Beer – #126 – Stella Artois - Cidre (ok it's not a beer)

As I'm want to do I was a wandering around the local importers and they had on their shelf a selection of English Ales, and Ciders and amongst them Stella Artois Cidre. Brewed by InBev Belgium in the style of a Cider and they live in Leuven, Belgium

It is a  568mls (a whole pint) of a 4.5%ABV drink, (2.6 UK Drink units).

Laughingly it says it's made from "hand-picked Apples (50%) " which if you're gullible could indicate that some local bod is out there plucking apples lovingly from his tree, into a basket, and then driving a ways to the factory for money. Or it could be that the Stella buyer turns up at the market and chooses the apples by general appearance.

Both, in my opinion, are a nonsense. Making commercial quantities of apple cider on a consistent basis would mean that you'd like to have same variety apples. No use picking he Granny Smiths, the Golden Delicious and the Cox's pippin to mix up separate batches.

So 50% Apples? or is that 50% hand-picked apples ? Anyway in the bottle it looks ok, I should open it and stop frowning at it.

It's nicely carbonated, has that musty smell of an apple cider. It's at both sweet and there is some other taste underneath. A bit confusing. Not unpleasant or awful, just there.

It's less sweet than some ciders I've had, it's also less tasty than some. It's not a dry cider either.

I'm torn between places, this is inoffensive and not wholly unpleasant to drink.

As a cidre then the pdubyah-o-meter thinks this is ok, and there is no reason to avoid it unless you have an inkling to want some flavoured version. So 8 seems a reasonable score on the scale of things, considered.

I don't buy the hand-picked, I wonder what the 50% refers to,and I fret that the rest is chemical juice. Still give me a couple more and I'd care less :-)

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