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The source register

Every source CiderHQ is prepared to cite, what each is competent for, how far it was actually consulted, and where a retrieval was wanted and did not happen.

The register holds 115 sources. It is grouped by the kind of body that published each one rather than by subject, because the question asked of a register is almost always “how strong is the evidence here?” rather than “what is it about”. A regulator, a research institute and a trade body are three different kinds of thing to cite, and the difference matters more than the topic they share.

Two fields on each entry carry the weight. Competent for lists the subjects a source may be cited for at all — a national cider-makers’ association is authoritative on its own members’ practice and is not the place to establish a chemical mechanism, and the evidence audit fails the build if a claim cites a source outside its competence. Consultation state records how far CiderHQ actually got with the document, which is a separate question from how authoritative the body is.

The state of the register

How far each source has been consulted. Registered means the body has been identified as competent for a subject without CiderHQ claiming to have worked through the document.
Consultation stateSources
Registered as competent9
Retrieved38
Read0
Passage verified60
Cited by a claim0
Authority tier: 1 defines or regulates the subject, 2 is strong secondary, 3 is contextual.
Authority tierSources
Tier 178
Tier 231
Tier 36
What these figures mean in practice68 of 115 sources have been read or better. A source that is registered or retrieved is limited in what may rest on it: it can establish where the authoritative answer lives, and it cannot support a quoted figure or an attributed passage. The consultation ladder sets out each rung and what it permits.

What the register does not have

Retrievals that were wanted, attempted and not completed. Recorded on the source rather than quietly dropped.

42 gaps are recorded across 42 sources. Each names what was wanted, why it was not obtained, when it was attempted, and what CiderHQ publishes in its place — which is usually nothing.

The line-by-line entry from the IARC classification list giving the exact agent wording and volume for each alcohol-related agent.

International Agency for Research on Cancer, World Health OrganizationIARC Monographs on the Identification of Carcinogenic Hazards to Humans — alcohol consumption and ethanol in alcoholic beverages. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Why it did not happen. The list is delivered by a client-side application that returns no content to a plain retrieval. The volume identity and its Group 1 scope were confirmed from the publications catalogue instead.

What is published instead. CiderHQ names the agent as IARC names it — consumption of alcoholic beverages — and cites Volume 100E. It does not state a separate classification for acetaldehyde, because the agent IARC evaluated is acetaldehyde *associated with the consumption of alcoholic beverages*, and that wording could not be confirmed to the letter.

The register entries for the cider and perry designations, with their registration dates and specification links.

European CommissioneAmbrosia — the EU geographical indications register. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Why it did not happen. eAmbrosia is a client-side application; a plain retrieval returns the shell and no register content. Registration dates for the UK names were obtained from the Defra register instead, and the Pays d’Auge specification directly from INAO.

What is published instead. Designation records cite the register that was actually read for each fact, rather than citing eAmbrosia for figures taken from somewhere else.

A working address for the consolidated text of the single common market organisation regulation.

European UnionRegulation (EU) No 1308/2013 establishing a common organisation of the markets in agricultural products. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. The same EUR-Lex behaviour as the food information regulation: HTTP 200 and the Official Journal daily index rather than the instrument, in every URL form CiderHQ holds. Recorded on 2026-08-25.

What is published instead. This source is cited for structural statements about the EU framework rather than for figures, and every such statement is carried jointly by the national instrument it operates through. Nothing on the site depends on this address resolving.

A working address for the consolidated text of the regulation.

European UnionRegulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. Checked on 2026-08-25: the registered ELI address returns HTTP 200 and the Official Journal’s daily index instead of the instrument. So does the ELI address with a language segment, and so does the CELEX legal-content form. This is not a dead link — a link checker reading status codes would report it healthy — and it is the reason this project now keeps a source-health register that records what came back rather than what code it came back with.

What is published instead. The passages recorded on this source were verified against the document on 2026-08-24 and stand. Nothing is republished on the strength of the address. A reader following the link today reaches the Official Journal index and can search it for the instrument by number.

The cahiers des charges for Cornouaille, Cidre de Bretagne, Cidre du Cotentin, Cidre de Normandie and Poiré Domfront, at the same level of detail.

INAOInstitut national de l’origine et de la qualité (INAO). Attempted 2026-08-24.

Why it did not happen. Only the Pays d’Auge specification was retrieved and read in this pass. The others are published on the same registers and are reachable; the work has not been done.

What is published instead. Those designations keep the structural descriptions they had. Where CiderHQ states a number for them it is attributed and dated as before, and no figure has been carried across from Pays d’Auge by analogy.

A verbatim reading of the articles and annexes, to quote rather than paraphrase.

Légifrance, JORF texte n° JORFTEXT000051223792Décret n° 2025-162 du 20 février 2025 portant application de l’article L. 412-1 du code de la consommation en ce qui concerne les cidres et poirés. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Why it did not happen. legifrance.gouv.fr refuses automated retrieval with HTTP 403. The text was reached only through an intermediary that returns a reading rather than the source, which is enough to establish what the instrument says and not enough to quote it.

What is published instead. The operative figures are carried on `unicid`, the interbranch organisation’s own briefing, which reproduces the sweetness table verbatim and is registered separately with the quotation. Where the two are cited together, the decree is the authority and the briefing is the text CiderHQ actually read.

The current text of Title 27 from the electronic Code of Federal Regulations.

United States GovernmentTitle 27 of the Code of Federal Regulations — Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. ecfr.gov returned HTTP 503 on 2026-08-25. That reads as a service problem rather than a removal, but a 503 is not a reading and this register does not record one as though it were.

What is published instead. The passages already recorded against this source were verified on 2026-08-24 and stand. No new figure is taken from it until the address answers again.

The current standard-drink definition and the alcohol guidance chapter, read at the source.

US Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human ServicesDietary Guidelines for Americans — alcohol. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Why it did not happen. The host closed the HTTP/2 stream mid-response on repeated attempts and returned no usable content.

What is published instead. CiderHQ states the US standard drink only where another opened source carries it, and attributes no figure to this document unread.

The forskrift itself — the regulation protecting each name — rather than the register’s account of it.

Stiftelsen Norsk Mat (formerly Matmerk)Beskyttede betegnelser — the Norwegian register of protected designations. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. The register links to Lovdata without giving the regulation number, and Lovdata could not be searched by retrieval on 2026-08-25.

What is published instead. Requirements are recorded as the national register states them, attributed to the register rather than to the regulation, and every one of them is quoted in Norwegian above so a reader can check the wording.

The original per-cultivar analysis tables, with sample counts and season ranges.

National Fruit and Cider Institute / University of BristolLong Ashton Research Station cider fruit analyses. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Why it did not happen. The station closed in 2003 and its annual reports are not consolidated in a single open archive. Figures reach the present mostly through secondary compilations. A specific citation was recovered on 2026-08-24 from the Herefordshire Cider PGI specification, which points readers to “Cider Apples and Their Character I, II, III and IV” by R. R. Williams and R. D. Child in the Long Ashton Research Station Annual Reports for 1961–1964 — so the tables have a name and a location now, even though no digitised copy was found.

What is published instead. CiderHQ records Long Ashton figures as classification bands and ranges attributed to the programme rather than as precise per-cultivar values it cannot verify against the original tables.

The programme site at the address CiderHQ had registered for it.

Cornell University, School of Integrative Plant ScienceCornell Cider Research and Extension programme. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Why it did not happen. The registered host cider.cals.cornell.edu no longer resolves. The programme now publishes at hardcider.cals.cornell.edu, and the record has been corrected. A registered-but-never-opened source hides exactly this kind of rot.

What is published instead. The current address was located and read, and the publication list verified against it.

Confirmation of four published figures that cannot describe real fruit.

Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension CenterWashington State University cider research programme. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Why it did not happen. The database prints a fruit diameter of 258 inches for Fillbarrel, juice yields for Redstreak and Taylor’s that convert to more than 900 L per tonne, and 0.11% acid for Bramley’s Seedling beside a pH of 3.12. Each looks like a lost decimal point, but CiderHQ has no basis for deciding where the point belonged.

What is published instead. Each figure is withheld on the cultivar it belongs to, with the published value and the reason shown, rather than republished, silently dropped, or adjusted to something plausible.

Direct retrieval of the institute’s cultivar and fermentation publications.

Principado de AsturiasServicio Regional de Investigación y Desarrollo Agroalimentario (SERIDA). Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. serida.org returns HTTP 403 to automated retrieval, checked 2026-08-25. The institute is real and active and its work is not in doubt; its web server declines robots.

What is published instead. SERIDA’s work reaches this site through its own open repository at ria.asturias.es and through the peer-reviewed papers its staff publish, both of which are registered separately and were read in full. Where a claim rests on SERIDA it names the paper rather than the institute where one exists.

Sorbitol measured variety by variety, in named perry pears, by a stated method.

Various journals and institute reportsResearch on pear juice composition and sorbitol in perry. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. Nothing CiderHQ has reached publishes it. The Long Ashton perry pear tables report gravity, acidity and tannin and not sorbitol; the modern Three Counties survey reports the phenolic fractions and the individual amino acids and not sorbitol, and its author says plainly that sorbitol “was not directly measured” in the juices he fermented — inferring it instead from how high the ferments finished. This is a conspicuous gap: sorbitol is the single most repeated fact about perry and nobody appears to have published it per cultivar.

What is published instead. Perry pear records carry a pooled pear-juice range from the general literature, marked on every measurement as a general figure for pear juice rather than as an analysis of that cultivar, with the reason it is recorded on that record stated alongside it.

The per-cultivar tables from the full text, with sample counts and season-by-season figures.

Miles, King, Alexander and Scheenstra, HortTechnology 27(3):431–439Evaluation of Flower, Fruit, and Juice Characteristics of a Multinational Collection of Cider Apple Cultivars Grown in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Why it did not happen. journals.ashs.org serves a client-side application and returns HTTP 403 to retrieval. The publisher location Unpaywall lists is the same blocked address, and no repository copy was found.

What is published instead. The per-cultivar figures CiderHQ publishes come from the programme’s own cultivar database, which covers a longer period (2002–2017) and a larger set of fruit. This paper is cited for the findings its abstract states.

The per-cultivar yeast assimilable nitrogen figures behind the study means.

Boudreau, Peck, O’Keefe and Stewart, Food Science & Nutrition 6(1):119–123Free amino nitrogen concentration correlates to total yeast assimilable nitrogen concentration in apple juice. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Why it did not happen. The published figures report the two seasons in aggregate and present the per-cultivar data as plotted regressions rather than as a table of values.

What is published instead. CiderHQ publishes the study-wide range and means with their sample count, and does not attribute a nitrogen figure to any individual cultivar.

The per-variety phenolic tables and the degree-of-polymerisation distributions.

Guyot, Marnet, Sanoner and Drilleau, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 51(21):6240–6247Variability of the Polyphenolic Composition of Cider Apple (Malus domestica) Fruits and Juices. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Why it did not happen. pubs.acs.org is paywalled and refuses automated retrieval; the HAL record for the paper is served behind an access-control challenge that also refuses retrieval. No open repository copy was found.

What is published instead. CiderHQ publishes only the figures the abstract states, attributed to the study as a whole rather than to any named variety.

The panel scores and the concentration series behind the two abstracts.

Symoneaux, Baron, Marnet, Bauduin and Chollet, LWT — Food Science and Technology 57:22–27; and Symoneaux, Chollet, Bauduin, Le Quéré and Baron, LWT 57:28–34Impact of apple procyanidins on sensory perception in model cider (parts 1 and 2). Attempted 2026-08-24.

Why it did not happen. Both papers are paywalled on ScienceDirect and no repository copy was found.

What is published instead. CiderHQ states the direction of each effect and the one concentration the abstracts name, and does not publish a curve it has not seen.

The strain tables and the malolactic efficiency results.

Sánchez, Coton, Coton, Herrero, García and Díaz, Food Microbiology 32(1):32–37Prevalent lactic acid bacteria in cider cellars and efficiency of Oenococcus oeni strains. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Why it did not happen. Paywalled on ScienceDirect; no repository copy found.

What is published instead. CiderHQ cites the species identification the abstract states and does not reproduce efficiency figures it has not read.

The strain identities, the mash chemistry before and after, and the ester quantification.

Fejzullahu, Kun-Farkas and Kun, Acta Alimentaria 53(3):360–372Enhancing fruit spirit quality: Novel approaches to mash acidification techniques. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Why it did not happen. akjournals.com returns HTTP 403 to automated retrieval and no repository copy was found.

What is published instead. CiderHQ publishes only the two figures the abstract states, and says that the substrate was apple mash destined for spirit rather than cider.

The published tables and methods as printed in the journal.

Journal of Agricultural and Food ChemistryCharacterization of the Polyphenol Composition of 20 Cultivars of Cider, Processing, and Dessert Apples (Malus × domestica Borkh.) Grown in Virginia. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. The article sits behind a subscription. The table CiderHQ transcribes was republished, with attribution, on a specialist compilation page whose author is a phenolic chemist; the figures are therefore secondary, and no part of the paper’s discussion is cited.

What is published instead. Only the numeric table is used, and every measurement records that it reaches the site through a transcription rather than from the journal.

A resolved genotype for the selections the study could not settle.

Harper, Winfield, Copas, Przewieslik-Allen, Barker, Burridge, Hughes, Davies and Edwards, University of Bristol, in PLANTS, PEOPLE, PLANET 2(2)The Long Ashton Legacy: Characterising United Kingdom West Country cider apples using a genotyping by targeted sequencing approach. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. The authors state that where only two samples of a cultivar were available and those two differed, they could not determine which — if either — was correct, and they name Amelia, Connie, Eleni and Nicky. CiderHQ holds no record for any of the four and would need a resolved genotype before creating one.

