Strongbow Review

Overall Rating

Quite a pleasant taste when chilled

Can turn you into a wreak of your former self if too much is imbibed

Cider .. cider ... cider.

Go on, tell me what you are thinking when you hear that word

Is it a Worzel Gummage type of country person leaning on a gate in the sunshine, picking at their teeth with a piece of straw and slurping at something urine coloured and flat out of a clear bottle?
Is it the three shivering teenagers sharing a bulmers can behind the community school disco in the middle of winter?
Is it the remnants of Diamond White that lie in the gutter outside the pub that showed the England game on its large-screen TV last night?

One way or another cider needs an image makeover, as none of the things that we think of when we play word association with cider are positive things.

Cider is like those STUPID lederhosen/pedal pushers/pink blouse/ (fit in dodgy item of clothing as appropriate) that your Mother bought you when you were four and made you wear when you were out playing. We have all experienced it. It is just rather odd thing to be still doing it as an adult.

I had always presumed that there MUST be grown-up cider drinkers out there as there are millions of gallons of the stuff drank every year and bottles and taps in most pubs I used to go into. Then four years ago, I met one of them, I liked him, I tried some cider, I liked it. We are getting married in 22 days. The two events are NOT related although the start of the relationship could POSSIBLY be linked to a few Strongbows or five.

I sit writing this with a glass of the stuff in hand so I can give you a first hand account of smell, taste, aftertaste and sensation. This is reporting as RAW as it gets, a real front-line report. However I should warn you that there are 3 more cans in the fridge so while things may get a little incoherent for the reader, they are on the way up for this reviewer.


What is cider then?
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Cider is an alcoholic drink made from the extract of squashed and squished cider apples with added bacteria, champagne yeast to scurry the fermenting along and then honey or fruit sugar to sweeten (but only if it is intended to be a sweet cider obviously)


The history channel bit;
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Cider has been made in the UK for the last 2,000 years and is credited to Iron Age man as his invention. It was considered so important and so crucial to the citizens of the UK that a Treatise of Cider was drawn up in 1676 and which declared the right of every 'man, woman and child (!) to drink it'. The author of said volume also commented "constant use of this liquor ... hath been found by long experience to avail much to health and long life; preserving the Drinker's of it in their full strength and vigour even to very old age".
This person obviously never had a skinful of Woodpecker!


The accused:
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Strongbow Cider comes in a gold and black can. Nice strong colours which hark back to the medieval age that the drink seems so much a part of. You can imagine that the barrel of cider that Friar Tuck fought so hard to protect from Robin Hood and his merry men was draped in cloths of this colour. To compound this, there is an archer in gold printed on top of the can and on the beer taps. What more do you want? This is an earnest drink that tries to present itself to you in colours that say "I have a history, I am above all that other loopy juice out there, drink me with DIGNITY"

Strongbow is made by Bulmers, the Somerset brewery who also make Scrumpy, he of the first name of Jack, a strong cider and Woodpecker, their sweet cider.

Ahhh... Somerset, Pilton, Glastonbury festival. I WISH I was bestriding those muddy fields tonight.


ABV:
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5.3% alcohol.

If you cannot drink, try not to have more than one as you will start stumbling down the well-trodden path of flushing red, talking rubbish, tripping over your own feet, doing the funky chicken - BADLY, farting like a champion, singing the hokey kokey VERY BADLY, handing your mobile number to someone you really wish you hadn't and waking up the next morning with your dry raspy tongue superglued to your nose.

Consider yourself warned.


The taste:
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Once the can is opened and poured, the APPEARANCE is of simple apple juice, that same pale golden colour except it has the tiny traces of a delicate carbonation running through it.

The AROMA emitted by the drink is off apples but not any old apple. Have you ever gone to a house in the countryside where there is an old apple tree in the garden that has shed bucketloads of its fruit on the ground because there is no one to pick it off the branches? It is THAT smell, a mixture of fermentation, receding sweetness and a murmur of something that was once apples. The sort of smell that drives wasps and bees to frenzy in the summertime.

