Mybeerbuzz .com Highlights Angry Orchard Rosé Hard Cider

Over the past few years I’ve noticed a real increase in the number of wine-inspired beers hitting the shelves.  The flavors and techniques meld really well, and the resulting beer benefits from the combination and inspiration.

It should also come as no surprise that wine-inspired ciders have now found a foothold in the hard cider category and I’m excited to give you my first impressions of just such a hard cider that is being released right now.

Angry Orchard Rosé is a new cider that uses the ever popular Rosé wine as an inspiration for a new hard cider.  That’s right, there are no grapes on board, but the idea here was to create a cider that uses a blend of apples to create a cider with a “rosy color, floral aroma and light tannins” like a Rosé  wine.

This cider uses rare red-fleshed apples from France called Amour Rouge (“Red Love”) as well as a several culinary apples like Gala, Fuji, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious and Granny Smith.  You also can’t help but notice the gorgeous appearance and color of the cider, accentuated by the wine-like clear bottles (as well as the red-fleshed apples and Hibiscus).

This cider is the result of more than a year of experimentation and I do really think they’ve hit on something unique.  The aromas lead with light floral complimented with a bit of crisp apple in the nose.  The flavors have an interesting complexity of both crisp and tart apple flavors followed by a semi-dry finish.  I liked the subtle oak tannins in the late flavors and I think if you put this in an actual wine glass, you may even fool a few wine drinkers (in a good way).  The finish is crisp, refreshing and a bit dry, and at 5.5%-AbV this is a really easy drinking cider that I have a feeling will be a very popular part of the Angry orchard year-round lineup.

This cider is gluten free and the other good news is that it will be available year-round in 6-packs of bottles and in 12-pack variety packs beginning now…so get out there and try Angry Orchard Rosé  for yourself, and when you do, be sure to let us know what YOU think.