What is published instead. The four unresolved selections are not given records. The site publishes the twenty-three whose grouping the study states.

The per-cultivar figures — titratable acidity, malic acid, pH, epicatechin, glucose and fructose for each of the five varieties.

Campo, Santos, Berregi and Munduate, Food Control 16(6)Differentiation of Basque cider apple juices from different cultivars by means of chemometric techniques. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. Subscription only. Unusually, the abstract is elided from Semantic Scholar and absent from OpenAlex, so not even the summary figures could be read at source. Secondary summaries quote a total sugar range of 96.7 to 128.7 grams per litre across the five varieties; CiderHQ has not seen that in the paper and does not publish it as a measurement.

What is published instead. The Basque cultivar records carry no figure from this study. They cite it for the qualitative finding — that the five are chemically separable — and for nothing else.

Sorbitol in any Austrian Mostbirne.

Wurm, Gössinger, Wendelin and Korntheuer, HBLA und Bundesamt für Wein- und Obstbau Klosterneuburg, in Mitteilungen Klosterneuburg 61 (2011): 236–246Prüfung ausgewählter Mostbirnensorten als Spindel unter Bio-Produktionsbedingungen. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. The trial did not measure it and no other Austrian source CiderHQ has reached does either. Sorbitol is the most-repeated fact about perry anywhere, and on the Austrian side it is unevidenced in both directions.

What is published instead. No sorbitol figure is published for any Austrian pear, and the gap is stated on the dataset.

The consolidated text as served by the Austrian legal information system itself.

Republic of Austria, made under §§ 35, 36 and 37(1) of the Weingesetz 2009; consolidated text published by the BundeskellereiinspektionObstweinverordnung, BGBl. II Nr. 18/2014, consolidated. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. RIS refused every automated request with a security challenge. The text used is the federal cellar inspectorate’s mirror, which reproduces the RIS consolidated version and is headed and footed as such.

What is published instead. The mirror is cited and identified as a mirror.

Any validation of the Klosterneuburg scale for pear must, where sorbitol contributes to dissolved solids and the 17:20 ratio Babo derived from grapes may not hold.

Höhere Bundeslehranstalt und Bundesamt für Wein- und Obstbau, Klosterneuburg, published 25 June 2020150 Jahre Klosterneuburger Mostwaage. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. Nothing found. The point appears to be unaddressed in the literature; tellingly, Klosterneuburg’s own perry pear trial reports °Oechsle rather than °KMW.

What is published instead. CiderHQ states the scale’s grape derivation wherever it appears and does not convert a pear figure into or out of °KMW.

The consolidated text from the Rechtsinformationssystem itself rather than from a mirror.

Republic of Austria, BGBl. I Nr. 111/2009 as amended; consolidated text mirrored by the BundeskellereiinspektionWeingesetz 2009 — Bundesgesetz über den Verkehr mit Wein und Obstwein. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. ris.bka.gv.at answers automated requests with a bot challenge and returns no text.

What is published instead. The federal cellar inspectorate’s mirror is used, and the indirection is stated wherever the act is cited.

The 2025 cider style guidelines in full, with the vital statistics for each style.

Beer Judge Certification ProgramBJCP Beer Style Guidelines — cider and perry categories. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Why it did not happen. The current guidelines index paginates through a client-side application that returns no style content to a plain retrieval. The existence of the 2025 edition was confirmed; its per-style figures were not.

What is published instead. CiderHQ states BJCP categories as a competition framework and does not publish per-style ABV or gravity ranges attributed to it. Where a strength range is given for a style, it is sourced elsewhere and dated.

The text itself — chapter and page for any figure attributed to it.

Claude Jolicoeur, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013. ISBN 9781603584739The New Cider Maker’s Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Craft Producers. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. The book is in print, not out of copyright, and not held in any open digital collection. Open Library records no scanned copy. There is no lawful route to a full text by retrieval.

What is published instead. Claims resting on this source are general production statements that CiderHQ can also support from an open source, and no number is attributed to it alone. Its state records what was verified: the edition, not the contents.

Per-cultivar descriptions and any acid or tannin figures the Pomona carries.

Liz Copas, The Dovecote Press, 2001. ISBN 9781874336877A Somerset Pomona: The Cider Apples of Somerset. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. In print, in copyright, and not held in any open digital collection; Open Library records no scanned copy.

What is published instead. Cultivar identity claims citing this source are corroborated by the National Fruit Collection or by a trial programme, and CiderHQ publishes no measurement attributed to it.

The variety descriptions and any juice analyses the 1963 volume records.

L. C. Luckwill and A. Pollard (eds), published for the National Fruit and Cider Institute by the University of Bristol, 1963Perry Pears. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. Out of print since the 1960s and not digitised in any open collection. Open Library records no scanned copy and no Internet Archive identifier.

What is published instead. Perry pear identity on this site rests on the National Perry Pear Centre’s living collection and its DNA work, both of which were opened and passage-verified. This source is cited for provenance of the tradition rather than for figures.

A citable, publicly obtainable version of the training material.

Peter Mitchell / Cider and Perry AcademyCider and perry production technical training material. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. Verified on 2026-08-25: this is course material distributed to participants rather than a published work. Open Library and the union catalogues hold no record of it, and there is nothing to retrieve.

What is published instead. Every claim citing it is also carried by an open technical source, and CiderHQ attributes no figure to it. It is retained in the register because it is genuinely where a good deal of modern commercial practice was taught, and pretending otherwise would misdescribe the provenance of the practice.

The text of either edition, to attribute a statement to a page.

Annie Proulx and Lew Nichols, Storey Communications, 1997; first published as Sweet & Hard Cider by Garden Way, 1980Cider: Making, Using and Enjoying Sweet and Hard Cider. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. Both Internet Archive holdings are marked access-restricted and sit in the inlibrary and printdisabled collections. Borrowing is a lawful route for a person and not one available to automated retrieval, and CiderHQ does not record a book as read because a catalogue confirms a scan exists.

What is published instead. Claims citing this source are general statements about North American practice that are also carried by an open source. The edition history is now recorded, so a future reading can say which text it read.

The text, to attribute a statement to an edition and a page.

Ben Watson, The Countryman Press, first edition 1999; third edition 2013Cider, Hard and Sweet: History, Traditions, and Making Your Own. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. The Internet Archive holding is access-restricted to the print-disabled collection and cannot be retrieved. Later editions are in print and in copyright.

What is published instead. Cited for general North American context only, alongside an open source, and never for a figure.

The measured scale of traditional orchard loss in the UK, with its survey period and method.

People’s Trust for Endangered Species / Natural EnglandTraditional Orchard Habitat Inventory and orchard loss surveys. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Why it did not happen. The campaign pages confirm the habitat’s priority status but carry no figure; the numbers are in survey reports that were not retrieved in this pass.

What is published instead. CiderHQ describes traditional orchard decline qualitatively and attaches no percentage to it.

Bulmer’s Pomona (1987) and Beech and Carr (1977), the compilations this page transcribes.

Andrew LeaCider Apple Compositional Data. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. Neither is available in digital form; both are out-of-print printed works. The page is therefore the third hand between the fruit and CiderHQ, and the last one the site can open.

What is published instead. The figures are published as a transcription with the chain named on every measurement, and are never described as primary Long Ashton data.

The printed chapter, its stated methods, and the season the analyses were made in.

AVI / Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1989, edited by Donald L. Downing (ISBN 0-442-22117-7)Processed Apple Products, chapter on Apple Cider. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. Out of print and not digitised. The transcriber notes that the method for the tannin column is not given by the book either, and that the data appear to come from a single unnamed season in the late 1970s.

What is published instead. The numeric rows are published as finished-cider measurements under their own properties so they cannot be compared with juice figures, the Brix column is withheld as irreconcilable with the stated substrate, and the Tremlett’s Bitter row is withheld as a documented misidentification.

Any measurement of what pouring from height does to cider — dissolved carbon dioxide, aroma, acidity or foam.

Consejo Regulador DOP Sidra de AsturiasEl escanciado, and the official escanciadores’ championship rules. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. None exists that CiderHQ can find. Searches of the Spanish academic index and of Google Scholar return cultural, historical and art-historical work on escanciado and no measurement of any kind. There is a real Asturian literature on cider foam as a property of the liquid — which polypeptides make a cider foam — and none on the pour. The four institutions that explain the practice give four incompatible mechanisms between them, none with a citation.

What is published instead. CiderHQ publishes the technique, the origin the council itself gives, and the mechanisms as attributed claims with the absence of evidence stated alongside them.

The magazine pages themselves, to attach pp. 830–836 to each quotation by direct reading rather than by citation.

W. D. Haley, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine vol. XLIII, November 1871, pp. 830–836Johnny Appleseed: A Pioneer Hero. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. Harper’s own archive returns HTTP 402 Payment Required for the article, and no scan of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine vol. XLIII was reachable in this environment.

What is published instead. The quotations are published with their wording corroborated across more than twenty independent reprints and no page number claimed. The page range is given as the Harper’s archive gives it.

The chapters themselves, to cite findings to a page.

William Kerrigan, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2012. ISBN 9781421407968. Pp. xiii, 231Johnny Appleseed and the American Orchard: A Cultural History. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. Project MUSE serves the book’s front matter and table of contents openly and the chapters only to subscribers; the Johns Hopkins University Press site returns HTTP 403 to every request.

What is published instead. Findings attributed to Kerrigan on this site are taken from Bremer’s review in the Indiana Magazine of History, which is open access, peer-reviewed and read in full.

The newspaper page, to read the obituary in its own column.

Fort Wayne Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 22 March 1845Obituary of John Chapman. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. Chronicling America returned HTTP 503 throughout, and archive.org was unreachable at the network level from this environment.

What is published instead. The text is published as transcribed, with the four independent compilations named and the indirection stated.

The record book, or a page image of it.

Town of Leominster, Massachusetts, entry dated 26 September 1774Town record of the birth of John Chapman, Leominster, Massachusetts. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Why it did not happen. No Massachusetts vital-records image service reachable from this environment served the entry, and the town’s own site carries nothing.

What is published instead. The transcription is published with the three concurring works named.

A gap is not an apology. It is the difference between a reference work that knows where its edges are and one that does not, and it is the reason a figure CiderHQ cannot verify is absent from the site rather than present with a hedge in front of it.

The register

15 groups, by the kind of body that published each source.

Legislation

The instrument itself. Cited for what the law says, never for what it is thought to mean.

Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 establishing a common organisation of the markets in agricultural products

European Union · European Union · authority tier 1

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

Competent for: eu product definitions; eu labelling framework.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: A working address for the consolidated text of the single common market organisation regulation. Why not: The same EUR-Lex behaviour as the food information regulation: HTTP 200 and the Official Journal daily index rather than the instrument, in every URL form CiderHQ holds. Recorded on 2026-08-25. Published instead: This source is cited for structural statements about the EU framework rather than for figures, and every such statement is carried jointly by the national instrument it operates through. Nothing on the site depends on this address resolving. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers

European Union · European Union · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

The instrument behind the "contains sulphites" declaration and the alcoholic-strength labelling rule. Read on 2026-08-24 in the assimilated text maintained on legislation.gov.uk, which is the version in force for Great Britain and keeps the EU numbering. Two provisions matter to cider and both are widely misquoted: the sulphite threshold is 10 mg/L rather than a percentage, and a labelled cider strength carries a tolerance of a full percentage point either way — twice what still grape wine is allowed.

Competent for: sulphite labelling threshold; abv labelling rule; abv labelling tolerance; allergen rules.

Verified passages:

  • The concentration above which sulphur dioxide must be declared as an allergen.Annex II (substances or products causing allergies or intolerances), item 12, verified 2026-08-24. “Sulphur dioxide and sulphites at concentrations of more than 10 mg/kg or 10 mg/litre in terms of the total SO2 which are to be calculated for products as proposed ready for consumption”
  • How alcoholic strength must be expressed on a label.Annex XII (alcoholic strength), first paragraph, verified 2026-08-24. “The actual alcoholic strength by volume of beverages containing more than 1,2 % by volume of alcohol shall be indicated by a figure to not more than one decimal place. It shall be followed by the symbol ‘% vol.’”
  • The legal tolerance on a declared cider or perry strength: a full percentage point either way.Annex XII (alcoholic strength), tolerance table, item 2, verified 2026-08-24. “sparkling beverages falling within CN code 2206 00 obtained from grapes, ciders, perries, fruit wines and the like, obtained from fruit other than grapes, whether or not semi-sparkling or sparkling; mead — 1 % vol.”
  • The temperature at which the declared strength is determined.Annex XII (alcoholic strength), verified 2026-08-24. “The alcoholic strength shall be determined at 20 °C.”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: A working address for the consolidated text of the regulation. Why not: Checked on 2026-08-25: the registered ELI address returns HTTP 200 and the Official Journal’s daily index instead of the instrument. So does the ELI address with a language segment, and so does the CELEX legal-content form. This is not a dead link — a link checker reading status codes would report it healthy — and it is the reason this project now keeps a source-health register that records what came back rather than what code it came back with. Published instead: The passages recorded on this source were verified against the document on 2026-08-24 and stand. Nothing is republished on the strength of the address. A reader following the link today reaches the Official Journal index and can search it for the instrument by number. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Décret n° 2025-162 du 20 février 2025 portant application de l’article L. 412-1 du code de la consommation en ce qui concerne les cidres et poirés

Légifrance, JORF texte n° JORFTEXT000051223792 · France · authority tier 1 · covers In force from 1 July 2025; “artisanal” and “rosé” from 1 January 2026

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

Opened on 2026-08-24, and it turned out that the entry CiderHQ had was describing a repealed instrument. The décret of 20 February 2025 replaces the 1953 décret and the 1987 one that amended it, and it changes the thing this site had been repeating: the doux, demi-sec and brut categories are no longer residual-sugar bands. They are now defined on acquired alcoholic strength together with density at 20 °C, an extra-brut tier has been added, and the four bands deliberately overlap so that a producer can place a product with a hydrometer rather than a sugar analysis. The pages that said otherwise have been corrected. What could not be done is a verbatim read: legifrance.gouv.fr returns HTTP 403 to retrieval, so the text was read through a summarising fetch and every operative figure was then checked independently against the UNICID interbranch briefing, which reproduces the table. The two agree.