Strongbow is a dry cider and has only a little quantity of added sugars. It is carbonated, therefore not really suitable for people who like the traditional sort of flat cider. Although it is bubbly, it does not posses the sort of bubbles that makes the drinker feel full, bloated and uncomfortable. They are more of a 'small bubble' sort of personality. The TASTE of the liquid is apple sharp and borders on tangy. After a few swigs, the AFTERTASTE hits home which is a slightly sour and dry taste in the roof of the mouth. Although this is not all bad news as it can be cured by frequent and thorough re-application of the cider to the mouth area of the body.

There is quite a noticeable difference between the taste of the draft version and the canned version. The latter has a less sharp taste with a duller flavour. This can be remedied by NOT refrigerating the can and serving the contents with a few ice-cubes in the same glass so it is 'cold' as opposed to chilled to the point of tastelessness. A cider that is too chilled is the same as a wine that is in the same state - below a certain temperature, the liquid is too cold for the tastebuds to taste so you may as well sup water and raw alcohol for all the flavours you will be able to detect and enjoy.


The reality:
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Carbs: 5.5 grams/100ml
Energy: 23 kilojoules/100ml; (51 calories/100ml in real money)


Cost and availability:
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In most off-licences and local shops you can pickup a 500ml can for 99p. They are normally 440ml but there is a special offer running with 13.5% free for the same value in legal tender, which is better than a bee-sting in the bum! A pint will set you back between £3.35 in SE and W London and £1.60 in a little county pub in the wilds of Leicester, the name of which I am understandably keeping to myself.


The long and the short of it:
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I am afraid that I am never going to be able to make a convincing case for the classiness of cider due to two factors:
1) Its sheer drinkability
2) The lethal effect that drinkability has on the human body

Butttttttttttttttttttttttt it is a very refreshing drink and really lovely. If you just fancy something 'lite' at the end of a long hot day, try mixing it half and half with chilled white lemonade and a few ice-cubes.

However if you fancy something with a bit more kick, below is my recipe for a pimms cocktail with Strongbow, use sparingly!!


The cocktail:
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Ingredients:
Can of Strongbow
Pimms
Absolute vodka
While lemonade
2 pealed satsumas - divide into natural sections and divide those sections in half
1 chopped pealed braeburn apple
12 quartered firm British strawberries
A large jug (capable of holding about 2 litres or more)
About 24 large cubes of ice


Put the ice and the fruit in the large jug.
Pour over one 500ml can of Strongbow.
Add one cup of Pimms (average 200ml teacup)
Add cup of Absolute vodka (don't use any more or it will poison the cocktail)
Add 12 cups of while lemonade

Stir and serve into glasses with two cubes of ice, a slice of lemon and a mint leaf already added.

Enjoy!

Thanks for reading
: )
xx
E.

PS. 2 cans later and I KNOW why they were called the MERRY men.....

Members' Comments onElizaF's Review

• Jertoons on 25th Aug 2004

  Thanks for the wonderful review. I bought some Strongbow Cider on the recommendation of the clerk at my distributor. In retrospect, I thought: Maybe she recommended it because it wasn't selling.
  
  There were a lot of cases of it; maybe they'd just got in an order.
  
  Searching on the net, I couldn't get into the manufacturer's site. I'm glad I found this site. I have posted on www.epinions.com and www.mouthshut.com -- but I suspect this site will be very useful, too. I'm about 50 miles from Philadelphia, near Reading, Pennsylvania.
  
  There are some wonderful reviews of London at MouthShut -- one place I've never visited, but want to very much.
  
  Anyway, should I open the case of Strongbow or return it, do you think ? They're bottles, not cans.
  
  You can contact me at:
  
  Jertoons@aol.com
  
  if you like.
  
  Great review. You almost have me opening the cider this evening. Luckily, I purchased Young's "London", too, though I usually get their "Double Chocolate", lol.
  
  Keep smiling. Great review.
  
  Jerry

• welshgit on 26th Jun 2005

  Yes, all very well and correct until lately.
  Have Bulmers changed the product as well as the can design.
  The taste has really gone downhill, is the new can affecting the contents, or is it that after 20+ years of sampling the stuff, I have finally lost it and now look on to the REAL scrumpy.

• funklady on 14th Jan 2006

  Briiilliant *grin*