StrongBow Clone
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calumscott
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graysalchemy said:
And this was brought home to me when I brewed the Ritchies On The Rocks Pear Cider for SWMBO. She does like a pear cider, Kopparberg being her favourite.
It came out tasting exactly (to my mind anyway - others have asked if it was bulmers...) like Kopparberg.
The kit is a mix of concentrated grape, apple and pear juice, with an artificial sweetner and a sachet of artificial pear (pear drop ester that you make in chemistry at school) flavour, add a pile of sugar, dilute with water ferment the wash, add the flavour at the end...
It makes perfect sense. If you want to give homebrewers a kit that comes out like the commercials make then make the kit like the commercials process!
Not for me thank you (but the missus loves it...).
graysalchemy said:
The op asked for help on making a strongbow clone. Surely it's down to them to decide what they want to make and what they want it to be like?
People on this forum always want to put down the commercial drinks but I don't see the sales taking THAT much of a hit. It's almost a jealousy thing creeping in when the ole' homebrew ways aren't being adhered to.
I enjoy Strongbow, Blackthorn, Westons, Merrydown etc etc. Some obviously more than others. Why is it that people on here feel the need to constantly say everything is **** other than the things that they make and the way they make it? I don't understand why people can't either just help or just butt out.
There are 100s of posts on here talking of traditional ciders and how to do them properly, if the op wanted that I dare say he could have found it rather easily. A sticky of the same old rants would save a lot of hassle IMO.
calumscott said:
It's exactly like you say. The Perry kit was actually a little too sweet for me to be honest. I don't think it was as sweet as Kopparberg though, to me that stuff is undrinkably sweet lol.
The mixed berry is nice though, everyone that tried my batch loved it. In fact I had to stash what I had left away for myself and the Wife as everyone was getting tucked right into it.
These drinks are the ones that are popular and the ones that are selling in their millions. When I visit a wetherspoons I tend to have either a Westons Perry or a pint of Old Rosie (if they have it) and I can honestly say I'm one of the few. In fact I've had the barstaff look at me funny and then query the beverage to other staff as they don't know where it is or if they even have it (Westons perry especially).
graysalchemy
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ScottM said:
Because it is, like any other processed food. People only ask how to clone these mass produced drinks because they haven't experienced how good it can taste. We are conditioned by the PR and Marketing machines that there products are good and exactly how something should taste. But in fact it is so they can produce something more economically.
If someone wants to drink tramp juice that is fine but nine times out of ten someone has seen a recipe on you tube for Tc with copious amounts of sugar and when they come to drink it they realise that it is flavourless and tastes *****. All I am doing is trying to educate people in how to make a decent cider.
calumscott
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graysalchemy said:
Indeed. The commoditisation of food has a hell of a lot to answer for from the obesity crisis in the western world to the obliteration of biodiversity, from the decimation of range width and varietal depth of fresh produce to the forcing of producers to produce at less than cost...
...the business model is very simple. Degrade quality of input and output product and thereby cost, increase marketing to "re-educate" the populous that the degraded quality product is what they want. Continue to drive down cost through agressive domestic and overseas purchasing. Repeat as required.
Magners Irish Cider? The lovely adverts with those Irish folk picking apples and driving the truck through the wall? Those apples? Chinese juice, because it's cheaper. Irish cider because they then wash-ferement the juice in Ireland.
graysalchemy said:
And on top of this, there is the perception that homebrew is sh*te/rocketfuel/rough as a badger's ar*e... Why? Comoditisation of food. As a population we have, thanks to the mega-producers and mega-retailers become completely disconnected with food. "Mummy, where does steak come from?"... "Tescos"... Drinking has become not the social appreciation of a half decent bottle of wine or the consumption of a few pints of good ale in the local with a game of darts, doms or aunt sally but a "lets get pi**ed up on cheap flavourless wash and make a dick of ourselves". Why? Comoditisation. Make them think its the best thing ever and sell it to them cheap.
So instead of people seeing homebrewing as an art, a craft, they see a way to make their own sh*te wash stronger than they can get in the supermarket and the reaction that DHB got prompting his post of last week is the result.
I for one started brewing to get decent beer more cheaply that I could buy it. Very quickly I realised that I could produce beer better than the shops. Now I want to make real, proper, craft beer that challenges the very best of the professional craft brewers and I want my friends to love my beer like I do.
That's why I do it, that's why I'm here, that's why I chat to everyone here, to learn, to get better at it, to produce the very best I can, that to me is home brewing.
Here's the analogy.
