# Hard Apple Ciders **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 26, 2014, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665 "2014-09-26T18:59:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Gordon\_Urquhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/db5fbb/32.png) [@Gordon\_Urquhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gordon_Urquhart)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2014, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/61 "2014-09-29T16:36:02Z")
Aficionados of Angry Orchard products might be interested to know that they’re made by Boston Brewing Co., makers of Samuel Adams (and who seem keenly interested in keeping that hush-hush, for whatever reason). Strongbow is my current favorite, although I’ve enjoyed a lot of Woodchuck over the years. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2014, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/62 "2014-09-29T16:38:02Z")
Woodchuck Granny Smith is the only hard cider I can stomach. Every other one I’ve tried is wayyyyy too sweet. WGS has more of that dry champagne feel. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2014, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/63 "2014-09-29T16:38:22Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > I drink cider because I can’t stand the taste of beer. And too many US ciders are made by beer companies and taste like beer made from apples. I’ve been told - not sure how reliably - that the US beer companies use the same yeast to make their cider as they do their beer, while British and European cider companies use a yeast specifically developed for cider. I actually can’t think of many beer companies that do cider. Most of the ones mentioned in this thread are from cideries. Which ciders have you tried? That might help us pick one for you. If you want an English cider, just go find some Samuel Smith or Aspall. Whole Foods (at least in Chicago has it), and if you’re in this general area, which I think you are, go to Binny’s. Those are both English ciders, and neither taste like beer. I really can’t think of a cider that I would say tastes like beer, unless you’re talking those apple malt beverages like Redd’s, which is not a true cider, anyway. That’s more of a cider-beer hybrid, an “apple ale.” ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2014, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/64 "2014-09-29T20:15:54Z")
Hogan’s dry cider is really nice and very dry. But on a hot summer’s day I prefer their pear cider. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2014, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/65 "2014-09-29T20:32:10Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > I’ve been told - not sure how reliably - that the US beer companies use the same yeast to make their cider as they do their beer, while British and European cider companies use a yeast specifically developed for cider. I can’t speak to what professional breweries do, but in my experience (and what I’ve been told by the guy at the homebrew store in my town), cider is best made with the same varieties of yeast that one would use for champagne or dry white wine. I personally use Lalvin EC-1118 for my homemade cider, which generally produces a nice demi-sec cider with an ABV around 10%. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2014, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/66 "2014-09-29T20:46:00Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I can’t speak to what professional breweries do, but in my experience (and what I’ve been told by the guy at the homebrew store in my town), cider is best made with the same varieties of yeast that one would use for champagne or dry white wine. I personally use Lalvin EC-1118 for my homemade cider, which generally produces a nice demi-sec cider with an ABV around 10%. My tastes are the opposite. I find the ale yeasts better and fruitier. The champagne and wine yeasts just chew way too much through the yeast and leave an insipid cider. Five or six years ago, I made around 60 gallons of cider with a friend’s apples. I tried all sorts of yeasts. There wasn’t a _huge_ difference (for the most part), except that I personally found the ale yeasts more to my liking than the wine or champagne yeasts. The one I disliked the most was a Cote de Rhone yeast, IIRC. I think it was one of the Lalvins. The best of the commercial yeasts to my tastes was, much to my surprise, the Wyeast Weihenstephaner 3068 yeast. That was head and shoulders above the rest to me. The Danstar Nottingham Ale yeast was also pretty good. That said, the absolute best batch of cider was the two carboys of spontaneously fermented juice. It wasn’t even close. I also found the ciders took about a good year before they really came into their own. I managed to get those ciders to undergo malolactic fermentation on their own, and that really rounded out and made the flavors much more interesting. At any rate, this just shows you, experiment and see what best suits your taste. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2014, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/67 "2014-09-29T21:38:36Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > My tastes are the opposite. I find the ale yeasts better and fruitier. The champagne and wine yeasts just chew way too much through the yeast and leave an insipid cider. \*through the sugars ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2014, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/68 "2014-09-30T13:55:47Z")
Smith & Forge is decent, if a bit funky. IIRC, it’s a SABMiller product. Stella Artois Cidre is made in the US, believe it or not, and wasn’t anything remarkable at all. Not bad at all, but nothing special. Certainly not worth paying import money for, when you can get Angry Orchard, Woodchuck and Smith & Forge for less. ---