Competent for: french cidre definition; french juice requirements; french sweetness categories; french labelling mentions.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: A verbatim reading of the articles and annexes, to quote rather than paraphrase. Why not: legifrance.gouv.fr refuses automated retrieval with HTTP 403. The text was reached only through an intermediary that returns a reading rather than the source, which is enough to establish what the instrument says and not enough to quote it. Published instead: The operative figures are carried on `unicid`, the interbranch organisation’s own briefing, which reproduces the sweetness table verbatim and is registered separately with the quotation. Where the two are cited together, the decree is the authority and the briefing is the text CiderHQ actually read. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Title 27 of the Code of Federal Regulations — Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms

United States Government · United States · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

Read on 2026-08-24. eCFR blocks automated retrieval, so the sections below were read in the Cornell Legal Information Institute’s mirror of the same text; the locators are the CFR’s own. The federal definition of hard cider is a *tax* definition and sits in two places — §24.10 sorts cider by dissolved carbon dioxide, and §24.331 sets eligibility for the hard cider rate. The consequence surprises people: a cider carbonated past 0.64 g/100 mL, or flavoured with anything other than apple or pear, remains cider in ordinary speech but is taxed as wine.

Competent for: us production standards; us label rules; us hard cider tax definition; us carbonation limits.

Verified passages:

  • The conditions a wine must meet to be taxed at the US hard cider rate.27 CFR §24.331, Eligibility for the hard cider tax rate, verified 2026-08-24. “It contains no more than 0.64 gram of carbon dioxide per 100 milliliters … derived primarily from apples or pears, or from apple juice concentrate or pear juice concentrate and water … It contains no fruit product or fruit flavoring other than apple or pear … It contains at least one-half of 1 percent and less than 8.5 percent alcohol by volume”
  • The carbonation boundary between still and sparkling hard cider in US federal law.27 CFR §24.10, Meaning of terms, verified 2026-08-24. “Still hard cider. A hard cider containing not more than 0.392 gram of carbon dioxide per 100 milliliters.”
  • US law distinguishes cider carbonated by secondary fermentation from cider injected with gas, at the same carbonation level.27 CFR §24.10, Meaning of terms, verified 2026-08-24. “Sparkling hard cider. Hard cider containing more than 0.392 but not more than 0.64 gram of carbon dioxide per 100 milliliters of wine, resulting solely from the secondary fermentation.”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The current text of Title 27 from the electronic Code of Federal Regulations. Why not: ecfr.gov returned HTTP 503 on 2026-08-25. That reads as a service problem rather than a removal, but a 503 is not a reading and this register does not record one as though it were. Published instead: The passages already recorded against this source were verified on 2026-08-24 and stand. No new figure is taken from it until the address answers again. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Regulation (EC) No 1881/2006 setting maximum levels for certain contaminants in foodstuffs — Annex, section 2.3 (patulin)

European Union; assimilated into UK law and maintained by The National Archives · United Kingdom, European Union · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

Registered because it answers, in law and in a number, the question of what rotten fruit actually costs. Patulin is a mycotoxin produced by moulds — principally *Penicillium expansum* — growing on bruised and damaged apples, and it survives pressing and fermentation. Cider is not lumped in with fruit juice here: it has its own line in the table, at the same limit. That is the sharpest available answer to "does it matter if some of the fruit is rotten", and it is why windfall selection is a food-safety control rather than only a quality preference.

Competent for: patulin limits; patulin in cider; fruit rot food safety; juice contaminant limits.

Verified passages:

  • Cider carries a patulin limit in its own right, not by analogy with fruit juice.Annex, section 2.3 Patulin, entry 2.3.2, verified 2026-08-24. “Spirit drinks, cider and other fermented drinks derived from apples or containing apple juice — 50”
  • The limit for unfermented juice, which is the same figure.Annex, section 2.3 Patulin, entry 2.3.1, verified 2026-08-24. “Fruit juices, concentrated fruit juices as reconstituted and fruit nectars — 50”
  • The much lower limit where apple products are sold for infants and young children.Annex, section 2.3 Patulin, entry 2.3.4, verified 2026-08-24. “Apple juice and solid apple products, including apple compote and apple puree, for infants and young children and labelled and sold as such — 10,0”

Council Regulation (EEC) No 2517/69 of 9 December 1969 laying down certain measures for reorganising Community fruit production

Council of the European Communities, OJ L 318, 18.12.1969, p. 15 · European Union · authority tier 1 · covers 1969–1973

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

The Community grubbing premium in its first form, and the instrument usually meant when someone says "Europe paid farmers to remove orchards". Retrieved and read in full on 2026-08-25. Its stated purpose is market rebalancing for apples, pears and peaches, not land clearance, and it is paired with a ban on state aid for new planting. Note the dates, which matter for Britain: as amended, applications closed on 1 February 1973 and grubbing had to be complete by 1 April 1973. The United Kingdom acceded on 1 January 1973.

Competent for: eec grubbing premium; orchard policy history.

Verified passages:

  • The scheme was aimed at a supply-demand imbalance in dessert fruit, not at clearing land for other uses — which is how it is often described.Recitals, verified 2026-08-25. “Whereas there is a certain disproportion, both quantitative and qualitative, of supply in relation to demand on the Community market for apples, pears and peaches; whereas this situation is due, in particular, to the survival of old orchards, alongside those recently established, and, in some cases, to varieties which are unsuited to demand within the Community”
  • The closing dates, as extended by Regulation (EEC) No 2456/72 — the reason the scheme can have reached almost no British orchard.Article 2, as amended by Regulation (EEC) No 2456/72, Article 1, verified 2026-08-25. “In Article 2 (1) of Regulation (EEC) No 2517/69, the date 1 March 1971 shall be replaced by 1 February 1973. In Article 2 (2) (a) the date 1 March 1973 shall be replaced by 1 April 1973.”

Commission Regulation (EEC) No 2637/69 of 24 December 1969 fixing the amount of and the conditions for granting a premium for the grubbing of apple, pear and peach trees

Commission of the European Communities, OJ L 327, 30.12.1969, pp. 31–32 · European Union · authority tier 1 · covers 1969–1973

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

The implementing regulation, and the one that carries the finding. Article 1 defines which trees count as apple and pear trees for the premium, and it excludes trees yielding cider apples and perry pears by name. The Community grubbing premium therefore could not be claimed for a cider orchard. Retrieved and read in the German text on 2026-08-25; the exclusion is unambiguous there and the English special edition carries the same article.

Competent for: eec grubbing premium; orchard policy history.

Verified passages:

  • Cider apples and perry pears were written out of the Community grubbing premium at the level of the definition. Whatever removed the West Country and Three Counties orchards, it was not this.Article 1, verified 2026-08-25. “IM SINNE DER VERORDNUNG (EWG) NR. 2517/69 GELTEN ALS APFELBÄUME, BIRNBÄUME UND PFIRSICHBÄUME VOR 1965 GEPFLANZTE, GESUNDE BÄUME, DIE NORMALES TAFELOBST LIEFERN; AUSGENOMMEN SIND: – BEI APFELBÄUMEN: BÄUME, DIE MOSTÄPFEL LIEFERN, – BEI BIRNBÄUMEN: BÄUME, DIE MOSTBIRNEN LIEFERN”
  • Standard trees were squarely in scope where the fruit was dessert fruit, with their own thresholds and their own notional area — so the exclusion of Most fruit is a deliberate carve-out, not an accident of orchard form.Article 2, verified 2026-08-25. “BEI STREUPFLANZUNGEN INNERHALB EIN UND DESSELBEN BETRIEBES ODER BEI MISCHKULTUREN WIRD DIE PRÄMIE NUR BEI RODEN VON MINDESTENS 50 NIEDRIGSTÄMMEN ODER 25 HOCH- ODER MITTELSTÄMMEN GEWÄHRT … 100 M2 JE HOCHSTAMM … DIE RODUNGSPRÄMIE BETRÄGT 500 RECHNUNGSEINHEITEN JE HEKTAR.”

Council Regulation (EEC) No 794/76 of 6 April 1976 laying down further measures for reorganizing Community fruit production

Council of the European Communities, OJ L 93, 8.4.1976, pp. 3–5 · European Union · authority tier 1 · covers 1976–1977

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

The second and much narrower grubbing scheme, the one that was open while the United Kingdom was a member. It is confined to four named dessert cultivars and their pollinators, so it too could not reach a cider orchard. Applications closed 1 November 1976 and grubbing had to be done by 1 April 1977. Retrieved and read in full on 2026-08-25.

Competent for: eec grubbing premium; orchard policy history.

Verified passages:

  • The whole scope of the 1976 scheme: four dessert cultivars in surplus, and whatever was planted to pollinate them. No cider apple or perry pear could qualify under it either.Article 1, verified 2026-08-25. “Community fruit growers shall qualify for a premium for grubbing: – apple trees of the "Golden Delicious", "Starking Delicious" and "Imperatore" varieties and pear trees of the "Passe Crassane" variety; – trees of varieties other than those mentioned above if those varieties are necessary for the fertilization of the … varieties.”

Verordnung über alkoholhaltige Getränke (Alkoholhaltige Getränke-Verordnung, AGeV)

Federal Republic of Germany, of 29 January 1998, in the version of 30 June 2003 (BGBl. I S. 1255), last amended 11 October 2021 (BGBl. I S. 4683) · Germany · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

The binding German instrument for apple wine, and the striking thing about it is how little it says. It defines three umbrella categories by carbonation and by starting material, forbids the use of grape products, and governs how the word *Wein* may be compounded. It sets no minimum alcohol, no acidity, no extract and no permitted-additions list for Apfelwein. Every number a German apple wine is expected to meet sits in the Leitsätze instead, which are not law. German wine law does not reach apple wine at all: the Weingesetz applies to wine and other products of viticulture. Read as PDF on 2026-08-25.

Competent for: german apple wine law; german labelling.

Verified passages:

  • The whole statutory definition apple wine falls under in Germany — a category, with no composition attached.§ 10 Abs. 1, verified 2026-08-25. “Weinähnliche Getränke sind alkoholhaltige Getränke, die durch teilweise oder vollständige alkoholische Gärung aus Fruchtsaft, Fruchtmark, jeweils auch in konzentrierter Form, oder Maische von frischen oder mit Kälte haltbar gemachten Früchten … sowie im Übrigen nach Maßgabe der Verkehrsauffassung hergestellt werden.”
  • The two carbonation thresholds that *are* statutory in Germany, and which the food-code categories for Perlwein and Schaumwein hang from.§ 10 Abs. 2 und 3, verified 2026-08-25. “sofern sie in geschlossenen Behältnissen bei +20 Grad Celsius einen auf gelöstes Kohlendioxid zurückzuführenden Überdruck von mindestens 1 bar und höchstens 2,5 bar aufweisen … von mindestens 3 bar aufweisen.”

Obstweinverordnung, BGBl. II Nr. 18/2014, consolidated

Republic of Austria, made under §§ 35, 36 and 37(1) of the Weingesetz 2009; consolidated text published by the Bundeskellereiinspektion · AT · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

The instrument that decides what Most legally is in Austria, and the answer is: a fermented drink. That single fact is the one most often got wrong in English writing, because Most means the unfermented juice in Switzerland and is ambiguous in Germany. The ordinance also names two pear cultivars individually — Speckbirne and Schweizer Wasserbirne — in a derogation lowering their minimum acidity, which is a legislature encoding pomology. Retrieved from the federal cellar inspectorate’s mirror because the Austrian legal information system refused every automated request.

Competent for: austrian fruit wine law; most definition; obstwein labelling; austrian sweetness scale.

Verified passages:

  • That Most in Austria is a legally defined name for a fermented fruit wine, not for juice — the opposite of Swiss usage.§ 3(1), verified 2026-08-25. “In Hinblick auf die Einteilung nach Obstartgruppen ist Kernobstwein als „Obstwein“, „Obstmost“ oder „Most“ … zu bezeichnen. Anstelle der Bezeichnung der Obstartgruppe kann eine Zusammensetzung des Wortes „Wein“, bei Kernobst auch „Most“, mit der Bezeichnung der zur Erzeugung verwendeten Obstart treten.”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The consolidated text as served by the Austrian legal information system itself. Why not: RIS refused every automated request with a security challenge. The text used is the federal cellar inspectorate’s mirror, which reproduces the RIS consolidated version and is headed and footed as such. Published instead: The mirror is cited and identified as a mirror. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Weingesetz 2009 — Bundesgesetz über den Verkehr mit Wein und Obstwein

Republic of Austria, BGBl. I Nr. 111/2009 as amended; consolidated text mirrored by the Bundeskellereiinspektion · AT · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

The enabling act above the Obstweinverordnung, and the reason Austrian fruit wine sits in wine law at all: the long title is an act on the trade in wine *and fruit wine*. It also carries the statutory definition of the Klosterneuburg must scale. Read as PDF on 2026-08-25 from the federal cellar inspectorate’s mirror of the consolidated text, because the Austrian legal information system answers automated requests with a security challenge; the mirror is headed “Bundesrecht konsolidiert” and footed www.ris.bka.gv.at.

Competent for: austrian fruit wine law; kmw definition.

