Gwynedd Stuart
The best hard cider is more than just a beer substitute for people who think beer is too bitter. Yes, the best hard apple cider is sweet, delicious, and tastes a lot like sparkling apple juice, but there’s a world of nuance that makes hard cider worth exploring for what it is—not just what it isn’t.
As a person who doesn’t favor super sweet alcoholic bevs, I don’t drink a lot of hard cider. That means a couple of things: It’s a real dang treat every time I do drink it, and, also, I had a lot to learn about what’s out there in the world of hard cider. For example, not all hard cider is a sugar bomb. Some bottlings are super dry and tart. Some are totally sugar free. Who knew?
What we were looking for in the best hard cider
Hard cider can run the gamut from sugarier-than-apple-juice sweet to crisp and dry as Champagne—we tasted (and loved) a little bit of everything, but in general we wanted:
- Fresh apple flavor: Hard cider shouldn’t taste like old apples that have been fermenting in a bucket in some weirdo’s garage.
- Faithfulness to the description: If a cider calls itself “brut,” it better be drier than the Sahara.
- Accurate fruit flavors: We tasted a lot of hard apple ciders that are flavored to taste like other fruits, and the only ones we liked tasted like actual fruit, no artificial fruit flavoring (looking at you, Angry Orchard).
Over the course of three separate taste tests, we gathered a sampling of the best hard cider brands that are available across the country and some grocery store classics, too. These might not all be available where you live, but a lot of them probably are. And you might notice some big brands missing from this list. Woodchuck, if you’re reading this, make your cider available in California, dammit! Without further ado, these are the eight best hard apple ciders we tried during our taste tests.
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- The Gourd Tree Pumpkin Cider
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I think we’ve all become accustomed to seasonal snacks and drinks that claim to be “pumpkin” flavored but don’t contain any pumpkin whatsoever. This hard apple cider from Trader Joe’s is an outlier—it’s actually made with pumpkin! And it tastes like pumpkin, too! It has an interesting gourdy sweetness that I really love. And if you come to pumpkin products for pumpkin spice, the Gourd Tree has you covered there, too. This hard cider has big, bold cinnamon flavor. To be perfectly honest, I could probably only drink one can of this in a sitting, but it’s still the best hard cider for chilly evenings on the porch. Plus, it’s from Trader Joe’s, so it’s cheap.
Credit: Merc / Trader Joe’s
- Schilling Hard Cider Chaider Spiced Chai
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Is there anything cozier than an owl in a little knit hat with earflaps? Maybe one thing: this cider. This seasonal hard cider is also the best spiced hard apple cider we tried during our taste tests. The chai spices give this Schilling cider mulled cider vibes, but the carbonation and the fact that it’s chilled keep it refreshing. If you like chai, you’ll like this.
Credit: Merc / Schilling Cider
- Henry Hotspur’s Hard Pressed for Cider
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This hard cider from Trader Joe’s is a bit of an oddball. It’s super earthy in a way that’s actually pretty pleasing if you give it a sec to sink in. “This one’s a thinker,” I said when I took a sip. I think what comes through in this bottle of cider from Trader Joe’s is the taste of apple skin, which adds a little bit of bitterness to the sweetness of the apple flesh itself. When I opened it, I thought it smelled a little like Heineken, which accurately communicated that this would be among the best dry hard cider we tried rather than a sugar bomb. We also tried the Henry Hotspur’s Rosé, but weren’t impressed (in fact, I said that it tastes like “something you’d get at a gas station”). Stick with the original.
Credit: Merc / Trader Joe’s
- Blake’s Hard Cider Triple Jam
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As soon as you crack a can of this hard cider, you get slapped in the nose holes with a big berry aroma. Blake’s Triple Jam includes strawberry, blackberry, and raspberry essences, which don’t necessarily add up to a hugely sophisticated berry flavor, but in this format, it’s delicious all the same. This truly tastes like carbonated berry juice, but, like, real berry juice, not phony berry flavored juice. This cider is tart and it isn’t overly sweet despite the cavalcade of fruit flavors—the best hard cider for berry lovers, for sure.
