My husband and I are on holidays in Poland. Our main goal here is to try new ciders as much as we can.
A few days ago we went to a local liquor store and asked for some Polish ciders. A lady at the counter asked if we wanted a cider made of beer or made of wine (sic!).
We were puzzled and asked her to explain it. She said that there are two types of cider in Poland – a drink made of beer and a drink similar to wine made of apples (she called it “jabol” in Polish – it means very cheap wine).
We stared at her with amazed. I said we would try both “types”. We bought two bottles of “beer cider” – apple and plum flavour. But it wasn’t a good idea what appeared later at home.
We tried first a “beer” cider with plum flavour. It turned out it was a beer with juice. This is a very popular drink in Polish pubs. Mostly women drink beer with juice because of bitterness in beer and ask for a little juice (it means glucose syrup) to be added to the beer to make it milder. It sounds strange, a bit like profanity, but it is quite normal and it is available in many pubs in Poland.
Our “beer cider” was a plum flavor. I read the label, and there it was clearly written: plum flavored beer. Contains light beer from barley malt (60%) and glucose-fructose syrup (40%) and juice concentrate and some additives. 
After such a nasty surprise we did not even try this second cider-flavored beer.
These two drinks are produced by the beer company and do not deserve to be named cider.
And the liquor lady must take some lessons about cider.