Verified passages:

  • The scale is defined in primary legislation, not in a standard or a trade convention.§ 2 Abs. 1 Z 7, verified 2026-08-25. “„Grad Klosterneuburger Mostwaage“: 1 Grad Klosterneuburger Mostwaage (1° KMW) ist 1:17 des Massengehaltes einer wässrigen Saccharoselösung von 20%.”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The consolidated text from the Rechtsinformationssystem itself rather than from a mirror. Why not: ris.bka.gv.at answers automated requests with a bot challenge and returns no text. Published instead: The federal cellar inspectorate’s mirror is used, and the indirection is stated wherever the act is cited. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Regulators

The body that administers and enforces a regime, and publishes the guidance producers actually work from.

Alcoholic products duty rates and the Alcohol Duty regime

HM Revenue & Customs · United Kingdom · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

The UK alcohol duty system was reformed in August 2023 onto a strength-based footing, with draught relief and small producer relief alongside it. The rate table was read on 2026-08-24 and carries an effective date of 1 February 2026. CiderHQ records the band *structure* — which is stable and explains why producers make the strengths they do — and states rates only with that effective date attached, because a rate with no date on it becomes permanent and wrong.

Competent for: uk duty structure; uk alcohol strength bands; small producer relief; draught relief; uk sparkling cider duty cliff.

Verified passages:

  • The strength band that covers almost all commercial UK cider, and its rate per litre of pure alcohol.Alcohol Duty rates, table for “cider (but not sparkling cider)”, rates effective 1 February 2026, verified 2026-08-24. “3.5% to 8.4% — £10.39 per litre of pure alcohol”
  • Sparkling cider is charged on a different band structure from still cider, and the boundary falls at 5.5% rather than 8.4%.Alcohol Duty rates, table for “sparkling cider”, rates effective 1 February 2026, verified 2026-08-24. “5.6% to 8.4% — £26.61 per litre of pure alcohol”
  • Above 8.5% the product leaves the cider bands entirely.Alcohol Duty rates, cider tables, rates effective 1 February 2026, verified 2026-08-24. “8.5% to 22% — £30.62 per litre of pure alcohol”

Alcoholic Products Technical Guide, section 2 — alcoholic products (formerly Excise Notice 162)

HM Revenue & Customs · United Kingdom · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

What may be called cider or perry for UK duty purposes. The substantive text now lives in section 2 of the Alcoholic Products Technical Guide rather than in the notice itself, and the passages below were read there. The widely repeated "35% juice" figure checks out — but note two things the figure alone hides: it is a tax threshold rather than a quality standard, and concentrate and dilution both count towards it.

Competent for: uk cider legal definition; uk minimum juice content; uk perry definition; cider vs made wine.

Verified passages:

  • The minimum apparent juice content for a product to be cider or perry for UK duty.Alcoholic Products Technical Guide, section 2 — Alcoholic products, verified 2026-08-24. “A minimum of 35% apple or pear juice must be included overall in making the final product”
  • The strength at which a product ceases to be cider for duty purposes.Alcoholic Products Technical Guide, section 2 — Alcoholic products, verified 2026-08-24. “of an alcoholic strength of less than 8.5% … considered to be another fermented product (formerly made-wine) or spirit”
  • Concentrate and dilution both count towards the juice requirement.Alcoholic Products Technical Guide, section 2 — Alcoholic products, verified 2026-08-24. “juice that has been diluted with water, or juice that has been concentrated or come from the dilution of concentrated juice”

Food labelling and packaging guidance

Food Standards Agency / Department for Business and Trade · United Kingdom · authority tier 1

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

Competent for: uk labelling requirements; allergen declaration; sulphite declaration.

Institut national de l’origine et de la qualité (INAO)

INAO · France · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

The Cidre Pays d’Auge cahier des charges was read in full on 2026-08-24, in the version homologated by arrêté of 17 January 2026 and published in the Journal officiel on 21 January. That qualification is not decoration. A revision adopted by the Comité national on 10 September 2025 is currently under the procédure nationale d’opposition, is clearly marked as not prejudging the final text, and specifies carbonation differently from the text in force — as grams of CO2 per litre rather than as a minimum pressure in bar. A summary citing the draft would have put a figure on the page that no producer is held to. CiderHQ records the operative text and says which one it is.

Competent for: french aoc specifications; cidre aoc rules; poire domfront rules; calvados rules; french permitted varieties; french blend proportions; french orchard yield caps; french igp specifications; french cider apple thresholds; french appellation carbonation; pommeau rules; perche cider rules; cornouaille rules; cotentin rules.

Verified passages:

  • The composition a Pays d’Auge cider must reach after conditioning, including the gap between acquired and total alcohol that requires unfermented sugar to be present.Cahier des charges AOP « Pays d’Auge » ou « Pays d’Auge – Cambremer », homologated 17 January 2026, §2 Description du produit, verified 2026-08-24. “un titre alcoométrique volumique acquis supérieur ou égal à 3,5 % ; un titre alcoométrique volumique total supérieur ou égal à 6 % ; une teneur saccharimétrique supérieure ou égale à 20 grammes par litre ; une pression minimale de 1,5 bar à 20°C”
  • The appellation fixes the shape of the blend, not only the fruit that may go into it.Cahier des charges, §5.2.2 b) Mise en bouteille et prise de mousse, verified 2026-08-24. “la proportion de pommes de variétés phénoliques est supérieure ou égale à 70 % ; la proportion de pommes de variétés acidulées est inférieure ou égale à 25% ; le nombre de variétés différentes est supérieur ou égal à 3 variétés ; la proportion des variétés non listées visées au point 5.1.1. est inférieure ou égale à 10%.”
  • What the appellation forbids outright — the clauses that separate it from the English county protected names.Cahier des charges, §5.2.1 Fermentation, verified 2026-08-24. “La pasteurisation, l’adjonction d’eau et de colorants ainsi que toute opération ayant pour but de modifier la richesse naturelle en sucre des moûts et des cidres sont interdites à tous les stades de l’élaboration.”
  • Pectic settling of the must is compulsory. The specification does not use the word défécation and does not require a brown cap, so CiderHQ does not say keeving is mandated.Cahier des charges, §5.2.1 Fermentation, verified 2026-08-24. “La clarification des moûts par débourbage pectique est obligatoire.”
  • Maceration before pressing is compulsory, and one pressing method is banned outright.Cahier des charges, §5.1.5 Extraction du jus, pressurage, opérations sur le moût, verified 2026-08-24. “La pulpe ainsi obtenue subit une phase de cuvage puis un pressurage. Le pressurage par malaxage de la pulpe dans une vis sans fin est interdit. Les moûts obtenus présentent une densité minimale naturelle de 1050 à 20°C.”
  • The sparkle may only be a fermentation finishing in the bottle.Cahier des charges, §5.2.2 b), verified 2026-08-24. “La prise de mousse est obtenue exclusivement par fermentation en bouteille d’une partie des sucres résiduels, éventuellement après ajout de levures sèches actives. La gazéification est interdite. La durée de prise de mousse en bouteille est au minimum de six semaines.”
  • Orchard yield is capped, and high-stem orchards are protected by a minimum share.Cahier des charges, §5.1.4 Productivité des vergers, and §5.1.5, verified 2026-08-24. “pour les vergers haute tige : 20 tonnes de pommes ou 150 hectolitres de moût par hectare ; pour les vergers basse tige : 30 tonnes de pommes ou 225 hectolitres de moût par hectare … Les fruits mis en œuvre par site de production proviennent pour au moins 30 % en surface de verger « haute tige ».”
  • The permitted varieties are enumerated rather than exemplified — the structural difference from the English protected names.Cahier des charges, §5.1.1, annexe des variétés, verified 2026-08-24. “Variétés phénoliques (amères et douces-amères) Améret, Argile grise, Argile rouge, Bedan … Variétés acidulées Rambault, René Martin, Petit Jaune. Variétés douces Coquerelle, Doux Normandie, Doux Véret de Carrouges, Orpolin, Peau de vache, Rouge Duret, Rouge Folie, Rousse de l’Orne.”
  • Cornouaille goes further than Pays d’Auge: keeving itself is compulsory, and it is the only clarification the appellation allows.Cahier des charges AOP « Cornouaille » associé à l’avis BO AGRI 2021-10, §5-2-1 Fermentation. This version annuls and replaces BO 2019-14 following Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/244 of 11 February 2021., verified 2026-08-24. “La clarification des moûts est obligatoire et ne peut être obtenue que par défécation, effectuée de façon naturelle ou facilitée par l’emploi de sels déféquants et enzymes spécifiques autorisés par la réglementation en vigueur.”
  • The Cornouaille blend rules, including a cap on any single variety that the other French cider appellations do not impose.Cahier des charges AOP « Cornouaille », §5-2-2 Mise en bouteille et prise de mousse, verified 2026-08-24. “la proportion de pommes de variétés phénoliques est supérieure ou égale à 70 % ; la proportion de pommes de variétés acidulées est inférieure ou égale à 15 % ; la proportion de pommes de variétés locales est inférieure à 20% ; la proportion de pommes issues d’une même variété de pommes à cidre est inférieure ou égale à 60 %.”
  • What a Cornouaille must reach in the bottle.Cahier des charges AOP « Cornouaille », §2 Description du produit, verified 2026-08-24. “titre alcoométrique volumique acquis supérieur à 3, 5 % ; titre alcoométrique volumique total supérieur à 6 % ; teneur saccharimétrique supérieure ou égale à 20 grammes par litre ; pression du cidre dans la bouteille : minimum de 1,5 bar à 20°C ou 3 grammes de CO2.”
  • Cornouaille specifies its minimum must richness in grams of sugar rather than as a density, unlike the Norman appellations.Cahier des charges AOP « Cornouaille », §5-1-5, verified 2026-08-24. “Les moûts obtenus présentent une richesse saccharimétrique minimale naturelle de 108 grammes par litre.”
  • Cidre Cotentin requires the first fermentation to run on the resident flora. Adding yeast is permitted only for the bottle conditioning.Cahier des charges de l’appellation d’origine « Cidre Cotentin » / « Cotentin », homologué par arrêté du 14 octobre 2016, §5.2.1 Première fermentation and §5.2.2, verified 2026-08-24. “La fermentation alcoolique précédant la mise en bouteille se fait sans ajout de levures sèches actives exogènes. … La prise de mousse des cidres est obtenue exclusivement par fermentation en bouteille d’une partie des sucres résiduels, éventuellement après ajout de levures sèches actives exogènes. Cette dernière fermentation nécessite une durée minimale de 8 semaines.”
  • Cotentin is the only French cider appellation that defines a second, drier product under an additional mention.Cahier des charges « Cidre Cotentin » / « Cotentin », §2 Description du produit, verified 2026-08-24. “un titre alcoométrique volumique acquis supérieur à 3.5% vol, un titre alcoométrique volumique total supérieur à 5.5% vol, une teneur en sucres supérieure à 18 grammes par litre et inférieure ou égale à 35 grammes par litre, une densité supérieure à 1009 et inférieure ou égale à 1017,5 à 20°C, une pression minimale de 1 bar à 20°C ou 2g/l de CO2. … complétés par la mention «extra-brut» … un titre alcoométrique volumique acquis supérieur à 5% vol … une teneur en sucres inférieure ou égale à 18 grammes par litre.”
  • The narrow Cotentin variety list, and the two-tier structure of principal and accessory fruit that enforces it.Cahier des charges « Cidre Cotentin » / « Cotentin », §5.1.1 Composition variétale du verger, verified 2026-08-24. “Variétés principales, elles constituent au minimum 60% de la surface du verger. Amère et douce-amère : Belle fille de la Manche, Binet Rouge, Bois Jingant, Cartigny, Closette, Feuillard, Gros amer, Marin Onfroy, Peau de Chien, Petit amer, Rouge de Cantepie, Sans Pareille, Tapin, Tête de Brebis, Taureau.”
  • The Cidre du Perche appellation exists, was recognised in 2020, and sets its own analytical floor.Cahier des charges de l’appellation d’origine contrôlée « Cidre du Perche » ou « Perche », homologué par l’arrêté du 28/10/2020, JORF du 7 novembre 2020, BO AGRI 2020-47, §2 Description du produit, verified 2026-08-24. “Le « Cidre du Perche » ou « Perche » est un cidre effervescent demi-sec ou brut, obtenu par prise de mousse en bouteille, non pasteurisé et non gazéifié. … titre alcoométrique volumique acquis supérieur ou égal à 3,5%vol. ; titre alcoométrique volumique total supérieur ou égal à 6 %vol. ; teneur en sucres supérieure ou égale de 18 g/litre ; pression minimale de 1,5 bar à 20°C.”
  • Two clauses unique to the Perche: a milling season that opens on a date INAO sets each year on observed ripeness, and a mandated closure type.Cahier des charges « Cidre du Perche », §5-1-4 and §5-2-3, verified 2026-08-24. “Le brassage commence au plus tôt le 15 octobre. La date d’ouverture de la période de brassage est fixée chaque année par les services de l’INAO après avis du groupement en tenant compte de la maturité observée. … Les bouteilles de « Cidre du Perche » ou « Perche » d’un volume nominal supérieur ou égal à 37,5 cl sont bouchées au moyen d’un bouchon de type « champignon ».”
  • The Perche requires eight weeks between pressing and bottling where the other Norman appellations require six, and the specification says why.Cahier des charges « Cidre du Perche », §5-2-2 Fermentation and §6 Lien avec l’aire géographique, verified 2026-08-24. “La fermentation alcoolique précédant la mise en bouteille s’effectue sans ajout de levures exogènes. … La mise en bouteille a lieu au minimum 8 semaines après le pressurage. … fermentation en cuve, sans ajout de levures, s’étale sur une durée minimale de 8 semaines en comparaison de 6 semaines dans les autres secteurs de Normandie.”
  • The two distinct Plant de Blanc minima in the Domfront specification — one on the orchard, one on the blend — which are routinely reported as though they were one number.Cahier des charges de l’appellation d’origine « DOMFRONT », homologué par arrêté du 7 octobre 2025, JORF du 11 octobre 2025, BO 42-2025, §5.1.1 and §5.2.2, verified 2026-08-24. “Les poiriers de la variété plant de blanc représentent au moins 20% des arbres du verger. … la proportion de la variété plant de blanc est supérieure ou égale à 40% ; la proportion de chaque variété complémentaire est inférieure ou égale à 25% ; la proportion des variétés non listées visées au point 5.1.1. est inférieure ou égale à 10%.”
  • What the Domfront specification requires of the orchard and the picking, including a per-tree yield cap and an outright ban on mechanical shaking.Cahier des charges « DOMFRONT », §5.1.2, §5.1.3 and §5.1.4, verified 2026-08-24. “Les poiriers sont conduits en haute tige, c’est-à-dire que les vergers présentent une densité de plantation inférieure ou égale à 150 arbres par hectare et un écartement minimal entre les arbres de 6 mètres … celles-ci sont récoltées en plusieurs ramassages successifs, variété par variété. Le secouage mécanique des poiriers est interdit. … à 625 kilogrammes de poires ou 4,4 hectolitres de moût par poirier ; à 300 kilogrammes de poires ou 2,1 hectolitres de moût par poirier de la variété plant de blanc.”
  • What a Domfront perry must reach, and the lower alcohol floor that distinguishes it from the ciders.Cahier des charges « DOMFRONT », §2 Description du produit, verified 2026-08-24. “titre alcoométrique volumique acquis supérieur ou égal à 3 % ; titre alcoométrique volumique total supérieur ou égal à 5,5 % ; pression supérieure ou égale à 1,4 bars à 20°C.”
  • The French protected indications define a cider apple by a measured tannin floor, which is the only numeric definition of the term CiderHQ has found in any jurisdiction.Cahier des charges de l’IGP « Cidre de Bretagne » / « Cidre breton » associé à l’avis BO n° 2018-51, §5.1; and the parallel clause in « Cidre de Normandie » / « Cidre normand », BO AGRI 2019-42, verified 2026-08-24. “On entend par « pommes à cidre » les pommes mises en œuvre pour l’élaboration du cidre qui produisent un jus ayant une teneur en tanins (polyphénols) au moins égale à 0,6 g/l d’acides tanniques totaux, natifs ou oxydés.”
  • The numeric thresholds behind the five French cider apple families, which most sources describe without ever giving the figures.Cahier des charges IGP « Cidre de Bretagne » / « Cidre breton », §5.1, variety classification table, verified 2026-08-24. “douces : tanins < 2 g/l, acidité (exprimée en H2SO4) < 3 g/l ; douces-amères : 2 à 3 g/l, < 3 g/l ; amères : > 3 g/l, < 3 g/l ; acidulées : < 2 g/l, 3 à 4,5 g/l ; aigres : < 2 g/l, > 4,5 g/l.”
  • The French protected indications permit concentrate, added water, injected gas and caramel — everything the appellations forbid.Cahier des charges IGP « Cidre de Bretagne », §5.2 Etapes d’élaboration, verified 2026-08-24. “Le volume des moûts concentrés employés pour l’élaboration, y compris l’édulcoration des cidres, exprimé en moûts reconstitués, ne doit pas excéder 40 % du volume total des moûts mis en œuvre. … La gazéification est également autorisée. … Le caramel est le seul colorant autorisé.”
  • Cidre de Normandie may lawfully contain perry pear juice, and the specification says the tradition used it as an acidifier.Cahier des charges IGP « Cidre de Normandie » / « Cidre normand », BO AGRI 2019-42, §2 Description du produit, verified 2026-08-24. “Le « Cidre de Normandie » ou « Cidre normand » est un cidre effervescent qui provient de la fermentation de moûts élaborés à partir de fruits à cidre (pommes à cidre ou poires à poiré) frais … Traditionnellement, la poire à poiré était introduite pour acidifier les jus.”
  • What a Pommeau de Normandie actually is: a must whose fermentation is stopped by Calvados the same producer distilled, aged in oak.Cahier des charges de l’appellation d’origine contrôlée « Pommeau de Normandie », homologué par l’arrêté du 9 décembre 2025, JORF du 18 décembre 2025, BO 52-2025, §4.2, verified 2026-08-24. “Au moment du mutage, les moûts présentent une richesse saccharimétrique minimale naturelle de 108 grammes par litre. … Le « Calvados », « Calvados Pays d’Auge » ou « Calvados Domfrontais » en appellation d’origine contrôlée, utilisé pour le mutage, a été conservé dès la fin de la distillation sous bois de chêne au moins douze mois. Il présente un titre alcoométrique volumique minimum de 65 % lors du mutage et est élaboré par le même opérateur qui produit le moût. … La période de vieillissement dure au minimum quatorze mois après le mutage.”
  • The Pommeau du Maine specification distinguishes itself from Pommeau de Normandie by must richness and residual sugar, in its own words.Cahier des charges de l’appellation d’origine contrôlée « Pommeau du Maine », homologué par l’arrêté du 9 décembre 2025, BO 52-2025, §2.2, verified 2026-08-24. “Les moûts présentent lors du mutage une richesse saccharimétrique supérieure à 123 grammes par litre en comparaison de 108 grammes par litre pour le « Pommeau de Normandie ». Sur le produit fini, la teneur en sucres non fermentés est supérieure à 90 grammes par litre en comparaison de 68 grammes pour le « Pommeau de Normandie ».”
  • Pommeau du Maine requires half again as long in oak as the other two pommeau appellations.Cahier des charges « Pommeau du Maine », §4.2 c) Élevage, verified 2026-08-24. “une période de vieillissement d’au minimum 21 mois après l’opération de mutage”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The cahiers des charges for Cornouaille, Cidre de Bretagne, Cidre du Cotentin, Cidre de Normandie and Poiré Domfront, at the same level of detail. Why not: Only the Pays d’Auge specification was retrieved and read in this pass. The others are published on the same registers and are reachable; the work has not been done. Published instead: Those designations keep the structural descriptions they had. Where CiderHQ states a number for them it is attributed and dated as before, and no figure has been carried across from Pays d’Auge by analogy. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Hard cider tax class and labelling requirements

Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) · United States · authority tier 1

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

Opened on 2026-08-24. The address CiderHQ had registered — ttb.gov/wine/hard-cider — now returns 404; the bureau publishes its cider material at ttb.gov/cider/cider-resources, and the record has been corrected. The substantive hard cider definition is in 27 CFR §§24.10 and 24.331, which CiderHQ cites directly and has verified to the passage; this page is the regulator’s own gateway and its industry circular pointer, not the operative text.

Competent for: us hard cider tax definition; us carbonation limits; us labelling rules.

European Food Safety Authority scientific opinions

EFSA · European Union · authority tier 1

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

Registered for the food-safety questions cider genuinely raises: patulin in juice from rotten fruit, sulphite sensitivity, and the toxicology behind additive limits.

Competent for: patulin risk; sulphite sensitivity; additive toxicology.

DPMAregister — the German register of geographical indications

Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt · Germany · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

The German patent and trade mark office holds the national file for every German geographical indication, including the full product specification — which the EU register does not always publish. File 305 99 009.8 is Hessischer Apfelwein, registered version in Markenblatt Heft 51 of 19 December 2014. Reading it turned four CiderHQ requirement records from “the specification states limits” into the limits themselves.

Competent for: german protected designations; apfelwein specification; german cider law.

Verified passages:

  • The compositional requirements of Hessischer Apfelwein, which are what separate it from the sweetened apple drinks sold beside it.File 305 99 009.8, Produktspezifikation, section b) Beschreibung, verified 2026-08-25. “Hessischer Apfelwein ist ein vergorenes Erzeugnis aus Apfelsaft mit einem Fruchtgehalt von 100 %, dessen Vergärung, Klärung und Abfüllung ausschließlich in Hessen erfolgt. … Der Alkoholgehalt beträgt mindestens 5 Volumen-% und es ist ein zuckerfreier Extrakt von mindestens 18 g/l vorhanden.”
  • The prohibition that does most of the work in the specification.File 305 99 009.8, Produktspezifikation, section b), verified 2026-08-25. “Der Zusatz von Wasser oder Zucker bei der Herstellung von Hessischem Apfelwein ist nicht erlaubt.”
  • What the specification does permit — which is more than a reader coming from the French appellations would expect.File 305 99 009.8, Produktspezifikation, section e), verified 2026-08-25. “Der Zusatz von Schwefliger Säure als Antioxidanz ist auf 200 mg/l begrenzt. Zur Säurekorrektur ist ausschließlich Milchsäure bis max. 2 g/l erlaubt. Zur Farbkorrektur ist die Beigabe von Zuckercouleur zulässig.”
  • The Speierling practice, stated by the specification rather than by the folklore around it.File 305 99 009.8, Produktspezifikation, section e), verified 2026-08-25. “Der Saft aus der Speyerling-Frucht wird einzeln zugesetzt und nimmt dem Apfelwein die Trübung.”

eAmbrosia geographical indications register, queried through its data interface

European Commission, Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development · European Union · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

Registered separately from the eAmbrosia landing page because the two are not the same evidence. The public register is a client-side application that returns an empty shell to any automated request, which is why CiderHQ’s existing eu-ambrosia record has always been a pointer rather than a reading. The interface behind it returns the complete register — 4,011 entries on 25 August 2026 — with each name’s type, status, EU protection date and file number, and it is what every registration date on this site was checked against. Two findings came out of that sweep: Euskal Sagardoa is recorded as applied rather than registered, nine years after filing; and Sidra da Madeira exists and was missing from this site.

Competent for: protected designations; gi registration dates; gi status.

Verified passages:

  • That the Basque cider designation is not a registered EU protected name, which almost every secondary source states that it is.Register entry PDO-ES-FR-02309, verified 2026-08-25. “"protectedNames":["Euskal Sagardoa","Sidra del País Vasco","Cidre du Pays Basque"],"giType":"PDO","status":"applied","euProtectionDate":"2017-05-11","countries":["ES","FR"]”
  • The existence of a Portuguese cider PGI, which the cider literature omits.Register entry PGI-PT-02641, verified 2026-08-25. “"protectedNames":["Sidra da Madeira"],"giType":"PGI","status":"registered","euProtectionDate":"2020-10-14","countries":["PT"]”
  • That three of the French appellations are registered under names that omit the words Cidre and Poiré — which is why a register search for “Cidre Pays d’Auge” finds nothing.Register entries PDO-FR-0042, PDO-FR-0043, PDO-FR-0276, verified 2026-08-25. “"protectedNames":["Pays d'Auge","Pays d'Auge-Cambremer"] … "protectedNames":["Cornouaille"] … "protectedNames":["Domfront"]”

Government bodies

A department or agency publishing an official position or register.

UK protected geographical food and drink names register

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs · United Kingdom · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

The register itself is an index; the substance is in the product specification attached to each entry as a PDF. Eight cider and perry specifications were downloaded and read on 2026-08-24 — the six Three Counties names and the two Welsh ones. Reading them settled a question CiderHQ had previously described in the abstract and got wrong: the Three Counties specifications state a composition table, not a minimum juice content. The Traditional Welsh Perry specification was re-read on 2026-08-25 for the comparison with Austrian fruit-wine law, and its prohibition list transcribed in full: the two instruments turn out to regulate opposite things, one composition and one technique.

Competent for: uk pdo pgi status; uk designation specifications; three counties composition limits; welsh pgi production rules; uk designation registration dates.

Verified passages:

  • Traditional Welsh Perry is defined by a list of things a maker may not do, not by a compositional table. This is the clearest example on the site of a designation that regulates technique instead of numbers, and it is the counterpart to the Austrian ordinance, which does the reverse.“Traditional Welsh Perry” product specification, §4.5 Method of production, verified 2026-08-25. “The following processes are not permitted in the production of Traditional Welsh Perry, either before, during or after fermentation: the addition of water to dilute or hydrate · the addition of pear or any other fruit concentrate · the addition of fermentable sugars (chaptalization) … · the addition of non-fermentable sweeteners (artificial or natural) · the addition of colour · the removal of colour · pasteurisation · filtration using membrane · artificial carbonation · fining agents (such as isinglass or bentonite)”
  • The whole permitted list, which is three items long. Two of the three exist only to make keeving possible.“Traditional Welsh Perry” product specification, §4.2 Description, verified 2026-08-25. “The only additives permitted in making Traditional Welsh Perry to either fermented or unfermented juice are: Cultured yeasts such as S. bayanus, S. cerevisiae … Sulphite … it must not be more than 200 mg/kg SO2 … Calcium Chloride salt and Pectin esterase enzyme - permissible when producing a naturally sweet perry using the ‘keeving’ method.”
  • The one numeric band the Welsh specification does impose, and its explicit refusal to require clarity — the opposite of the Austrian regional rule.“Traditional Welsh Perry” product specification, §4.2 Description, verified 2026-08-25. “It has an alcoholic strength between 3.00% - 8.49% … natural sweetness due to the sorbitol content of the perry pears used … will be either clear or cloudy”
  • The composition limits every Three Counties cider and perry PGI imposes. All six specifications carry this identical table.“Herefordshire Cider” product specification, §4.2 Description, verified 2026-08-24. “Actual alcohol content by volume 4.0-8.5% … Total acidity (as Malic Acid) 40-60 mEq/l … Volatile acidity (as Acetic Acid) <1.4g/l … Total Sulphur Dioxide <200mg/l … Free Sulphur Dioxide 40-60mg/l”
  • The Three Counties names permit sugar addition and juice concentrate — the point on which they differ most sharply from the Welsh names.“Herefordshire Cider” product specification, §4.2 and §4.5, verified 2026-08-24. “chaptalisation is permitted to bring the potential alcohol level to ca 9.5% ABV prior to final blending of the cider”
  • Each Three Counties name permits a minority of the other fruit.“Herefordshire Cider” product specification, §4.2 Description, verified 2026-08-24. “with or without the addition of up to 25% perry pear juice”
  • Traditional Welsh Cider requires whole juice and forbids dilution, concentrate and chaptalisation.“Traditional Welsh Cider” product specification, §4.2 and the list of processes not permitted, verified 2026-08-24. “the addition of water to dilute or hydrate … the addition of apple or any other fruit concentrate … the addition of fermentable sugars (chaptalization) – note an exception is made for secondary in bottle fermentation”
  • Keeving is named and regulated in a UK protected-name specification, and its two permitted inputs are stated.“Traditional Welsh Cider” product specification, permitted additives, verified 2026-08-24. “Calcium chloride salt and pectin esterase enzyme: It is permissible to produce a naturally sweet cider using the ‘keeving’ method.”
  • The specification separates bottle conditioning from bottle fermentation by the pressure each reaches, and states the bottle strength required.“Traditional Welsh Cider” product specification, §4.2 Description and method of production, verified 2026-08-24. “bottle conditioned cider will be in the range of 1.5 to 3.0 bar (150-300kPa) at 0oC … bottle fermented cider will be in the range of 4.0-6.0 bar (400-600kPa) at 0oC … able to withstand a sustained internal pressure of 6-12 bar at 25oC”
  • The dose permitted to start a secondary fermentation in bottle.“Traditional Welsh Cider” product specification, method of production, bottle fermented cider, verified 2026-08-24. “fermentable sugar (glucose, fructose, sucrose) at a dose of between 12 and 26 grams per litre”
  • When the cider and perry names were registered, on both registers.Register entry, “Herefordshire Cider”, verified 2026-08-24. “Date of registration (UK scheme): 31 December 2020 … Date of original registration with the EU: 21 June 1996”