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Strongbow Gold Apple
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Along with Angry Orchard and Woodchuck, Strongbow completes the big-three cider triumvirate. You’ll find at least one of these hard apple cider brands on the menu at pretty much any chain restaurant by pretty much any freeway exit. I didn’t expect Strongbow to be good, but it won me over upon first sip. It’s way drier than I’d imagined it would be and has a really delicate fizz and an almost beer-like smell. My note was, “You could drink a lot of these”—and not just combined with Guinness in a Snakebite like we did in the ’90s and ’00s, when Snakebites seemed super cool.
Credit: Merc / Total Wine
- 2 Towns Ciderhouse Cosmic Explorer
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I’m a real sucker for new and interesting apple cultivars, and Cosmic Crisp is one of my absolute favorites. They’re big, firm, sweet but a little tart, and taste a lot like honeycrisp apples because they’re a honeycrisp hybrid. And it turns out they lend themselves well to being made into hard apple cider. 2 Towns’ Cosmic Explorer is so refreshing and wonderfully dry, but with a big burst of sweetness on first sip. My colleague Justine Sterling said, “It tastes like you’re biting into a fizzy apple.” The best thing about this cider? It’s surprisingly high alcohol, but doesn’t taste like it—8% is impressive for cider! If you want a cider that will actually give you a buzz, this is the best hard cider you can buy.
Credit: Merc / Total Wine
- Golden State Cider Brut
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I will be honest: I don’t understand how a hard cider is totally sugar free, especially if it isn’t artificially sweetened, which this one is not (the only ingredients are apple juice, malic acid, and yeast). Golden State Cider Brut is VERY tart. Very dry. It’s made with fresh pressed West Coast apples and Champagne yeast, which is used in the making of bubbly wines. It’s very bright and refreshing, especially ice cold. This is a fantastic option if you’re watching your sugar and carbs—a 16oz can has 200 calories and 8g carbs and 0 sugar. The label even says it’s considered a “low cal food.” It really tastes like a nice, lightly sweet apple wine more than it tastes like a cider if that makes sense. If you CAN handle SOME sugar and you want something a little bit sweeter, try Golden State’s Mighty Dry.
Credit: Liv Averett / Total Wine
- Ace Craft Cider Tropical Variety Pack
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After our initial taste test, Ace Pineapple was our number one best tasting hard cider. It’s incredible. It’s so tart and refreshing. The pineapple flavor is a perfect counterpart to the apple cider itself. But after reassessing, we decided to go ahead and rank Ace’s entire Tropical variety pack as the best hard cider to buy, because all of the flavors are absolutely delicious. The mango cider is earthy and compelling; it tastes like mango puree rather than mango flavoring. And the guava cider is a real standout. We taste test so many guava flavored products, and they never taste like guava, but this really does. The only flavor I didn’t love is pear, but it was just a little heavy on the pear for my personal taste—I think there are folks out there who will love it as much as we love the pineapple, guava, and mango ciders. Basically, if you see this variety pack at your grocery store, buy it. It contains not one but three of the best hard ciders we tasted.
Credit: Merc / Vons
Best Pumpkin
Best Spiced
Best Earthy
Best Berry
Best Big Brand
Best High ABV
Best Zero Sugar Hard Cider
Best of the Best Hard Cider
Other hard cider we tried
Stella Artois Cidre, Angry Orchard Crisp Apple, Angry Orchard Hardcore Cherry Apple, Angry Orchard Baked Apple Pie, Julian Hard Cider, Henry Hotspur’s Hard Pressed Rosé, Bivuac True Lovers Rosé, Rekorderlig Pear Cider, Sincere Cider Dry, Angry Orchard 2025 Flavor Mix, Pineapple Guava Shirt Hard Cider
Luke Field
Jordan Myrick