Would you ever contemplate trying to recreate a tesco value lasagne but with more trans-fats and sugar? Probably not.
So why try to recreate the beverage equivalent?
graysalchemy said:
I don't think that's true. I've tried quite a wide variety of all different drinks. I've been to loads of beer festivals and often visit wetherspoons due to their vast range of drinks, and also their frequent beer/wine/cider festivals.
The actual fact is that these drinks sell well because they are reasonably good. Of course they aren't comparable to top of the line drinks, but they aren't sold as such. To suggest that one of the UKs largest cider manufacturer makes tramp juice borders on ridiculous. They don't get to where they are by making a **** product. They get to where they are by making a product that pleases the masses. As much as it seems this will be a shock to you, old school farmyard cider isn't a popular choice among the masses. Not because it isn't available to them, and not because they haven't tried it. It's because most people aren't pretentious about what they eat/drink and don't feel the need to discuss the different noses between different beverages. They want something that when put in their mouth doesn't taste like ass, can be consumed at a reasonable quantity without falling over and is refreshing.
The process of making the drink doesn't define the product. The viability of making the product defines the process and the overall cost of the end item. Of course cutting the costs of the process will remain a top priority, but that's the same in every business.
If the title was "how to make decent cider" then I'd quite happily reply, probably, quoting your good self and your helpful recipes. My gripe is that every time someone asks about a-n-other cider (or any clone for that matter) people like yourself try to batter them into submission with the same old tired rants. I could understand where you were coming from if the op was asking to make 10% "cider" with straight apple juice and copious amounts of sugar, but they aren't. Like most people, they are just asking for help to make a drink similar to what they themselves enjoy.
calumscott said:
So basically reading between the lines of the above you are saying that anyone who isn't an ale drinker, who isn't into the finer styles of beer and cider and who isn't into the traditional ways of the older generation pub values is an alcoholic lout more likely to end up in prison than anything else?
Comeon ffs. The op asked how to make strongbow. Is there anything wrong with this as a preference or trying to recreate it? What you guys are trying to discuss is completely off topic, and your generalisation and 'pigeon holeing' is a bit out of order IMO.
As for your analogy, I wouldn't try to re-create tesco value cider/lager either as it's rank. Strongbow I would have no issue making.
calumscott
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ScottM said:
Absolutely! But they please the masses by lowering expectation in line with the lowering of quality through mass marketing effort.
ScottM said:
Yes, but over the years and the marketing input by the big boys the standard product available has been shifted from the artisan traditional product to the mass market homogenised stuff. The point being that this HAS happened. Not IS happening. They have already created a customer base who just want non-toxic and get you there. If you took a can of strongbow back to before the food comoditisation revolution and tried to get someone to drink it, well...
Old school cider isn't popular now because the megacorps have "educated" the modern palette to their mass produced cheap stuff not because a little company produced something new and everyone just liked it more than the other stuff.
ScottM said:
Yes it does. The quality of ingredient, the process, the time all have a bearing on the resultant finished product - I think everyone who has a reasonable brewing experience, cooking experience, baking experience will be able to tell you that! The megacorps strategy is not about those things, it is about creating and controlling a mass market so that they call the shots. Do not for one second think that they are happy to pander to the whims of a free thinking mass market. Control is EVERYTHING. Without control they can't buy cheaply, produce cheaply and sell cheaply in huge volume and more importantly be able to predict accurately what volume they need to produce. After all provable, repeatable sales is what gives them the buying power to ge the ingredients cheaper and cheaper the first place.
Create your own market, control your market, lower their expectation and lower your standard to allow you to sell tons at low margin. THIS is how mass market business works.
ScottM said:
I go back to my lasagne analogy.
Why would you spend the time effort and money trying to recreate a downmarket (or lower middle market at best) product when it'll cost you about the same before you take your time and the risk of cocking it up into account? Other than the "I made something myself" factor there is no rationale whatsoever.
As was said right at the start, you might as well just buy a bottle.
graysalchemy
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I think you may find the OP isn't actually bothered with the thread. He has only posted 3 times twice on this thread, he confuses stongbow with sweet cider :wha: :wha: and has drawn the suspicions of the mods.
If you read my posts my comments about 12% strongbow was not directed at the OP but at the second poster who mentioned about making a 12-14% cider.
Home brew has enough of a bad reputation for poor quality drinks made on the cheap, but home brewing and this forum is so much more than that.
ScottM said:
If you read my posts my comments about 12% strongbow was not directed at the OP but at the second poster who mentioned about making a 12-14% cider.