Drink-drive limits

GOV.UK · United Kingdom · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

Read on 2026-08-24. The address CiderHQ had registered, gov.uk/drink-driving-law, now returns 404; the page is at gov.uk/drink-drive-limit and the record is corrected. Two things it establishes matter here. The limit is set at constituent-country level rather than at state level — Scotland’s is materially lower than England, Wales and Northern Ireland’s — which is the clearest single justification for modelling the four countries separately under the United Kingdom. And the page states plainly that no arithmetic converts drinks into a blood alcohol level for an individual, which is why CiderHQ’s unit calculator will not attempt one.

Competent for: uk drink drive limits; scotland england difference.

Verified passages:

  • The legal limits, and the fact that Scotland sets its own — a rule that lives at constituent-country level rather than UK level.The drink drive limit, limits table, verified 2026-08-24. “Level of alcohol · England, Wales and Northern Ireland · Scotland — Micrograms per 100 millilitres of breath 35 / 22 · Milligrammes per 100 millilitres of blood 80 / 50 · Milligrammes per 100 millilitres of urine 107 / 67”
  • Why no calculator on this site converts a number of drinks into a legal driving position.The drink drive limit, opening paragraph, verified 2026-08-24. “There are strict alcohol limits for drivers, but it’s impossible to say exactly how many drinks this equals - it’s different for each person.”

Bundespatentgericht, Beschluss 30 W (pat) 54/22 of 2 September 2024 — amendment of the Hessischer Apfelwein specification

Bundespatentgericht, ECLI:DE:BPatG:2024:020924B30Wpat54.22.0 · Germany, European Union · authority tier 1 · covers 2005–2024

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

A court decision that turns out to be the best available window on what the Hessischer Apfelwein protected name actually requires, because it quotes the registered specification back at length while ruling on an application to change it. Retrieved as PDF and read on 2026-08-25. The application, lodged in 2015 and reformulated in 2021, would among other things cut the apple share from 97 to 95 per cent, admit quince and pear alongside service tree, permit apple juice concentrate as a raw material, and permit sugar and acid correction. The German office refused it in 2022; this decision allows the appeal in part and sends nine of the sixteen changes back for fresh examination. The proceeding is live, so the specification described on this site is the one in force and not necessarily the one that will be.

Competent for: hessischer apfelwein specification; speierling practice.

Verified passages:

  • What Speierling is for, according to the registered specification: it takes the haze out. The tannin account is a later gloss, and the specification does not give it.Recitation of Abschnitt e of the registered specification, and at the discussion of change 3, verified 2026-08-25. “Der Saft aus der Speyerling-Frucht wird einzeln zugesetzt und nimmt dem Apfelwein die Trübung … nach der alten Spezifikation nur Saft aus der Speyerling-Frucht einzeln zugesetzt werden durfte, um dem Apfelwein die Trübung zu nehmen”
  • How much Hessian apple wine actually contains service tree fruit, on the specification’s own figure: fewer than one bottle in twenty.Recitation of Abschnitt e of the registered specification, verified 2026-08-25. “Traditionell wird Hessischer Apfelwein ausschließlich aus Äpfeln gemacht … Weit über 95 % des in Hessen hergestellten Apfelweins ist rein aus Äpfeln.”
  • The applicant’s own case for loosening the specification, which is more revealing than the ruling: that the larger Hessian producers traditionally use apple juice concentrate, evidenced by statements from three named cellars.Statement of the applicant’s case, verified 2026-08-25. “Außerdem setzten die größeren Betriebe zur Gewinnung des Apfelweins traditionell überwiegend Apfelsaftkonzentrat ein (Anlage 9/1: Erklärung des ehemaligen Kellermeisters der Kelterei Höhl, Anlage 9/2: Bestätigung der Kelterei Possmann, Anlage 9/4: Bestätigung der Kelterei Heil).”
  • What is being asked for, in the court’s own summary — a smaller apple share and other pome fruit in the gap.Discussion of change 3, verified 2026-08-25. “Nach der der Eintragung zugrundeliegenden Produktspezifikation wird Hessischer Apfelwein zu 97% aus Äpfeln hergestellt … Nach der beantragten Änderung darf der Apfelanteil auch nur noch 95 % betragen … soll es nunmehr zulässig sein, bis zu 5 % weiteres Kernobst, z.B. Quitte und Birne, zuzusetzen.”

Österreichische Mostbirnensorten

Bundesministerium für Land- und Forstwirtschaft, Klima- und Umweltschutz, Regionen und Wasserwirtschaft (BMLUK), register of traditional Austrian foods, entry 191 · AT · authority tier 1

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-25

The Austrian agriculture ministry’s own account of its perry pears, in its register of traditional foods. It carries no analytical figures at all — no acid, no sugar, no tannin — and is cited here for synonymy, geography, dates and the ministry’s own descriptions of what the fruit tastes like. Its estimate of over 400 Mostbirne types in Austria is labelled by the ministry itself as an estimate, and CiderHQ repeats that hedge rather than the number alone.

Competent for: austrian perry pears; mostbirnen; cultivar synonyms; austrian orchard history.

World Apple Production and Trade (Foreign Service Report FS-57)

United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, September 1932 · United States · authority tier 1 · covers 1910–1930

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

A contemporary federal accounting of what happened to the American apple tree, written while it was happening and published two years before the end of Prohibition. It is registered here because it settles by arithmetic a question that is usually argued by anecdote: the United States lost a hundred million apple trees between 1910 and 1930, and roughly two thirds of that loss had already happened when Prohibition took effect on 17 January 1920. The report gives its own explanation, and Prohibition is not in it. Retrieved as PDF and read on 2026-08-25.

Competent for: us orchard decline; apple tree census.

Verified passages:

  • The census series itself, and the department’s own account of why the trees went: a planting bubble between 1905 and 1912, the crops it produced, and prices that made the trees not worth keeping.Number of apple trees, p. 6, verified 2026-08-25. “In 1930 there were 116,304,000 apple trees in the United States … This compares with a total of 137,997,000 trees in 1925, 151,504,000 trees in 1920 and 217,115,000 trees in 1910. The rapid decline in tree numbers was necessary to compensate for overplanting during the years 1905 to 1912. These heavy plantings resulted in very large crops in 1911, 1912, 1914, and 1915, with the result that prices fell to very low levels. Returns were so low that millions of trees were pulled up or abandoned.”
  • The size of the loss, stated as a figure and a percentage against the Census — and the reason production held up anyway, which is the farm-to-commercial shift rather than anything to do with drink.Number of apple trees, p. 6, verified 2026-08-25. “From 1910 to 1930 there was a net decrease of 100,811,000 trees, or 46.4 per cent, according to the Bureau of Census figures … Despite the large abandonment of trees, production has been well maintained. This is due to the shift that has taken place from farms to better located commercial orchards.”

Health authorities

Cited for alcohol and health, and for nothing else. Never a trade body, never a producer.

UK Chief Medical Officers’ low risk drinking guidelines

Department of Health and Social Care · United Kingdom · authority tier 1

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

The guidelines that set the UK 14-unit weekly figure, advise spreading consumption over three or more days, and state that the safest approach in pregnancy is not to drink at all. CiderHQ takes its health framing from here rather than from industry material.

Competent for: uk weekly unit guideline; pregnancy advice; low risk framing.

Alcohol units

NHS · United Kingdom · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

The definition CiderHQ’s units calculator implements, read against the page rather than assumed: one UK unit is 10 ml or 8 g of pure ethanol, and units are ABV multiplied by volume in millilitres divided by a thousand — which is exactly the arithmetic in `engine/calculators.ts`.

Competent for: uk unit definition; unit arithmetic; drink strength comparison; uk weekly unit guideline.

Verified passages:

  • One UK unit is 10 ml or 8 g of pure alcohol.Calculating alcohol units, verified 2026-08-24. “One unit equals 10ml or 8g of pure alcohol”
  • The formula the units calculator implements.Calculating alcohol units, verified 2026-08-24. “strength (ABV) x volume (ml) ÷ 1,000 = units”
  • The fourteen-unit weekly guideline and the advice to spread it over three or more days.Calculating alcohol units — low-risk drinking guidelines, verified 2026-08-24. “men and women are advised not to drink more than 14 units a week on a regular basis … spread your drinking over 3 or more days if you regularly drink as much as 14 units a week”

Alcohol — fact sheet

World Health Organization · International · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

The basis for CiderHQ publishing no health benefits for alcohol. Note carefully what this page does and does not carry: it states that no form of alcohol consumption is risk-free and that alcohol is an established carcinogen, but it does not itself set out the IARC classification. That is cited to IARC directly — see `iarc-alcohol-monograph`. The distinction matters because CiderHQ’s own rule is that a source is cited for what it actually says.

Competent for: no safe level; alcohol harm framing; global health framing.

Verified passages:

  • There is no risk-free level of alcohol consumption, and low levels still carry risk.Fact sheet, key facts, verified 2026-08-24. “There is no form of alcohol consumption that is risk-free. Even low levels of alcohol consumption carry some risks and can cause harm.”
  • Alcohol is an established carcinogen and raises the risk of several cancers.Fact sheet, alcohol and cancer, verified 2026-08-24. “Alcohol is an established carcinogen and alcohol consumption increases the risk of several cancers.”

IARC Monographs on the Identification of Carcinogenic Hazards to Humans — alcohol consumption and ethanol in alcoholic beverages

International Agency for Research on Cancer, World Health Organization · International · authority tier 1 · covers Volume 100E, published 2012

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

Registered separately from the WHO fact sheet because the Group 1 classification is IARC’s and lives in the Monographs rather than on the fact sheet. Several pages here previously attributed it to the fact sheet, which does not carry it. IARC is part of WHO, so the claim was never wrong — it was cited to the wrong document, which is precisely the failure this evidence model exists to catch. The volume was opened on 2026-08-24 and the agent name confirmed: IARC classifies *consumption of alcoholic beverages*, not “alcohol” as a chemical. The distinction is not pedantry — it is the difference between a statement about a behaviour and a statement about a molecule.

Competent for: carcinogen classification; group 1 classification; acetaldehyde carcinogenicity.

Verified passages:

  • The volume in which consumption of alcoholic beverages was evaluated, and the group the volume covers.IARC Monographs Volume 100E, Personal Habits and Indoor Combustions (IARC, 2012), catalogue entry, verified 2026-08-24. “Personal Habits and Indoor Combustions … agents previously classified by IARC as “carcinogenic to humans (Group 1)””
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The line-by-line entry from the IARC classification list giving the exact agent wording and volume for each alcohol-related agent. Why not: The list is delivered by a client-side application that returns no content to a plain retrieval. The volume identity and its Group 1 scope were confirmed from the publications catalogue instead. Published instead: CiderHQ names the agent as IARC names it — consumption of alcoholic beverages — and cites Volume 100E. It does not state a separate classification for acetaldehyde, because the agent IARC evaluated is acetaldehyde *associated with the consumption of alcoholic beverages*, and that wording could not be confirmed to the letter. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Dietary Guidelines for Americans — alcohol

US Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services · United States · authority tier 1

Registered as competent · no access date recorded

Registered so CiderHQ can state that a US standard drink is 14 g of pure alcohol against the UK unit’s 8 g — a difference that makes cross-country drinking advice non-transferable.

Competent for: us standard drink; us guideline framing.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The current standard-drink definition and the alcohol guidance chapter, read at the source. Why not: The host closed the HTTP/2 stream mid-response on repeated attempts and returned no usable content. Published instead: CiderHQ states the US standard drink only where another opened source carries it, and attributes no figure to this document unread. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Designation authorities

The council or authority that maintains a protected name and its product specification.

eAmbrosia — the EU geographical indications register

European Commission · European Union · authority tier 1

Registered as competent · no access date recorded

The single authoritative register of EU PDO, PGI and TSG names, carrying each product specification. Cider and perry designations across France, Spain and elsewhere resolve here.

