IRISH BULMERS: Magners without ice

Mmmmm.. this cider blog idea has not quite worked out the way I planned, no matter, here is a bit of a kick start… dinking cider in Dublin.

The land of Guinness also seems to have one brand of cider everywhere you look.. Bulmers. Now the odd thing about Irish Bulmers is that it is not made by the famous HP Bulmer of Hereford (creator of the mighty Strongbow), but a completely separate company. Irish Bulmers is sold outside Ireland, but for obvious reasons it cannot call itself Bulmers because that name is already taken up. So, outside of the Emerald Isle it is known as… Magners. Yes, Irish Bulmers Original and Magners are one and the same.

There is a big difference though, over there it is readily available on tap and they pour it straight into a pint glass for you to drink, unlike Magners which tends to come out of a chilled bottle and poured over ice. Now why anyone would want to drink cider with Ice in is beyond me. OK, it is nice to have your cider cold, but it don’t take long for the ice to melt and .. well.. water down the cider! Now there is one theory about the ice thinning out the cider to enable it to penetrate the blood system quicker, which, to me, sounds like a load of bollocks. Cider is not supposed to have ice in it simple as. If you want it cold, bung it in the fridge or even freezer first.

We don’t often get a chance to sample a cider in large quantities (it’s usually one pint of something unusual, or large quantities of Strongbow), so Dublin was a bit of a change, cos we drank nothing else but Bulmers Original for five days. Actually, it does not taste that bad when you get to drink it without ice. The Irish are proper drinkers and do not insist on the frozen H2O, in fact many barmen look at you silly when you ask for it. It is not too dissimilar to the might ‘Bow, dry, but not too dry, smooth, refreshing and has a rich autumn apple taste. It is slightly sweeter and yet slightly more bitter than ‘Bow and a slightly thicker consistency. All in all drinking it for five days was not a particularly unpleasant experience although it did leave the throat dry by the end of a session… not as nice as ‘Bow, but we have not come across anything as good as ‘Bow when it comes to long distance sessions.

It has to be said though, away on a football tour, spending the majority of time in pubs drinking the stuff, starting before noon each day and never finishing before 4am.. and we never seemed to be able to get drunk on the stuff. If memory serves it is 5%, which is not far behind ‘Bow at 5.3%, but it has nowhere near the same kick. Another reason to not be messing about with it outside of Ireland.

All in all it will form a pleasant memory of the trip, but we wont be converting to Magners over here.