Home brew has enough of a bad reputation for poor quality drinks made on the cheap, but home brewing and this forum is so much more than that.
calumscott
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Nope. Best read it again. Oh, and I managed to survive my youth in that demographic without any trips to prison. I've had more than my fair share of Tennents (and still have a pint every time I'm back up north, just for old times sake), strongbow and bottled american bland lager in my time.
It's not about ale. It's about the quality of ale.
It's not about the older generation pub values... oh wait... It absolutely IS about the older generation pub values. About the socialisation of drinking, about the community, about the fun. It's about the beer itself, not the alcohol that's in it. Be that a bitter, porter, stout, lager, wheat, pale or whatever.
Tesco value cider is going to be made in exactly the same way, just with EVEN cheaper ingredients. The point of the analogy is, as I say in previous post, that there is no value to that enterprise other than being able to say "I made some cider". It'll cost about the same, it'll taste about the same, it'll take a good month before it can be drunk.
The question I was raising with the analogy is does the "I made it myself" positive outweigh the effort, risk and elapsed time negatives? I just don't think it does.
calumscott
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And just to put this one to bed.
If you want to clone strongbow, here are the ingredients:
Fermented apple juice & glucose syrup, water, sugar, carbon dioxide,
acid: E270 (Lactic Acid), E330 (Citric acid), antioxidant: E224 (potassium metabisuphite).
So... "cider" anyone?
If you want to clone strongbow, here are the ingredients:
Fermented apple juice & glucose syrup, water, sugar, carbon dioxide,
acid: E270 (Lactic Acid), E330 (Citric acid), antioxidant: E224 (potassium metabisuphite).
So... "cider" anyone?
graysalchemy
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:lol: :lol:
You haven't got the percentages have you I may have a go at that one :lol: :lol:
You haven't got the percentages have you I may have a go at that one :lol: :lol:
calumscott said:
I don't get this. This reads great but I just don't see how it's the case ITRW. No marketing campaign, to my knowledge, has ever affected my taste buds. Granted they have gotten me curious and I have bought products based on that curiosity, but they have in no way shape or form affected what I like and what I don't like.
IMO it's more along the lines of the older generation trying to stick by what they see as best and undermining anything contrary to that.
For me dairymilk has only gotten better (although smaller), although I will concede that milky ways were miles better when they were made of the darker nougat.
calumscott said:
The "big boys"... where do they come from? Do they just spring out of nowhere? IMO they get there by making a decent product for a good price with relatively low overheads.[/quote]
FWIW I agree that a lot of this has happened. But it's not the manufacturers that have made this happen, its the consumer. We want more convenient, cheaper, easier, faster, stronger, etc, etc, etc. They simply change the way they do things to keep themselves in a strong market position. The "traditional" manufacturers stick by their methods, thus not following the constant ongoing change.
What the "megacorps" have done is make the alcoholic drinks taste less alcoholic thus making them wayyyy more popular than they ever were. The ciders coming out nowadays, bulmers, magners etc, are simply made to be sweet flavoured and easy to drink. Enjoying the taste of them isn't really surprising or a change to the palate is it? It's the sort of drink that we have had since childhood. The modern drinks are simply replicating this taste while being alcoholic. I'd hardly call that an education of the palate, it's simply a product very akin to what people have been drinking for years. I would certainly say this is the main reason for the high levels of underage drinking though. Traditional lagers/ales/ciders etc were actually so UN-palatable that the younger generation had next to no interest in them. In fact, IMO, to enjoy those beverages a person had to go through the ritualistic "coming of age" visits to the pub with the Father/Grandfather etc in order to educate their palate to the flavours. Because of this education, and because of this palate change among these people, they see all these "new fangled" drinks as being tasteless, ratpiss, insipid, etc.
That would certainly make sense to me anyway.
calumscott said:
I don't agree at all here. In most cases a product is created and sampled. From there it needs to go through viability screening to see what it will cost to mass produce and also how easy it will be to do. From there the refining begins, and as I said cheaper solutions are always being sought out.
As I said previously, the "big boys" didn't get there overnight. They had to be good, very good in fact. Cornering a certain area of the market is virtually where these guys got their break. Magners is probably the most obvious breakthrough. They made a "cider" as sweet as they could get away with, with enough apples and flavour to call it a cider. For your average soda-pop drinker the stuff goes down a treat. I think it's far too sweet but I don't find much wrong with the actual flavour itself. The "over ice" thing is funny though, as the only way the stuff doesn't taste/feel like treacle is when it's freezing cold.