Competent for: eu pdo pgi status; designation specifications; registration dates.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The register entries for the cider and perry designations, with their registration dates and specification links. Why not: eAmbrosia is a client-side application; a plain retrieval returns the shell and no register content. Registration dates for the UK names were obtained from the Defra register instead, and the Pays d’Auge specification directly from INAO. Published instead: Designation records cite the register that was actually read for each fact, rather than citing eAmbrosia for figures taken from somewhere else. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Denominación de Origen Protegida Sidra de Asturias

Consejo Regulador de la DOP Sidra de Asturias · Spain · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

The regulating council for Asturian cider. Read on 2026-08-24, and it turned out to carry far more than a permitted-variety list: an agronomic and technological characterisation of each admitted variety, with total acidity, total polyphenols, vigour, flowering, ripening, cropping and susceptibility to fungal disease. The characterisation is credited to SERIDA’s fruit-research programme. Two things it settles are corrections to what CiderHQ previously held: Asturias sorts cider fruit into nine technological blocks rather than five, and it publishes acidity as sulphuric acid rather than malic. The figures are transcribed into `data/trials/serida-asturias.ts` and cite this source, because this is where they were read.

Competent for: asturian permitted varieties; sidra natural rules; asturian classification; asturian cultivar chemistry; asturian technological blocks.

Verified passages:

  • The Asturian classification has nine categories, not four, and is built on acidity and phenolic concentration.Variedades → Clasificación tecnológica, verified 2026-08-24. “Las variedades se clasifican en función de la acidez y de la concentración en compuestos fenólicos en nueve bloques tecnológicos: dulce, dulce-amargo, amargo, semiácido, semiácido-amargo, amargo-semiácido, ácido, ácido-amargo y amargo-ácido.”
  • Dessert apples are barred from the designation outright.Variedades, introductory text, verified 2026-08-24. “las variedades de mesa no se admiten en la Denominación de Origen y, por lo tanto, quedan prohibidas”
  • Who produced the varietal characterisation the council publishes.Variedades, attribution note, verified 2026-08-24. “ha sido elaborada y facilitada por el Programa de Investigación de Fruticultura del SERIDA”
  • The unit convention Asturian figures use — sulphuric acid for acidity, tannic acid for phenols — which is not the convention English and North American analyses use.Variedades, per-variety data fields, verified 2026-08-24. “Acidez total (g/l H2SO4) … Fenoles totales (g/l ác. tánico)”

Beskyttede betegnelser — the Norwegian register of protected designations

Stiftelsen Norsk Mat (formerly Matmerk) · NO · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

Norway is outside the European Union, so its protected names are not on eAmbrosia and are administered nationally by Stiftelsen Norsk Mat under its own scheme. Read on 2026-08-25, and the reading corrected this site: CiderHQ described Sider frå Hardanger as holding a protected designation of *origin*, and the register says Beskytta geografisk nemning — a geographical indication. The distinction is the same one that separates Cidre du Pays d’Auge from Cidre de Normandie, and it was wrong here. The register also carries a second Norwegian protected cider name the site did not have at all, Sider frå Sogn, whose entry states its requirements in more detail than most European specifications state theirs.

Competent for: norwegian protected names; hardanger cider rules; sogn cider rules; norwegian cider classification.

Verified passages:

  • What Sider frå Hardanger actually holds, and that it was the first alcoholic product in Norway to hold it.Godkjente produkter › Sider frå Hardanger, §§ “Beskytta geografisk nemning” and “Eple med fleire sider”, verified 2026-08-25. “Sider frå Hardanger har status som ei «Beskytta geografisk nemning» i Noreg. … Sider frå Hardanger er det første alkoholholdige produktet som er tildelt Beskytta geografisk nemning. I dag har både Sider frå Hardanger og Sider frå Sogn beskytta nemning i Norge.”
  • Which stages must happen inside the area, and which municipalities the area is — a requirement stricter than the name it carries implies.Godkjente produkter › Sider frå Hardanger, § “Produksjonen av Sider frå Hardanger”, verified 2026-08-25. “Produksjon av eple, pressing, gjæring og lagring av Sider frå Hardanger skal skje i Hardanger, som omfattar kommunane Eidfjord, Granvin, Jondal, Kvam, Odda, Ulvik og Ullensvang.”
  • The alcohol and sweetness classification the scheme imposes.Godkjente produkter › Sider frå Hardanger, verified 2026-08-25. “Produsentane kan velje mellom tre alkoholklassar der lågaste alkoholprosent er 3 og høgste er 12. Dei ulike klassane har ulike krav til sukkerinnhald. Sider frå Hardanger klassifiserast som tørr, medium eller søt.”
  • The Sogn requirements, which are stated with more numeric and procedural detail than most European cider specifications carry.Godkjente produkter › Sider frå Sogn, § “Strenge krav for Sider frå Sogn”, verified 2026-08-25. “Geografisk område: Produksjon av råvarene frukt og bær og produksjon av Sider frå Sogn skal skje i Sogn. Sogn omfattar kommunane Gulen, Solund, Hyllestad, Høyanger, Vik, Sogndal, Luster, Årdal, Lærdal og Aurland. Råvarer: Sideren skal vere produsert av gjæra most, utan tilsetjing av vatn eller ekstern alkohol. Kvalitet: Epla skal vere fullmogne, reine og ha minimum 10 Brix sukkerinnhald. … Analyse: Ferdig sider blir analysert for alkoholprosent, restsukker og syrenivå ved akkreditert laboratorium. Merking: Sider frå Sogn / Cider frå Sogn skal merkast med siderstil og restsukker.”
  • Sogn defines its own style taxonomy inside the protected name, which no other cider designation CiderHQ holds does.Godkjente produkter › Sider frå Sogn, § “Fem ulike siderstilar”, verified 2026-08-25. “Alle stilane er baserte på minimum 80% eple frå Sogn, men kan også innehalde bær, annan frukt eller botaniske plantedelar … Sider frå Sogn blir delt inn i fem undertypar: Syrefrisk stil, Tanninhaldig stil, Sider med bær og frukt, Botanisk stil, Dessertsider.”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The forskrift itself — the regulation protecting each name — rather than the register’s account of it. Why not: The register links to Lovdata without giving the regulation number, and Lovdata could not be searched by retrieval on 2026-08-25. Published instead: Requirements are recorded as the national register states them, attributed to the register rather than to the regulation, and every one of them is quoted in Norwegian above so a reader can check the wording. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Pliego de condiciones — Euskal Sagardoa / Sidra del País Vasco / Cidre du Pays Basque / Cidre du Pays Basque-Euskal Sagarnoa, version of 19 July 2024

Euskal Sagardoa Fundazioa, Astigarraga, with the Iparraldeko sagarnoen sindikata · Spain, France, European Union · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

The current specification behind the Euskal Sagardoa file, retrieved as PDF and read on 2026-08-25. It is a cross-border document: the protected area now runs from the three Basque provinces of Spain across the frontier into Soule, Basse-Navarre and Labourd, with the French communes listed one by one against the 2023 official geographic code, and the name itself acquires French forms. Read alongside the EU register, which still records the file as applied rather than registered. It also adds a fourth apple class, *dulces*, to the acid, bitter and bittersharp classes the earlier versions used — four cultivars only: Aran Gorri, Mamula, Muga Gorri and Ondo Motxa.

Competent for: euskal sagardoa requirements; basque cider classification; basque authorised cultivars.

Verified passages:

  • What the designation actually guarantees, in one sentence: no sugar, no water, no filtration, and no carbon dioxide from anywhere but the ferment itself.Section 3.1, verified 2026-08-25. “Es la bebida resultante de la fermentación alcohólica, con o sin fermentación maloláctica del mosto de manzana. Se elabora sin adición de azucares, ni agua, sin filtración y contiene anhídrido carbónico de origen únicamente endógeno.”
  • The Basque classification of its own fruit — four classes, and the cultivar names in each. It is not the English scheme and it is not the Asturian one; the fourth class was added in this version.Section B, apple varieties table, verified 2026-08-25. “se pueden clasificar como ácidas, amargas, ácido-amargas y dulces … ACIDAS: ERREZILA, GOIKOETXE, TXALAKA, URTEBI HAUNDI, VERDE AGRIA, BOSTKANTOI, HARITZA, AZPEITI SAGARRA, MANTTONI, IBARRA … AMARGAS: GEZAMIÑA, URDIN, MOZOLOA, PATZULOA, MIKATZA, UDARE MARROI, TXORI SAGARRA — ACIDO-AMARGAS: MOKO, LIMOI, MERABI, MOKOTE, URTEBETE, URTEBI TXIKI, SALTXIPI — DULCES: ARAN GORRI, MAMULA, MUGA GORRI, ONDO MOTXA”
  • A rule about the orchard rather than the drink: half of what is planted must be acid and bitter fruit. It is the mechanism that keeps the classification from being decorative.Section B, planting, verified 2026-08-25. “El 50% de las variedades plantadas deben de ser ácidas y amargas.”
  • The prohibition list, which is what the designation is really made of — and which puts it with the Welsh perry specification as an instrument that regulates technique rather than composition.Section, prácticas prohibidas — En la sidra, verified 2026-08-25. “El empleo de mostos concentrados, azúcares o jarabes de cualquier tipo o procedencia. El empleo de edulcorantes artifíciales y dextrinas … Añadir agua en cualquier fase de la elaboración. El aumento artificial de la graduación alcohólica natural. La adición de vino, fermentados de frutas y/o la de alcohol de cualquier procedencia. El empleo de ésteres, aromas y sustancias similares … La adición de anhídrido carbónico … Pasteurización”
  • The protected area crosses a national frontier, which is unusual and is the point of the 2024 revision.Section D, Zona geográfica, verified 2026-08-25. “Además, del lado francés, los territorios de Soule, Baja Navarra y Labourd, incluidos los siguientes municipios, según el código geográfico oficial francés de 2023”

El escanciado, and the official escanciadores’ championship rules

Consejo Regulador DOP Sidra de Asturias · Spain · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

The Asturian regulating council’s own account of the pour, and the rules of the championship it half-owns. Two things make it unusually valuable. It states the technique precisely — including the *culete* volume, which English writing habitually underestimates by a factor of two or three — and it states the origin of the practice as imitation of tapping a barrel, which sits awkwardly beside the physical explanations the same page offers. CiderHQ cites it for what the practice is and for what the council claims, and marks the claims as claims: no study supporting them has been found.

Competent for: escanciado practice; culete volume; asturian serving; asturian designation.

Verified passages:

  • The size of a culete, from the body that defines it — against the “two fingers” of most English accounts.El escanciado, verified 2026-08-25. “la cantidad de sidra escanciada (culete) no debería ser inferior a 100 ml … llegando a ser la medida ideal de la botella seis culetes de sidra”
  • That the council’s own explanation of why the pour exists is imitative rather than physical.El escanciado, verified 2026-08-25. “Este surge con la intención de simular la acción de espichar el tonel en el llagar.”
  • The mechanism the council asserts, recorded as an assertion because no supporting study has been located.El escanciado, verified 2026-08-25. “Para despertar el carbónico y alcanzar la frescura de su sabor, la sidra natural tradicional debe ser servida utilizando una técnica muy particular, el escanciado”
  • What the trade actually judges the pour on — and, by omission, what it does not: nothing in the scoring is aromatic, and nobody tastes the cider.Campeonato de Escanciadores, scoring rules, verified 2026-08-25. “Se establece que OBLIGATORIAMENTE, cada concursante debe obtener SEIS CULETES de cada botella. La no obtención de esos seis culetes significará la DESCALIFICACIÓN.”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: Any measurement of what pouring from height does to cider — dissolved carbon dioxide, aroma, acidity or foam. Why not: None exists that CiderHQ can find. Searches of the Spanish academic index and of Google Scholar return cultural, historical and art-historical work on escanciado and no measurement of any kind. There is a real Asturian literature on cider foam as a property of the liquid — which polypeptides make a cider foam — and none on the pour. The four institutions that explain the practice give four incompatible mechanisms between them, none with a citation. Published instead: CiderHQ publishes the technique, the origin the council itself gives, and the mechanisms as attributed claims with the absence of evidence stated alongside them. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Standards bodies

International or national standards, including food-safety limits.

Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code

Food Standards Australia New Zealand · Australia, New Zealand · authority tier 1

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

Standard 2.7.3 covers fruit wine and cider, and defines what may be sold under those names in Australia and New Zealand.

Competent for: anz cider definition; anz labelling; anz additives.

Codex Alimentarius food standards

FAO / WHO · International · authority tier 1

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

Competent for: international food standards; patulin limits; additive standards.

Leitsätze für weinähnliche, perlweinähnliche und schaumweinähnliche Getränke, Neufassung vom 23. Januar 2026

Deutsche Lebensmittelbuch-Kommission, BAnz AT 02.03.2026 B5, GMBl 9/2026 S. 184–189; published by the Bundesministerium für Landwirtschaft, Ernährung und Heimat · Germany · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

Where the German numbers actually are. The Leitsätze are qualified expert opinion rather than legislation — courts use them as evidence of customary trade practice — but they are the only German statement of what an Apfelwein must contain, and they are followed. Retrieved as PDF and read on 2026-08-25, five months after this recast took effect. Two changes in the recast matter to this site. It creates *Apfel Cider* and *Birnen Cider* as a named category for the first time, at 1.2 to 8.5 % vol with up to 50 per cent water, concentrate and added aroma permitted — a category defined so as to admit almost everything the Apfelwein entry excludes. And it splits the word Speierling from the fruit: the flavour indication carries on meaning a tannic, acid-led apple wine, and only the phrase *mit Speierling-Früchten* now says that any service-tree fruit was used.

Competent for: german apple wine composition; german most composition; german cider category; speierling labelling.

