7 Angry Orchard Hard Cider Flavors Ranked
Fall is right around the corner and that means one thing: seasonal flavors. While your mind might race to Pumpkin Spice, Angry Orchard is here to remind you that the season is and always has been about apples. The hard cider brand is going especially hard for the season with the release of the new all-autumnal apple Fireside Mix Variety Pack.
The new cider variety box is in store at retailers nationwide starting in September and on sale for a limited time only. The pack contains four different apple-forward ciders, including classic Crisp Apple, Green Apple, Natural Baked Apple Pie, and — according to Angry Orchard — the fan-favorite Cinnful Apple.
We were lucky enough to sample this pack early, along with a variety of other Angry Orchard flavors. In addition to the four listed above, we also tasted Angry Orchard's Rosé, Blueberry Rosé, and Tropical Cider flavors. Here's how all seven of the Angry Orchard flavors stacked up in our taste test.
7. Baked Apple Pie
Our least favorite of the selections sampled was by far the Natural Baked Apple Pie cider, which tasted like anything but natural ingredients. The same spices used for apple pie filling were added to the cider here, which was promising, but the result didn't live up to the promise. It isn't so much that the ingredients added are artificial, but that the overall flavor is far too sweet to taste natural.
Angry Orchard is taking a cider that is already on the sweet side and making it taste more like a literal dessert. So, in that sense, the Baked Apple Pie cider's extreme sweetness makes sense. However, just like a bad apple pie, the spice did not balance out the sweetness. What you are left with is cloying. Plus, it was really hard to get past the overwhelming scent of sugary spice that emanated from the can.
6. Blueberry Rosé
The Blueberry Rosé cider admittedly made a pretty good first impression. It is bright with a fruity finish. It goes down pretty easily and, despite having the highest alcohol content of the group, tasted the least like alcohol. As we drank more, though, we realized this flavor was a bit too muddled and one-note to rank higher than we did.
For starters, you start to lose the blueberry flavor pretty quickly after just a few sips. You still get the tartness from the pure cider being mixed with a juice other than apple (as with many of the others), but it's a vague flavor and one that is still slightly overpowered by sweetness.
This drink is 6% ABV, which puts it a full 1% above all the other regular ciders on the list, and .05% above the regular Rosé. At the very least, it has that going for it. All we can say is by the time we reached the bottom of the can, we weren't as into it as when we started.
5. Cinnful Apple
This hard cider from Angry Orchard gave us a little bit of that fall kick we were dying to get from the Baked Apple Pie hard cider. For that reason alone, it takes a spot above it. The Angry Orchard Cinnful Apple cider hits you with the cinnamon flavor from the moment you open up the can. It's admittedly very strongly spiced and scented, but this flavor at least attempts to find balance with the sweet apple cider.
Sadly, it didn't completely succeed, though, since we did feel the cinnamon wound up being too overpowering for us to finish a single can of this drink in one sitting. It was decidedly more enjoyable than the overwhelming sweetness of the apple pie flavor, but we would have preferred the spice be toned down slightly with this one. This hard cider comes in at 5% ABV.
4. Crisp Apple
This is the OG. Crisp Apple is the flavor that you conjure in your mind's eye when someone says Angry Orchard. Frankly, the Crisp Apple cider was not as crisp as we recall, but it is quite drinkable. The biggest issue we had was the sugar content.
On the spectrum of hard ciders we've tried in our days, the original Angry Orchard flavor is on the sweeter side. In fact, it's perhaps the platonic ideal of a sweet cider, as opposed to a dry cider. Ignoring the obvious hangover-inducing effects of sugar, though, we also weren't hot on just how much this cider tastes like apple juice. Sure it was sweet and went down easy, but we just can't house these down like we were 21 and our sweet tooth was stronger. It's a shame that our memory of this cider was better than it tasted.
3. Tropical
The biggest surprise of the Angry Orchard flavors we tried has to be the Tropical cider. This beverage adds passionfruit and pineapple juices to the traditional Angry Orchard apple cider in a way that produces a tangy, balanced refreshment. If you are at all a fan of tropical flavors and sweet drinks, you can't go wrong with this pick.
Of all the ciders we sampled, the Tropical flavor was the most tart and distinct. While it could be tough to recall from (even very recent) memory the subtle differences between the Crisp and Green apple, or even the Rosé, the Tropical cider stood out from the first taste. There was a crisp and tangy flavor that was still very much in the realm of cider. For example, the Blueberry Rosé cider tasted closer to juice than a hard cider. The Tropical cider, on the other hand, understood the assignment perfectly. The only downside is this one may be a bit too tart for some Angry Orchard fans.
2. Rosé
This one is a fan favorite and for good reason. The Angry Orchard Rosé hard cider lands somewhere between a wine spritzer and a hard cider on the "what it tastes like" scale. The end result is pure deliciousness. At 5.5% ABV, this hard cider is stronger and tastier than most of what Angry Orchard sells.
We loved the lightness of the Rosé cider. While some of the other ciders tasted only slightly carbonated, the Rosé brings out the bubbly nature of the drink, hence the spritzer comparison. Even if, according to the label, there isn't any actual wine in the mixture it still achieves the intended flavor. It is not the most tart hard cider on the market, but there is a balance of dryness and sweetness in the Rosé hard cider that we find more drinkable than almost any of Angry Orchard's other products. Almost.
1. Green Apple
We've arrived at the top of the list and we couldn't be happier to be here. In our opinion, the Angry Orchard Green Apple hard cider is a refreshing improvement from the original Crisp Apple recipe and the best of the bunch. Of all the Angry Orchard flavors we tried, the Green Apple was the closest to being a perfectly balanced cider.
Described on Angry Orchard's website as having an aroma with "notes of honeydew melon and kiwi," the Green Apple cider gives a first impression of pure apple. While you may smell these fruits, you only taste green apple flavor, which is significantly more tart than the Crisp Apple cider. There is also a difference in the sweetness that is subtle but leads to a cider that tastes more like an actual apple. That blend between the tartness of a real green apple and the sweet taste of green apple-flavored candy strikes a balance that skyrockets this cider to the top of the rankings. If you had to pick one Angry Orchard flavor to try, we'd highly recommend the Green Apple cider.