Dear England: your most popular ciders are… insane!!

I’d always enjoyed cider without really knowing which bottle to choose when a pub had a whole row of them. In my head, most of the plain apple ones tasted fairly similar. Then I bought enough different ciders to take up more than half our fridge and tried them beside each other.

I expected strawberry and lime to stand apart. I wasn’t prepared for how different the ordinary apple ciders would taste, or for my first favourite to lose its place at the top. By the end I had two winners, a few bottles I’d happily drink again and one surprisingly definite last place.

Watch the cider taste test on YouTube.

Thatchers Gold set a difficult starting point

Thatchers Gold was the first one I opened, and I immediately thought it would be hard to beat. It tasted a little more dry than sweet, with plenty of flavour. I could picture drinking it at a picnic bench in a pub garden. An excellent start.

That made Bulmers Original a bit of a letdown. It wasn’t bad, and I’d drink it if somebody handed me one, but it tasted waterier and a little sweeter in a watered-down way. I didn’t find it memorable. It also overflowed when I opened it, so the carpet got to participate in the taste test.

Strongbow Original gave me a similar watery impression. This was one of the few ciders I remember seeing in Canada before I moved, although I don’t know whether that’s still the case. Here, I’d got the impression it had a lower-quality reputation, which made me curious about how it would actually compare.

Against Thatchers, it didn’t have enough flavour for me. I did wonder whether starting with Strongbow would have changed my baseline, rather than tasting it after something much more flavourful. These are my reactions to this particular tasting, not a laboratory result.

Sweetness wasn’t doing the sweeter ones any favours

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime tasted more like juice to me than the cider flavour I wanted. Nice juice, but very sweet juice. I thought a little more lime and tartness might have changed my reaction; as it was, I seemed to have aged out of this one.

Scrumpy Jack surprised me for a similar reason. I found it very sweet, and comparing it directly with the strawberry and lime made the difference clearer. Both were too sweet for my taste, but I ultimately preferred the smoother Kopparberg. I’d still drink either if someone offered it. I wouldn’t go out of my way to order them.

Two drier bottles made things more interesting

Henney’s dry cider was a completely different flavour again. It was less sweet, properly flavourful and nothing like the watery impression I’d had from Bulmers or Strongbow. I still preferred Thatchers at that point, but I appreciated how much Henney’s had its own taste. I also liked its simple label, which admittedly has nothing to do with the cider inside.

Aspall Draught reminded me of Henney’s, although its label described it as medium dry rather than dry. After comparing them, I thought I preferred Aspall’s flavour. It was interesting without being too sweet, and I really liked it. Its tall bottle looked almost like a wine bottle, which made my insistence on drinking straight from the bottle slightly less convenient.

The winners, and the bottle I didn’t like

Inch’s Medium had the sweetness I liked without feeling sickly. To me it tasted naturally sweet, with a really enjoyable flavour. It joined Thatchers among the standouts before the final bottle appeared.

Henry Westons medium dry vintage cider was smooth, tasty and still a little sweet. Its flavour made me picture bright red apples, although I couldn’t tell you why. The bottle I tried was 8.2%, which also made it a rather different proposition from the others.

After another comparison, Inch’s and Henry Westons tied for first. They tasted different enough that I didn’t want to choose between them. Thatchers Gold still did well, followed by the drier Aspall and Henney’s, but the two winners had more interesting flavours for me.

Magners Original Irish cider finished last. I noticed an aftertaste that reminded me of vitamins, and I just didn’t like it. That surprised me more than disliking a particularly sweet bottle.

I no longer think apple ciders all taste roughly the same. If I see Inch’s or Henry Westons on the next pub visit, I’ll know what I want to order. Picking one might still be the problem.