At the tail end of our sampling various ciders, we came across this Castaway Classic Pear Cider on sale. We’d passed over it on previous occasions, mostly due to the lack of information on the packaging and in store as well as it’s lacklustre packaging.

The cider is a transparent pale straw colour with a sweet cider nose and generous initial carbonation that quickly peters to a moderate carbonation. Served chilled, bright notes of fresh and juicy pear emerge with a smooth and round flavour in the head and into the body before the sweetness developed in intensity with a slight acidity in the second half of the body before leaving a lightly sweet, floral finish.

The sweetness of this cider make it both easy to drink and affordable, but its flavour lacked the crispness in both The Cider Lab Packham Pear Cider and the Somersby Pear Cider, as well as the complexity of flavour in the former and the refreshing lightness of flavour in the latter.

This Castaway Classic Pear Cider contained 330 ml. It was bottled in Australia and purchased in Sydney, Australia in 2017.