CAMRA urges drinkers to boycott the fizz for cider month

The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) is calling on drinkers to boycott fashionable cider brands like Magners during October - the organisation's traditional time to promote real cider.

The consumer group believes the current trend for cider over ice is doing a disservice to the many other real ciders out there in the market. So it has called on consumers to take part in a cider and perry amnesty.

Taking a veiled swipe at new category champion Magners, CAMRA press officer Owen Morris said: "Pub-goers are being fooled by slick advertising into thinking that cider is supposed to be fizzy, pasteurized, chilled and diluted by ice. This could not be further from what real cider is supposed to be.

"We want consumers to take the training-wheels off their taste buds and try a pint of delicious real cider or perry instead. You will be following in the well trodden footsteps of generations who knew their cider and perry was better with 100 per cent juice, no artificial carbonisation and no pasteurisation."

Joanna Haydon, marketing manager for Magners in the UK, hit back saying the brand is far more traditional than some people believe. "We make the product using 17 different types of apples and it is not made using concentrate. The juice is also fermented in oak casks. So there is a lot of heritage and tradition behind the way Magners is produced."

On October 20 Magners is promoting National Apple Day, which is on the 21st, by having fresh apple samplings at railway stations across the UK.