Brewers take a sudden fancy to cider

BY GEOFF GRIGGS

This week, I'm going to venture away from the comfortable world of malt and hops and steer into comparatively alien territory – cider.

While I don't claim to be an expert, I grew up in England and over the years have tasted enough ciders to know that the world of fermented apple, and pear, juice includes a wonderfully broad range of styles and flavours. At its best, cider, like beer, can offer far more than just simple refreshment. It can be a truly wonderful taste experience.

Cloudy or bright, still or sparkling, sweet or dry, cider can vary in alcoholic potency from a modest 3 per cent to 9 per cent, the strength of some wines. Cider can also be compared with its grapey sibling in texture and flavour. It can be as spritzy as a Champagne or as still as any table wine, as dry as a fino sherry or as lusciously sweet as a dessert wine.

The reason I'm writing about cider now is because, all of a sudden, everyone seems to be releasing one. It's as if someone decreed that 2009 was going to be the year of cider, and then pressed a button to make it happen. In the past few weeks, every time I go to the shops, there's another new one on the shelves.

Many of the new ciders come from established brewers such as Mac's and Monteith's, and as a result they are even popping up on taps in pubs and bars.

Monteith's Crushed Apple Cider (4.5 per cent) is made from whole apples (rather than concentrate) and is certainly a step up from the traditional mainstream Kiwi brands.

Similarly pale and highly carbonated, there is little in the way of fermentation character or complexity and it's too sweet for my taste, but there's plenty of green-apple-skin flavour and it finishes crisply.

Compared with the Monteith's brew, Mac's Isaac's Cider (5 per cent) pours a shade darker and offers a more yeasty aroma and flavour, but it's still very sweet. The apple flavour is riper and less "green", but we're still not talking anywhere near the complexity of English farmhouse ciders. The name, which might be hard to enunciate after a couple of glasses, is a reference to Isaac Newton who, as the packaging explains, had his best ideas while sitting under apple trees.

Meanwhile, New Zealand's leading cider-maker, Harvest, has added a new product to its range.

Harvest Pear Cider is made with a combination of apple and pear juice but, like its regular apple cider, the new product is sweet, light bodied and highly carbonated – in other words a simple quencher.

As with craft beers, the most characterful ciders are often produced by the smaller producers.

While Blenheim's Moa brewery is new player in the market, Nally's (Invercargill), Bays and Founders (both Nelson) have produced crisp, French-style ciders for some years.

But why is the push for cider happening now? In announcing Crushed Apple Cider, Monteith's brand manager Russell Browne pointed out that New Zealand's cider market is worth $4.5 million a year and is growing at nearly 13 per cent.

Reason enough then, but I have a suspicion the Kiwi drinks industry has also been jealously eyeing the British market where, for the past few years, one particular cider has stimulated the entire category. That cider, Magners, has recently come to New Zealand.

To be honest, Magners' success isn't much to do with the drink itself – by English standards it's a sweetish, uncomplicated brew – but rather the way it is served.

Standard practice in British pubs is to fill a pint glass (568ml) with ice cubes and then pour in a stubbie (330ml) of Magners, to create an extra-long, super-chilled quencher.

It's hardly the manner in which you would serve a high-quality English or French farmhouse cider, but then Magners isn't exactly aiming at that sector of the market.

Cheers!

- © Fairfax NZ News