I honestly don't see anything wrong with people liking magners though. And I wouldn't blame anyone for wanting to re-create it. As I said previously, their tastebuds aren't being educated to a new palate, the beverage simply recreates the taste of drinks that the younger generation have been brought up with before even contemplating alcohol. Making a drink that tastes what you have drank, or similar to it, for years is definitely the way to become popular.
calumscott said:
Not really sure what makes you think strongbow is downmarket. By that classification are you suggesting that Magners is up-market?
For quality of product I would definitely think strongbow would hold its own, easily middle of the road compared to what's on offer on the shelves. It's been around for years and certainly not changed very much in regards to taste etc. It's a decent dry cider IMO and I quite happily enjoy a pint or 2 of it in the beer garden of my local (where everyone else is drinking magners).
As for the Lasagne, you wouldn't do that. But the middle of the road and downmarket comments are yours and your opinion, not the opinion of most cider drinkers in the UK. I can make a nice cider a fair bit cheaper than I can buy it from the shelves. I wouldn't compare it with the best that's up there but if I was making strongbow with my efforts I would be over the moon.
That and I enjoy the hobby and the social side of it all.
graysalchemy said:
The 12-14% cider was in order to water down
I totally agree about the reputation of home brew and how we are all looking to change that. There's a gulf between dodgy homebrew and supermarket ciders/lagers/ales though. Sure they aren't to everyones taste but to simply chuck them all in the same basket while holding your own cider so highly is a bit much. There can be absolutely no comparison between any dodgy 80s homebrew and a pint of strongbow.
calumscott
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My understanding of EU labelling law is that they must be in order by mass.
I notice that they have bundled the apple juice and glucose syrup together - the actual ingredient listed is "Fermented apple juice and glucose syrup" so the concept tabled at the outset that it's fermented to wine strength then watered down appears to be accurate.
So you ferment your apple juice + glucose (I guess brewers dextrose would be just fine) to silly %, kill the fermentation (pot metabisulphite) and filter out all trace of yeast. Add water to get your desired ABV and acids for bite, bung in sugar to make it sweet and paletable then force carb in a corny keg.
I guess a vinbrite would do for the filtering?
In terms of the percentages, you should be able to work it out from a carton of juice? The nutritional info would give you the total sugars, then just work out the sugar to add to get your 12% and go from there.
:rofl: f**k it! I will if you will? Bottle swap at the end? :rofl:
I notice that they have bundled the apple juice and glucose syrup together - the actual ingredient listed is "Fermented apple juice and glucose syrup" so the concept tabled at the outset that it's fermented to wine strength then watered down appears to be accurate.
So you ferment your apple juice + glucose (I guess brewers dextrose would be just fine) to silly %, kill the fermentation (pot metabisulphite) and filter out all trace of yeast. Add water to get your desired ABV and acids for bite, bung in sugar to make it sweet and paletable then force carb in a corny keg.
I guess a vinbrite would do for the filtering?
In terms of the percentages, you should be able to work it out from a carton of juice? The nutritional info would give you the total sugars, then just work out the sugar to add to get your 12% and go from there.
:rofl: f**k it! I will if you will? Bottle swap at the end? :rofl:
calumscott said:
I've read it a couple of times now and it still comes across the same way. Like a puffed out chest, the trouble with this country rant. While chucking everyone that has different tastes, preferences from yourself and people like you into the same pigeonhole.
calumscott said:
Why is it about ale at all? Why can it not just be about the hobby? Who determins what a quality ale is? Is it someone that's drank it for years? I've never been an ale drinker and I couldn't tell you a good one from a bad one if I was swimming in it. If you sat down 10 different pints of ale I could taste each one and tell you which one I thought tasted the best.
Is that not what making homebrew is about? Getting help with recipes, making things to your taste and sharing your experiences/findings/recipes/anecdotes?
That's what I think it should be about but unfortunately some see not toeing that age old line as an affront to the art of homebrewing.
calumscott said:
That sounds much more to do with reminiscing than anything else to be honest. Times have changed a lot in the last couple of decades. Saying that what's going on now isn't as good because it isn't your preference is clearly objective.
I've happily bopped along with the times, perhaps that will change when I get older and I'll no longer enjoy the modern equivalent of a pub. One thing for certain is that, even though I'll say it's not my scene and I preferred things "back in the day", I'll never consider the current as wrong, just different.
calumscott said:
This is very narrow minded IMO. Current homebrew is made in exactly the same way as the god awful 70s/80s boom in homebrew. Just because something is made in the same way doesn't mean that the end product is the same. A god awful cook can use the best ingredients in the world and only come up with slop, whereas a good cook can make a lovely meal from the most basic of ingredients.
