Angry Orchard Cider Company Launches Green Apple Hard Cider Nationwide

04 Mar 2014 --- The cider makers at Angry Orchard announced the national release of Angry Orchard Green Apple hard cider. The newest addition to the Angry Orchard hard cider line-up, which hits shelves this week, has a tart and bright character like a fresh green apple, and is the first year-round style of Angry Orchard hard cider made with American apples.

First launched in 2012, Angry Orchard is already the number one selling hard cider in the US[1], where hard cider is still a widely unknown beverage but growing in popularity with both craft beer and wine drinkers.

The cider makers at Angry Orchard have experimented with different apple varieties and fermentation methods for more than 15 years, looking to perfect the craft of cider making. In creating Green Apple, they found that the sweet, juicy profile of culinary apples from the Pacific Northwest, specifically Washington State, lends to a perfect fresh apple flavor and sharp apple tartness. When creating Green Apple, the cider makers at Angry Orchard looked to achieve the familiar characteristics of a green apple, which is typically more acidic with an uncommon tartness compared to traditional red apples.

"With its bright, fresh apple aroma and notes of honeydew melon and kiwi, Angry Orchard Green Apple is a refreshing and complex cider balanced by tartness characteristic of green apples," notes David Sipes, cider maker for Angry Orchard. "For Green Apple, we explored apples from a few different regions but we were ultimately inspired by the flavors found in culinary apples grown in Washington State. These apple varietals boast a fresh apple flavor balanced by unmistakable apple tartness, perfect for our Green Apple hard cider."

Angry Orchard Crafted with American Apples
In 2012, Angry Orchard Cider Company launched three hard cider styles nationally, Crisp Apple, Apple Ginger and Traditional Dry, and has quickly become a favorite among drinkers as a crisp and refreshing flavorful hard cider made with quality ingredients. The cider makers at Angry Orchard experimented for years with apple varieties from Europe, specifically orchards in Italy, where culinary apples are unique to the terroir, and in France, where bittersweet apples unique to cider making have been cultivated for centuries.

Certain regions within the United States, such as the Pacific Northwest and the Northeast, share characteristics – rich soil, ample sunshine and water – with the apple-growing regions of France and Italy that are known to produce apples conducive to cider making. The cider makers at Angry Orchard found that slightly less tannic juice from culinary apples from Washington State in harmony with the fermentation process created the perfect aroma, body and flavor for Green Apple. American culinary apples also contributed to the creation of limited release hard cider seasonal styles, Angry Orchard Cinnful Apple and Elderflower.