**Author:** ![MikeF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/69 "2014-10-01T17:30:20Z")
My Irish friends all seem to like Magner’s. Especially “the day after”. They drink it until the hangover eases and then go back to beer or whatever else did them in the night before. Evidently, it has another name in Europe. I can’t drink more than one or two of any that I’ve tried. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/70 "2014-10-01T23:33:55Z")
> [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > I gotta say, I am a cider lover and I can’t stand Woodchuck, doesn’t taste a thing like cider to me. Woodchuck is the only one I’ve ever tried, and it tastes like beer, not cider. I hate beer. So…which hard cider tastes the most like **apples** and the least like beer? ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/71 "2014-10-02T00:25:33Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Woodchuck is the only one I’ve ever tried, and it tastes like beer, not cider. I hate beer. > > So…which hard cider tastes the most like **apples** and the least like beer? Thank you! I get the feeling a lot of posters on this thread are beer drinkers, and don’t taste the beer flavor of a lot of US apple ciders. Woodchuck tastes like beer, and none of the British ciders I tried tasted anything like beer. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/72 "2014-10-02T00:27:33Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > So…which hard cider tastes the most like **apples** and the least like beer? IMO, you’re going at it in both the wrong directions - a cider should taste no more like apples than white wine tastes like grapes. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/73 "2014-10-02T00:43:52Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Woodchuck is the only one I’ve ever tried, and it tastes like beer, not cider. I hate beer. > > So…which hard cider tastes the most like **apples** and the least like beer? Like beer? Not like any beer I’ve ever had. I love it. I’ve got a couple of posters saying that Woodchuck just tastes like alcoholic apple juice, and two others saying it tastes nothing like apples. If Woodchuck doesn’t have enough of an apple taste for you, ciders probably aren’t your thing. Try an appletini made with vodka and soft apple cider. (That’s not meant to be flippant.) ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/74 "2014-10-02T00:55:16Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > Recommendations for a cider for those of us who loathe beer? I loathe beer, and don’t feel that the Angry Orchard has a beery taste. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/75 "2014-10-02T01:00:01Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > Like beer? Not like any beer I’ve ever had. > > I love it. I’ve got a couple of posters saying that Woodchuck just tastes like alcoholic apple juice, and two others saying it tastes nothing like apples. > > If Woodchuck doesn’t have enough of an apple taste for you, ciders probably aren’t your thing. Try an appletini made with vodka and soft apple cider. (That’s not meant to be flippant.) Yeah, Woodchuck is certainly very “apple-y”. I really don’t get the comparisons to beer at all. OK, here’s one. Find a JK Scrumpy. If you’re in the Midwest, they should have it at a Whole Foods, at the very least. It doesn’t really get more apple-y than that (and it doesn’t taste like alco-pop to me, either. That said, it’s not one of my favorites, being a good bit sweet for my tastes, but I’ve found the sweetness varies wildly from bottle to bottle.) Seriously, try a Normandy cider. If champagne were cider, this would be it. There is absolutely nothing beer-like about it, and it’s not a cider you want to chug by the pint. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/76 "2014-10-02T01:02:13Z")
As I said earlier in the thread, I enjoyed the cider I had in the UK. It’s just _American_ ciders that taste of beer. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/77 "2014-10-02T01:11:04Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > As I said earlier in the thread, I enjoyed the cider I had in the UK. It’s just _American_ ciders that taste of beer. That’s just an odd thing to say, in my opinion. The first ciders I ever had were in England, and Woodchuck is much more apple-y than almost any British cider. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/78 "2014-10-02T01:11:34Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > As I said earlier in the thread, I enjoyed the cider I had in the UK. It’s just _American_ ciders that taste of beer. I couldn’t tell you why that is. I don’t notice a beery taste at all. That said, I’m still hunting to find an American cider I _really_ love. There’s some I like, but I haven’t really found one that knocked me over, but I guess there’s some private reserve stuff from the cideries like Crispin, JK Scrumpy, and the such that I haven’t gotten around to trying yet. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/79 "2014-10-02T01:12:35Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > That’s just an odd thing to say, in my opinion. The first ciders I ever had were in England, and Woodchuck is much more apple-y than almost any British cider. I absolutely agree. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2014, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665/80 "2014-10-02T01:14:09Z")
Maybe it’s a cilantro-type thing and elfkin477 and me are in the equivalent of the “tastes like soap” camp. I’m not saying that Woodchuck doesn’t taste like apples. I’m saying it tastes like apples and beer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-apple-ciders/699665.md?page=5)