Popped into Ye Olde Murenger House in Newport and went for something different to their Old Brewery Bitter which is my usual tipple in this pub. So tried my first bottle of their Organic Cider, a bit of shock at £3.91 a 550ml bottle! Straw-coloured and heavily, if not overly carbonated this 5% cider may be organic but the ingredients state that it is made from concentrate, sugar and malic acid. The acid is quite noticable in the aftertaste and the cider is quiet thin. Actually it is very difficult to get any flavour apart from acid out of this cider as the carbonation is so high. Not a great cider, think Sams should stay brewing their excellent beers rather than try and copy what Westons, Gwynt and others do far better.
Given the good-value prices of Sams' draught beers, it can come as a shock to find how expensive their bottles are in their pubs.
ReplyDeleteI found this, and the non-organic Sam Smiths 'Ciders' pretty nasty tasting, even by the standards of many industrial 'ciders'. I think this is also a very good example of why the 'Organic' tag has now been well and truly integrated into the market place as just another 'premium' (read: expensive) product. Organic may have some virtues environmentally, particularly at the small-scale producer level, but it certainly doesn't stand for quality in my opinion.
ReplyDeletePerhaps most dissapointing is that this brand is being exported quite vigorously to the US, and many drinkers over there are being duped into thinking this is what a 'real' English cider should taste like. As if the US perception of what cider is needs muddying any more than it already is....