Magners
- This article is about the Irish brand of cider. For the English brand of the same name, see: Bulmers.
Bulmers Original Irish Cider is a cider produced in Ireland. To prevent confusion with the original English cider of the same name it is sold outside of the Republic of Ireland as Magners.
The Magners brand is the title sponsor of rugby unions celtic league featuring the top teams from Ireland, Wales and Scotland. (see Celtic league) mirroring rival Irish alcholic drinks brand Guinness, which sponsers the top rugby union league in England. (see Guinness Premiership)
Commercial cider production was started in Clonmel, County Tipperary in Ireland in 1935, by local man William Magner. Magner quickly established a successful business, and in 1937 he joined forces with the famous English cider-makers H.P. Bulmer and Company. Dowds Lane in Clonmel was the location of this burgeoning enterprise. In 1949 Magner withdrew from the business and the Bulmers name came to the fore. However H.P. Bulmer maintained international rights to the Bulmers trade mark which prevented the Irish company exporting the brand from Ireland.
In 1964 the company name was changed to Showerings (Ireland) Ltd. Soon afterwards the company moved its main processing operations to a new complex at Annerville, five kilometres from the centre of Clonmel, which was opened in 1965 by the taoiseach, Sean Lemass, TD.
Today Irish Bulmers Ltd. employs more than 470 people and is a substantial part of the economic infrastructure of the community of Clonmel. It is owned by C&C, one of Ireland's biggest drinks companies. The success of Bulmers cider in Ireland led to the development of Magners Cider. The concept was originally developed by Export Executive, Stuart Wootten, who argued that the international growth of Irish pubs provided a natural market for an indiginous Irish drink such as Magners.
The label is identical to Bulmers and even the name has the same number of letters ending in "ers". More importantly the product inside the bottle is identical to Irish Bulmers.
It is available in 330-ml, pint, litre and 750ml bottles and 500-ml cans, and is traditionally served over ice. It is also available in some bars on draught. Initially only available in Spain, Northern Ireland and Scotland, the brand has seen its popularity increase significantly in recent years and is now available across the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia and the United States.
The current TV advertising for Bulmers in Ireland mirrored by Magners in International markets, involves adverts that run in each of the seasons. They show a brief shot of an orchard in seasonal conditions (bare and snow covered in winter, lush and green with sunny skies in summer) at the start of the advert, and then how people enjoy the drink during these seasons (by a warm fire in winter, out in the warm sun during summer). The orchards were originally filmed in England where the cider apples are grown before being shipped to Ireland for processing. Laterly, the orchards in the advertisements have become graphic construct in recognition of the uncertainty over the origins of the key ingredient of Magners cider. Recently, the carbon emissions associated with transport of food and drink material (food-miles) has resulted in growing concern over transporting thousands of tonnes of apples to Ireland for fermentation and then transport back to the UK for distribution. Each time a gallon of apple juice is fermented into cider it releases at least 50% of the weight of sugars as carbon dioxide. This is a lot of greenhouse gases, for a 5.5% alcohol cider like Magners, this amounts to around 2.5% (by weight) of CO2. So 1 litre of Magners has accounts for about over 27 gms of CO2. Magners will soon report their field to can carbon footprint for their products.
Magners success has led to the UK's market leader in cider Scottish & Newcastle introducing 'Sirrus', a version of its Strongbow cider produced specifically to be poured over ice. In 2006 they also relaunched Bulmers Original in the UK, a premium packaged cider .
Drinking cider over ice mirrors the move towards chilled and "extra-cold" beers.