpy-ish kind of stuff that you could stand a spoon up in. S'gotta be bubbly for me.

The Royal Festival Hall has started selling cloudy cider, as some sort of reluctant concession. Like "OK, we'll sell cider, but only if it's middle class, organic cider."

[Eggchaser]

Cider



This stuff is very toothsome. In fact everything Aspalls do is good.

Edit: I fear I've offended SR's bubbly peasant cider tastes with the posh stuff.

[Spearmint Rhino]

Cider

The best non-supermarket non-megabranded cider I've ever had was Breton, when I lived in France. Yummy stuff.

The worst was Icelandic. I bought it under the illusion that I'd found the only way to get pissed cheaply in Reykjavik, but when I swigged it, it turned out to be non-alcoholic (like the American definition of 'cider').

[Wyatt Earp]

Cider

You needn't think we can't bore equally well about cider, SR.

The best French stuff I've had has been from the Pays d'Auge in Normandy, which is Calvados country. It's no surprise they do good cider round there, I guess. But yeah, the Breton version is well up there.

There's a farm near Lewes, and therefore nearish you, that does gazillions of British ciders, which you can taste before buying. Some of them are pretty sour, hair-shirted affairs, but many are very like the Norman/Breton jobs. If you can bear the middle-classness of it all, which I appreciate is a big "if", you might give it a look. "Home Farm", I think it's called.

I just want to give mad props to the Spanish, while we're on this subject. Asturian sidra, man. And, yeah, I know it's probably bollocks, but I love the way they "aerate" it by pouring it from head height into a glass on the ground. Only the Spanish could be that flamboyant.

[Spearmint Rhino]

Cider

Oh yeah, Spanish sidra's great. One of the unexpected pleasures of my last visit.

I used to pour my cat's milk into its bowl from that height when I was a teenager, cos I couldn't be arsed bending down.

[beak]

Cider

Wyatt Earp wrote:

If you can bear the middle-classness of it all, which I appreciate is a big "if", you might give it a look. "Home Farm", I think it's called.

I don't know where my Herefordian (!?) mate gets his from, but it's far from a middle-class thing round his way. From what I've been told they drink it like bloody pop, starting at the age of about 10. Which is a shame because I'm sure it rots holes in your brain.

[Guest]

Cider

[Spearmint Rhino]

Cider

Ach y fi.

[Spearmint Rhino]

Cider

I bought some of this once, on holiday in Cornwall, mainly because of the childishly amusing name.



It didn't come in an old-fashioned earthenware bottle as pictured. It came in the sort of plastic gallon container more commonly used for keeping emergency petrol, and that's exactly what it tasted like.

Never making that mistake again.

[EIM]

Cider

I spent much of yesterday drinking cider. I feel like fucking shite today.

[Hot Orange]

Cider

I second Eggchaser's Aspalls nomination.

The Breton cider that you can get for about 1 Euro per gallon is usually terrific.

[King On The Rye]

Cider

This stuff is frighteningly drinkable:

[Eggchaser]

Cider

saucy tramp! wrote:

Wyatt Earp wrote:

If you can bear the middle-classness of it all, which I appreciate is a big "if", you might give it a look. "Home Farm", I think it's called.

I don't know where my Herefordian (!?) mate gets his from, but it's far from a middle-class thing round his way. From what I've been told they drink it like bloody pop, starting at the age of about 10. Which is a shame because I'm sure it rots holes in your brain.

I the difference is being drawn between tramp's death cider, as swigged by all and sundry at some point during their teen years in a park somewhere (well illustrated by SR's rude chicken) and less "industrial" stuff that tends to come in normal sized glass bottles, rather than wildly coloured plastic bottles of the size usually associated with fizzy pop.

[Guest]

Cider

Ah, they serve Cidre Breton in my local. It's good. Aspall's is excellent too, and on tap at my other local.

I find cider a bit more of a minefield than ale. Both my favourite ale shops - Real Ale in Twickenham and the Skinner's factory shop in Truro - sell various ciders as well, but 70% of them have turned out to be horrid, flat, sour concoctions that give me a headache after about a quarter of a pint.

The City Inn in Truro used to do a great scrumpy that, as SR describes, was dispensed from a plastic container (kept in the kitchen), and was only advertised via a very small handwritten sign behind the bar. The regulars went a bit quiet if you ordered it - as I discovered, this is because even a single pint of it made your eyes start rolling around in different directions.

[Spearmint Rhino]

Cider

Yeah, I've got no love for White Lightning-ah either.

[Wyatt Earp]

Cider

You don't find it mighty mighty pleasing?

[Mr Beast]

Cider

Wyatt Earp wrote:

You needn't think we can't bore equally well about cider, SR.

The best French stuff I've had has been from the Pays d'Auge in Normandy, which is Calvados country. It's no surprise they do good cider round there, I guess.

This man speaks the truth

[Eggchaser]

Cider

Spearmint Rhino wrote:

Yeah, I've got no love for White Lightning-ah either.

I always knew you hated tribute songs.