Skunk Apes Session 4 - Draught Kopparberg Strawberry & Lime Cider.
The Kopparberg Brewery was originally founded in 1882 but was re-established as a functioning brewery in 1994, by the Bronsman Brothers who bought the old brewery in the town of Kopparberg, Sweden after seeing an article in a local newspaper. Today Kopparberg Cider and other products are now sold in more than 30 countries and they produce the world’s best-selling pear cider.
The founders of the original town of Kopparberg were miners who set up camp for the copper reserves and name Kopparberg means pretty much “Copper Mountain” in English. In retrospect, it would be the local water that turned out to be the main source of wealth and success in the end. The brewery still stands on the original site where it was built over 130 years ago. Many generations of local families have worked for Kopparberg Brewery and today it is the main employer for the town’s 4,000 odd people. It was in 1996 though that the brewery’s sweet cider recipe was dug out of storage and reintroduced it to the Swedish people. The response was extremely positive and profits boomed, these sweet ciders managed to carve out their own niche across the globe, today you can even buy Kopparberg Gin, fruit lager as well as non alcoholic versions of all their ciders.
So for this review I will be trying out Kopparberg's famous strawberry and Lime cider but on draught and served chilled from an 11 gallon keg. As you can see from the picture above, it pours out a lovely strawberry shade of pink, which reminds me of fizzy drinks I had as a child.
Smell - Immediately without having to hold it up to your nose you can smell the sweetness and the berries. When changing the barrels in the cellar when you clear the cellar buoy the smell makes walking into the cellar similar to walking into a Lush Cosmetics store which is not that unpleasant compared to the normal smells you get in a pub cellar.
mouth feel - It is a carbonated/fizzy cider and the mouthfeel is not dissimilar to various other ciders on the market or in truth classic non alcoholic drinks such as coke or lemonade.
The Taste - It is extremely sweet was my very first thought, followed by the fact that in no way could I tell it was alcoholic (in fact I tried the non alcoholic option alongside it later and could not tell the difference). It was not an unpleasant taste, and I could clearly make out the strawberries and a very light citrus hit from the limes. It was ice cold and very refreshing after a long and hot shift at work but I switched to a pint of Exmoor Stag after this first pint as the sweetness was too much for me a I knew I would not be able to manage a second. I could definitely see this type of cider being a great mid session drink when beer has become too heavy and filling but you're not quite ready to move onto spirits.
Kopparberg make some of the worlds most popular ciders, they are sweet and simple. Although cider connoisseurs would probably say there is a depth of flavour and subtlety which is lost on me in fruit perrys (they would probably be right). This would be a perfect drink for the summer especially when having just got in from a really long hot hike looking for cryptids. I would drink it again happily although its deceptively non alcoholic taste could be rather dangerous.
Image Credits
https://kopparberg.co.uk
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/kirsu73/kopparberg-cidergin/
https://giphy.com/gifs/loop-hair-walk-xTiTnvCLLY36R0F3Ve/media