Hoxton Cidersmith’s Interesting Cider

It’s been a dry week, I’ve resisted the cider sense twice already so, after a long day of sightseeing and a day off tomorrow, this Saturday night should be put to good use. And what better use than to test some new ciders?

I pop into the local cider outlet, Intercontinental Wines Supermarket. A quick scan of the overpacked fridge, reveals a few odd ciders mixed in with the beers. This is merchandising snakebite style. Hoxton cider catches my eye, a bold, simple label, from a local company. At home, in proper Hoxton style, I add some hipster props to the photo shoot background; a baseball cap and stupid glasses. Perfect. Then I sit back with the cider to watch some insipid Saturday night gameshows and sitcoms with barely titilating inuendos and middle aged slapstick.

Hoxton cider is a very pale, almost clear cider, lightly sparkling.  With a good, foresty smell, it threatens to have a bit of a kick. It’s quite fizzy and has a dryness to it, but still enough bittersweetness to fill the flavour and a slight oaky aftertaste.

It’s a 4.5% cider, from a cidersmith based on London’s City Road. Probably the most local cider I have tried so far. However, it claims to be made with Harry Master’s Jersey, a cider apple variety grown in Somerset, so still not quite as completely local as the Glider Ciders. I can’t find any website for the Hoxton cider, but checking out @cidersmiths, I see it’s new venture. As I adjust my baseball cap and roll another fold in the turn-ups on my shorts, I wonder how the local off licence, though stocked with a full range of Aspalls, managed to find out about this super-cool brand.

It’s another easy drinking, on-the-way-to ‘scrumpy’, cider. One to choose above a mainstream cider, though I wonder what the merits are to a cider made from apples grown in the west country but named after a trendy, east London area. Hoxton’s Interesting cider doesn’t really hold that much interest, unless all you’ve experienced is Magners. Perhaps it’s just to reel in the hipsters to thinking they are drinking something more fashionable than a farmhouse cider, and more interesting than a Strongbow. Like many of the Saturday visitors to the area, the packaging looks fashionalble, but there’s not much depth to the character.

A cider to be seen with, for those who think it’s fashionable to dress like Timmy Mallet (my God, that thing even has its own app!)

Verdict 3/5