Cider and Drink Tastings in Bergen

The cider tasting

Shortest · step-free

Bergen: Norwegian Cider Tasting Experience

★ 5.0 · 11 reviews

1.5 hours duration

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Ninety minutes, in English, wheelchair accessible. You meet at Bergen’s first dedicated cider bar in the city centre; the exact street address is not published on the listing. What you taste is craft cider from Hardanger, and what you get with it is the explanation — how it is made, who makes it, and why the apples are the reason it exists. It is a tasting rather than a meal, and ninety minutes is the whole of it.

The not-included list is not published, and neither is a group cap. A minimum age is not stated on the listing; alcohol is served, so Norway’s own age rules apply in practice. Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead. This is the shortest thing on the Bergen shelf and the only one that is both step-free and built around a protected local product — good for a wet ninety minutes, and not a substitute for a meal.

Why Hardanger cider is worth ninety minutes

“Sider frå Hardanger” is a protected geographical indication, granted by Norwegian regulation in force from 17 April 2009. The rules are strict about place: the apples must be grown in the seven Hardanger municipalities, apple concentrate is banned outright, and the pressing, the fermentation and the storage all have to happen in the region. Apples are grated and pressed, the juice strained, then fermented cool at 6 to 12 °C on wild yeast from the skins or on added cultured yeast.

The odd part, and the part a good tasting will spend time on: it is made from dessert apples rather than dedicated cider varieties — Aroma, Discovery, Summerred and Rød Gravenstein are the four you will meet most often. That works because Hardanger sits at roughly 60°N, about as far north as commercial fruit growing goes, and the cold leaves even eating apples with enough acidity to make cider. Warm summers, cool autumn nights and water throwing light back onto steep orchard slopes give a high sugar-to-acid balance, so the cider reads light, fresh and markedly apple-forward. Some producers bottle-ferment, and the protected-name framework was modelled on Champagne-style appellation rules, which is where the local billing as Norway’s answer to champagne comes from — that part is marketing. Cider from Hardanger has the longer version.

The aperitivo tour

New · ages 20+

Bergen: Food and Drink Aperitivo Tour with Tastings

★ No reviews yet

3 hours duration

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Three hours, in English. All food tastings and all drinks are included: seafood, local cider, wines, champagne and Norwegian specialities across several stops, finishing at a rooftop bar in the city centre. The individual stops are not named on the listing. You meet on the pavement outside the red entrance door to the museum and café.

The rules rule people out, so read them before the date. Minimum age 20, because alcohol is served. Not suitable for vegans or vegetarians. At least two people are needed for it to run, with a full refund if it is cancelled for numbers. The group caps at six. It works over cobbled streets and into small venues, some with limited accessibility, and the listing asks you to raise that in advance. Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead. A closer look sets out what is known and what is not.

The food walk drinks too

If you want cider inside something larger, the food walk includes three cider tastings and a local apple cider among its thirteen tastings, two of which are drink. It is three and a half hours, capped at eight, wheelchair accessible, and not suitable for vegans or vegetarians unless you give 24 hours’ notice for an adjusted offering. Return Fløibanen funicular tickets are included.

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