Hard Cider - is this typical?

[zombywoof]

I’m mostly a beer drinker, but picked up a six pack of Angry Orchard hard cider recently - I thought it was pretty good (if sweet for my taste), but was surprised to see what I thought was a rather long ingredients list - “Hard Cider, Water, Sugar, Apple Juice from Concentrate, Malic Acid, Honey, Natural Flavor, Carbon Dioxide, Sulfites.”

Is the addition of water, sugar, apple juice etc. typical of hard cider in general?

I guess I was expecting just, well, hard cider, perhaps with added CO2, rather than a “cocktail” of ingredients…is that commonly available, or would it be unpalatable?

[Rhiannon8404]

Quality hard ciders have minimal ingredients.

Drinking Angry Orchard when you want hard cider is like drinking Kool-Aid when you wanted fruit juice.

I like Hornsby and Woodchuck, but like you, I’m mostly a beer drinker.

[Quartz]

Here you go: from The Science of Cidermaking.

Apart from the blending corrections described above, you can of course always add sugar, glucose syrup, synthetic malic acid and apple juice concentrate to any desired extent along with water. On a commercial scale there are considerable cost advantages to be be gained by doing so, since sugar and water are much cheaper than apple juice (and many commercial ciders are now made from around 35% juice and 65% glucose syrup) but these have to be weighed up against the ultimate quality of the cider you wish to make. Excessive dilution will make the cider ‘thinner’ in its overall complexity of flavour and cannot be recommended for a high quality product.

The next addition is that of metabisulphite, sulphur dioxide or SO2, which are all synonyms for the same thing. This topic always inflames great passions amongst the purist cidermaking lobby, who regard it as dancing with the devil - perhaps it is the connection with brimstone which worries them! However, it has a long and honourable history and the use of burning sulphur candles as a sterilant in wine-making is supposed to date back as far as Homer. Certainly it was in use for cider-making from Elizabethan times, and the controlled addition of metabisulphite is far more accurate than the haphazard application of sulphur candles could ever be.

[Quartz]

You’re not going to get away from Malic acid and sulphites in a commercial product, and medium and sweet ciders need sugar added in one form or another, but otherwise I’m with Rhiannon8404. I used to be well into cider but I’ve had to give it up because there’s so much sugar in it.

[jz78817]

I’ve made hard cider in the past. cider allowed to ferment to completion is likely to be very tart and borderline astringent. all of those minor ingredients are there to allow the bottler to adjust the flavor, acidity, and tartness. and sulfites are a preservative.

even in winemaking (which I’ve made as well) stuff is added after fermentation is complete. Sweeter wines generally add a certain amount of unfermented grape juice after the wine is stabilized (sulfites added to kill the remaining yeast) and de-gassed.

[silenus]

Yeah, that ingredient list would be right at home on the side of a bottle of my homebrew cider. Right down to the forced carbonation if I kegged it.

[Celyn]

There’s always a song about things.

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHtfZCMYCP0

[pulykamell]

There are plenty of ciders that are just apple juice. Here’s one domestic one from the former brewmaster at Goose Island. Just apples and yeast. Also try any of the Normandy ciders. They might have sulfites in them, but otherwise, just apple juice and yeast. Pretty sure a lot of the Quebec ciders are similar.

The more sweet varieties tend to be blended (backsweetened) with apple juice and sugar. Malic acid is used to adjust the tartness of a cider (it’s the acid naturally present in apples.) Sulfites are there to kill the yeast. Carbon dioxide obviously for forced carbonation.

[CelticKnot]

I prefer sweeter beverages (I can’t stand beer) so I love the trend of hard apple cider. I’ve got Strongbow Honey right next to me now. It’s got about the same ingredient list, except honey isn’t on there.
I do wonder what it would be like without the carbonation, because I’m not a fan. I wonder why everything has to be carbonated now. Cider, water, even iced tea.

[Bryan_Ekers]

You know, most people don’t know the difference between apple cider and apple juice, but I do. Now here’s a little trick to help you remember. If it’s clear and yella’, you’ve got juice there, fella. If it’s tangy and brown, you’re in cider town. Now, there’s two exceptions and it gets kinda tricky here…

[CelticKnot]

@Bryan_Ekers

You know, most people don’t know the difference between apple cider and apple juice, but I do. Now here’s a little trick to help you remember. If it’s clear and yella’, you’ve got juice there, fella. If it’s tangy and brown, you’re in cider town. Now, there’s two exceptions and it gets kinda tricky here…

I had a college instructor in eastern WA who had a friend who owned an apple orchard. He told the class that what is called apple juice is pressed, filtered, and boiled down to sugar. The “concentrate” is then diluted with a lot of water. So commercial apple juice is apple-flavored sugar water. I like Simply Apple, which is available all year. Then again, we are avoiding sugars and carbs, so I get little of either.

[Ludovic]

I think that anything on the list except C02, Malic Acid,and flavoring is acceptable for a mid-to-low range hard cider. Not every batch will be perfect so they might need to adjust. If they don’t make a given batch exactly right, they’d need to add one of those ingredients to make up for it, or be a perfectionist and throw out imperfect batches and at least double the price.

[kferr]

Here’s what CAMRA has to say about real cider and perry:

@CAMRA

Definition of Real Draught Cider & Perry:

Ingredients
    The liquid content before fermentation must consist entirely of non-pasteurized apple (cider), or pear (perry) juice
    No apple or pear juice concentrates to be used.
    Normally, only the sugar naturally available in the fruit should be used to cause fermentation, but in years when the level of natural sugar in the fruit is low, the addition of extraneous sugar to aid fermentation is acceptable.

Process
    No pasteurization to take place during the production process.
    No added colourings to be used.
    No added flavourings to be used,  except pure fruits, vegetables, honey, hops, herbs and spices, yet no concentrates, cordials or essences.
    There must be no artificial carbonation for draught products.
    Sweetener may be added to fully fermented Cider/Perry to make it sweet or medium.
    The addition of water is permitted to bring the alcoholic content of the Cider/Perry down to the level required by the producer. Ideally, however the minimum juice content should not be lower than 90% volume.
    No micro filtration allowed (this takes all the yeast, leaving a "dead" product).