My wife is hoarding Woodchuck Summer Ale because she likes it so much. Does cider get 'foxed" after a while like beer does? How long can you hoard a cider? How much Woodchuck should a woodchuck lover hoard if a Woodchuck lover could chuck wood?
I am a craft beer fan that also loves cider. My beer friends have learned to tolerate my transgressions.
I am glad to see a renewal of cider availability but there still a lot of fake ciders here in western Canada. There have been a couple lines of scandalously synthetic and horrible ciders out of BC (Okanagan and Growers) for years; they are sickly sweet artificially flavoured monstrosities. I think they are intended for getting young girls drunk. It is a travesty really because BC is a big apple producer.
Big Rock Rock Creek Cider is pretty good - supposedly from an old orchard of true cider apples. It is a little sweet for dry cider but has good tart apple flavour which is what I am after. Dukes from Tree Brewing in BC (their beers are very good) is alright - nice and dry but a little weak on flavour. Seagrams, Molson, Alexander Kieths and probably any other big Canadian brewers all have their examples of cider out right now. The seagrams version is labelled ‘Apple Flavoured Cider’; are they fucking kidding? I will probably try them but I expect disappointment. Unibrou has an apple ‘beer’ ; beer refremented with apples, like a fruit lambic I suppose. It is probably pretty good - those guys seem to know what they are doing, but I haven’t tried it yet.
Angry orchard is good, haven’t tried the spiced stuff, but what I have had is satisfyingly apple-y. It is of increasing availability here in Canada. Haven’t had the opportunity of trying too many other American ciders yet.
Quite like Magnars, Blackthorn is alright if a little on the bland side. Sir Perry is very good though not technically cider. Strongbow is tart and dry if a little poor in the apple dept , but is made up for in availability - I can get it on tap almost everywhere in Calgary. There is a very good British scrumpy available in a lot of pubs here that I really like but I cant recall the name and it is on the very expensive side. Look forward to trying lots of UK ciders as they become available. I would like to visit some cider pubs if I get out that way.
I’m gonna go with no “foxing” unless you get a hopped cider. I’m not sure how long it keeps, I guess about as long as beer with a similar ABV (in terms of freshness)? We have a 2ish year old bottle of that Woodchuck Pumpkin abomination that I’m in no rush to drink and not about to test.
I got around to trying the Angry Orchard Muse–looks like one of my local places carries all three of the specialty Angry Orchards. It was quite nice, closer to what I like in my ciders, aged in French Oak. It reminds me a lot of the Normandy ciders I like, but maybe just a smidge sweeter and not quite as “deep.” But a damned good cider. I would definitely recommend it.