Strongbow is a far cry from tesco value. The ingredients don't bother me, I couldn't care less what's in it or how it's made (within reason obviously). All I care about is that it's cold, wet, tastes nice and is refreshing..... and it is. Tesco value isn't, but it's not expected to be I guess. It's a needs must beverage.
Archtronics
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Although I hate strongbow I agree with Scottm you can't dictate to others what they should like under the illusion it tastes better everyone has the right to there own opinion. My dad drinks fosters which to me tastes horrid but then again he hates what I drink, he has been on several brewery tours at stone house etc but still sticks with fosters due to personnel taste.
As for a strongbow clone I suggest a mixture of apple and pear juice, although there are lots of comments to just buy real strongbow, where's the fun in that? Also often on brew leads to more and more experimenting.
As for a strongbow clone I suggest a mixture of apple and pear juice, although there are lots of comments to just buy real strongbow, where's the fun in that? Also often on brew leads to more and more experimenting.
graysalchemy
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ScottM said:
I think you will find that techniques have changed in the production of malt extracts for kits and the quality of malts has improved tremendously over the years. Kits themselves have become better with the introduction of two can no sugar kits , hop teas etc.
Also a lot more people are brewing all grain and we are able to produce much better beers than ever before and in some cases better than some micro's as we don't have economic constraints.
You can't get past the fact that commercial cider is no longer 'cider' and if it wasn't for the goverments relaxed tax on ciders and their definitions, all designed to prevent the loss of orchards and increase farm diversity in the wake of foot and mouth, that someone would be having them for trade descriptions.
calumscott
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ScottM said:
If it wasn't for the birth of the mega corps (and some environmental factors along the way, wars and the like) then none of it would have happened.
In fact, most of our social "evolution" wouldn't have happened but that's by the by.
If it wasn't for that desire for accumulation by those in charge of the big businesses then we would still be producing the way we did millenia ago. The cycle of innovation is well documentented and well understood, particularly by big business. New things are treated with suspicion, you over come the suspicion through whatever means (nowadays making it as cheap as you can and marketing the hell out of it in a way that makes you think it will make you virile and attractive to the opposite sex despite having no personality/halitosis/BO/buck teeth/whatever) to ensure that it is seen every where and makes its way into the concience of the mass market.
Magners... came from nowhere. Because it's a great product? No.
Because of clever marketing. It runs like this...
1. Take a pretty poor product and apply a trick that the lager manufacturers have been doing for ages - serve it ice cold so you can't taste it, you just get fizzy, sharp and sweet. That takes care of cost.
2. Make sure that it is the most promenent brand at the point of sale. Now this is where I have massive respect for the agency who dreamed this up, it's pure genius. When Magners was first launched it came in pint bottles only. It was mandated by magners that it would be served over a full glass of ice. It was supplied with branded pint glasses. You cannot fit a pint of liquid into a pint glass that is already full of ice. So, the branded glass and the branded bottle is taken to the table. Two brand impressions that stay there out on the shop floor for every one drink. Utter, utter genius.
Magners was just a little producer, or maybe even an obsolete dormant before that. Certainly not a "big boy" by any stretch. They effectively popped up out of nowhere - and they'll try to stay on top, and they'll invest more in new products and marketing to stay there. "Good" by their definition is how big a divvy they can pay off the back of a product NOT its quality. I'll be prepared to bet that the CEO of magners doesn't drink it. He'll be drinking a Dom Perignon...
The simple fact is, you do not have free thought, your perception of free thought is bent, pushed and pulled by any number of things, the megacorps invest Billions of pounds annually to get you to join their ranks. And it works.
It is absolutely the manufacturers that make it happen. They engineer us to accept their product. Your assertion around the non-acceptance of more traditional beers is down to those brewer's inability to compete with their expensive to produce product. They had to accept reduced margin to stay with the price of the wash lagers which left them bereft of the capital to out market them. This is agressive business, this is how it works.
Seriously, I suggest you do some background reading on the practises of megacorp brewers and food manufacturers. It's frightening.
I used to be very close to the industry BTW, working with the likes of Marstons, GK, UD et al. as well as the food shippers like 3663 and Brakes and the big chain pubs like Orchid, TCG and BRG. This is how it operates, this is how it works.
In terms though, of downmarketness among cider drinkers, that really depends on how you define cider. Having just found the ingredients for strongbow, it is actually sparkling, diluted apple wine, not cider.
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