Verified passages:

  • What a German Apfelwein must contain, and the one non-apple addition its entry permits.Leitsatz 2.1.1, verified 2026-08-25. “Apfelwein, Birnenwein enthält – mindestens 5 % vol vorhandenen Alkohol, – mindestens 18 g/l zuckerfreien Extrakt, – höchstens 1,0 g/l flüchtige Säure, berechnet als Essigsäure. Zur Herstellung werden zusätzlich verwendet: – Zuckerarten, aber nur bis zur Erreichung eines Mostgewichtes von insgesamt höchstens 55 Grad Oechsle. – für Apfelwein: ggf. Speierling (Sorbus domestica L.), Eberesche und/oder Quitte.”
  • Swabian Most is a weaker, waterable drink than Apfelwein and the food code says so in numbers — a third water, four per cent, twelve grams of extract. It is a different product, not a dialect word for the same one.Leitsatz 2.1.2, verified 2026-08-25. “Schwäbischer Most, Württemberger Most, Badischer Most, Most aus … (anderen Regionen) enthält – mindestens 4 % vol vorhandenen Alkohol, – mindestens 12 g/l zuckerfreien Extrakt, – höchstens 1,0 g/l flüchtige Säure … Zur Herstellung wird zusätzlich verwendet: – Wasser bis zu höchstens 33 Volumenprozent.”
  • Germany acquired a named cider category in 2026, and it is a permissive one: half water, concentrate, honey and added aroma, at a floor of 1.2 per cent.Leitsatz 2.1.6, verified 2026-08-25. “Apfel Cider, Birnen Cider enthält – mindestens 1,2 % vol und höchstens 8,5 % vol vorhandenen Alkohol, – mindestens 10 g/l zuckerfreien Extrakt, – höchstens 1,0 g/l flüchtige Säure … – Kohlensäure mit einem Überdruck von mindestens 1 bar und höchstens 2,5 bar. Zur Herstellung … werden zusätzlich verwendet: – Honig und/oder Apfel- bzw. Birnensaft auch als Konzentrat, – Wasser bis maximal 50 Volumenprozent, – natürliches Apfel- bzw. Birnen-Aroma.”
  • The word and the fruit are now separate things on a German label, and the code says which is which.Leitsatz 1.4.8, verified 2026-08-25. “Der Geschmackshinweis „Speierling“ deutet allgemein auf einen gerbstoff- und säurebetonten Apfelwein hin. Wenn zusätzlich Speierling-Früchte (Sorbus domestica L.) als Zutat verwendet werden, erfolgt ein Hinweis darauf (z. B. „mit Speierling-Früchten“).”

Research institutes

Institutes whose own analytical work is the evidence, not a summary of someone else’s.

Long Ashton Research Station cider fruit analyses

National Fruit and Cider Institute / University of Bristol · United Kingdom · authority tier 1 · covers 1903–2003

Registered as competent · no access date recorded

The foundational body of cider-fruit science in English. Long Ashton produced the acid-and-tannin classification that divides cider apples into sweet, sharp, bittersweet and bittersharp, and analysed hundreds of cultivars grown at its Somerset site. Its figures are historic measurements of specific fruit at a specific place, not universal constants — a distinction CiderHQ preserves in every measurement record that cites it.

Competent for: long ashton classification; english cultivar acid tannin; historic juice analysis; cider fermentation research; keeving research.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The original per-cultivar analysis tables, with sample counts and season ranges. Why not: The station closed in 2003 and its annual reports are not consolidated in a single open archive. Figures reach the present mostly through secondary compilations. A specific citation was recovered on 2026-08-24 from the Herefordshire Cider PGI specification, which points readers to “Cider Apples and Their Character I, II, III and IV” by R. R. Williams and R. D. Child in the Long Ashton Research Station Annual Reports for 1961–1964 — so the tables have a name and a location now, even though no digitised copy was found. Published instead: CiderHQ records Long Ashton figures as classification bands and ranges attributed to the programme rather than as precise per-cultivar values it cannot verify against the original tables. Attempted 2026-08-24.

National Fruit Collection

University of Reading / Defra, Brogdale · United Kingdom · authority tier 1

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

The UK national reference collection for apple and pear cultivars. The authority CiderHQ uses for whether two names are the same fruit, which is the central duplicate-resolution problem in cider data.

Competent for: cultivar identity; accepted names; synonym resolution; origin records.

GRIN-Global germplasm database — Malus and Pyrus

United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service · United States, International · authority tier 1

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

Competent for: cultivar accessions; parentage records; international synonyms.

Institut Français des Productions Cidricoles (IFPC)

IFPC · France · authority tier 1

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

The French technical institute for cider production. The authority for the French cultivar classification families, for keeving as an industrial process, and for the pectin and nitrogen chemistry that keeving depends on.

Competent for: french classification system; french cultivar data; keeving mechanism; defecation chemistry; french orchard practice.

Servicio Regional de Investigación y Desarrollo Agroalimentario (SERIDA)

Principado de Asturias · Spain · authority tier 1

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

The Asturian regional agri-food research service, and the technical authority behind the Asturian cultivar classification and the analysis of sidra natural. SERIDA’s own site has not been opened; what CiderHQ has read is SERIDA’s varietal characterisation as republished by the Consejo Regulador of DOP Sidra de Asturias, which credits it explicitly. The Asturian measurements therefore cite the Consejo rather than SERIDA — citing the body that did the work, at a document CiderHQ has not seen, would be exactly the kind of borrowed authority this register exists to prevent.

Competent for: asturian cultivars; spanish classification; sidra natural chemistry.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: Direct retrieval of the institute’s cultivar and fermentation publications. Why not: serida.org returns HTTP 403 to automated retrieval, checked 2026-08-25. The institute is real and active and its work is not in doubt; its web server declines robots. Published instead: SERIDA’s work reaches this site through its own open repository at ria.asturias.es and through the peer-reviewed papers its staff publish, both of which are registered separately and were read in full. Where a claim rests on SERIDA it names the paper rather than the institute where one exists. Attempted 2026-08-25.

NIAB (incorporating East Malling Research)

NIAB · United Kingdom · authority tier 1

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

East Malling developed the M-series apple rootstocks that determine tree size in essentially every modern orchard, cider orchards included. The authority CiderHQ uses for rootstock behaviour.

Competent for: apple rootstocks; orchard systems; pollination groups; orchard pests.

Caractérisation de jus de pomme à cidre et analyse comparative avec des jus de pomme commerciaux

Institut Français des Productions Cidricoles (IFPC) · France · authority tier 1 · covers 2018 harvest

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

A technical-day presentation by the French cider institute, retrieved and read in full on 2026-08-25. Twelve French cider varieties characterised for malic acid, total acidity, density, pH and total polyphenols, with sensory profiling on the same juices. The first French institutional juice figures CiderHQ has been able to open, and important out of proportion to their number because the site holds many French cultivars and previously held almost no French measurements. The total acidity column is not published by CiderHQ: the slide does not state its unit and the ratio to the malic figure matches no convention the site can identify.

Competent for: french cider apples; cultivar juice chemistry; polyphenols; french classification.

Verified passages:

  • How far apart two French cider apples grown for the same industry can be — a twenty-fold spread in total polyphenols across twelve varieties in one season.Slide 10, “Résultats des analyses physicochimiques”, verified 2026-08-25. “Marie Ménard 2.9 1.1 1063.6 4.4 2332.9 … Judor 13.2 7.2 1054.0 3.3 103.6”

Perry Pear Varieties from Long Ashton (NACM Short Report 8.2)

National Association of Cider Makers, Archive of Cider Pomology · United Kingdom · authority tier 2 · covers 1903–1963

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

A four-page compilation, dated March 2010, of the Long Ashton perry pear varieties: for each of twenty pears, its vigour, cropping habit, maturity window, specific gravity, acidity, tannin and an assessment of vintage quality. It rests on Luckwill and Pollard’s Perry Pears (1963), which CiderHQ has verified bibliographically and has not opened, so the figures are held at traditional-record tier rather than at research tier despite originating in institutional analysis. This is the report that ended a two-sprint gap: before it, no perry pear page on the site carried a cultivar-specific number.

Competent for: perry pear analysis; perry pear cropping; perry pear maturity; long ashton material.

Verified passages:

  • That a perry pear analysis is a statement about the age of the tree as well as about the variety — the caveat that governs every historic perry figure on the site.Footnote to the variety table, verified 2026-08-25. “Juice quality improves tremendously with tree age. Young trees likely to be much weaker both acidity and tannin. SG much lower too”
  • That two of the pears CiderHQ holds as separate records are printed here as one, which is evidence about the naming rather than a determination of identity.Variety table, rows for Moorcroft and Hellen’s Early, verified 2026-08-25. “Moorcroft [Stinking Bishop] … Hellen’s Early [Sweet Huffcap]”

Typical Apple Juice Analysis (NACM Short Report 4.11)

National Association of Cider Makers, Archive of Cider Pomology · United Kingdom · authority tier 2 · covers 1922–1977

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

Fifty-seven rows of English dessert and culinary apple juice analyses — gravity, acid, pH, tannin — credited jointly to MAFF/ADAS, to Long Ashton cider-making trials reported in 1977, and to the Long Ashton Annual Report for 1922, without saying which row came from which. That vagueness is why it is held at traditional-record tier. Its value is twofold: it is the only set on the site measuring eating and cooking apples the same way the cider fruit was measured, and six of its rows are repeat samples of cultivars already in the table, which makes within-cultivar spread visible in a single document.

Competent for: dessert apple juice; culinary apple juice; cider apple versus dessert apple.

Verified passages:

  • The three bodies of work behind the table, and the fact that the compilation does not attribute row to source.Sources note beneath the table, verified 2026-08-25. “MAFF/ADAS Acidity and pH values from freshly harvested fruit. … LARS 1977 Cider making trials with dessert and culinary varieties. LARS Ann Rep 1922”
  • How far three analyses of one cultivar can differ inside one table — the site’s cheapest demonstration of why measurements are not averaged.Rows for Bramley, Bramley 2 and Bramley 3, verified 2026-08-25. “Bramley 51 1.21 3.08 0.13 … Bramley 2 40 1.05 3.00 0.09 … Bramley 3 47 1.43 2.95 0.14”

Kinnersley M9 Interstock Trial (NACM Short Report 6.5)

National Association of Cider Makers, Archive of Cider Pomology · United Kingdom · authority tier 2 · covers 2005

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

A one-page assessment, dated May 2005, of fifteen numbered breeding selections at Kinnersley in Herefordshire — all on an M9 interstock, each grown on three different rootstocks, each with a one-line taste classification. Its value is that twelve of the fifteen are named selections from the Long Ashton programme whose parentage was later established genetically, so the same trees can be described both by what they are and by how they behaved.

Competent for: cider apple breeding; rootstock performance; cultivar assessment; orchard trials.

Verified passages:

  • The taste classification each selection was given in the orchard, alongside how it grew on three rootstocks.Tree assessment table, 18 May 2005, verified 2026-08-25. “4,21 Joanna good good good med bittersharp … 11,9 3 Counties fair, too strong very good, strong very good, strong full bittersweet … 11,66 Jean whippy, weak good very good high acid bittersweet”

Prüfung ausgewählter Mostbirnensorten als Spindel unter Bio-Produktionsbedingungen

Wurm, Gössinger, Wendelin and Korntheuer, HBLA und Bundesamt für Wein- und Obstbau Klosterneuburg, in Mitteilungen Klosterneuburg 61 (2011): 236–246 · AT · authority tier 1 · covers 2002–2010

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

Fourteen Austrian perry pears trialled at the research station that also runs Austria’s statutory fruit-wine analysis panel. The only measured Austrian Mostbirnen data CiderHQ has found, and the first Austrian figures on the site. Its tables are scanned images with no text layer, so every figure published here was read from the rendered pages directly rather than from an extraction, and the source’s own typesetting error — Knollbirne’s residual sugar printed “3,o” — is recorded rather than normalised. The acid convention is tartaric rather than malic, which is Austrian wine law and is stated on every measurement taken from it.

Competent for: austrian perry pears; mostbirnen; perry pear analysis; pear polyphenols; perry pear rootstocks.

Verified passages:

  • The acid convention, which is the single most important thing to know before an Austrian figure is compared with an English one.§ Material und Methoden, verified 2026-08-25. “Die titrierbare Säure wurde mit 0,1 n NaOH und einem pH-Meter … mittels Titration auf pH-Wert 8,1 bestimmt. Die Werte werden in g/l, berechnet als Weinsäure, angegeben.”
  • That storing the fruit before pressing is the Austrian answer to astringency, and that it works — the finding that makes the harvest phenolic figures unreadable as must figures.§ Ergebnisse, on the 2008 musts, verified 2026-08-25. “Die Analysenwerte (Tab. 7) sowie die Verkostung der 2008 nach Lagerung der Mostbirnenfrüchte sortenrein verarbeiteten Moste bestätigten den Zweck der Lagerung – Gerbsäure war ausreichend abgebaut worden … sodass die vergleichsweise geringen Mengen an Schönungsmitteln … keine Überschönung provozierten”
  • That Oberösterreicher Weinbirne and Speckbirne are one cultivar — a synonymy often listed as two.§ Diskussion, verified 2026-08-25. “'Oberösterreicher Weinbirne' (= 'Speckbirne')”
  • A negative production finding worth as much as a positive one: repeated hand-picking did not pay.§ Ergebnisse, verified 2026-08-25. “Der hohe Aufwand des mehrfachen händischen Durchpflückens brachte keine entscheidende Verbesserung der Mostqualität.”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: Sorbitol in any Austrian Mostbirne. Why not: The trial did not measure it and no other Austrian source CiderHQ has reached does either. Sorbitol is the most-repeated fact about perry anywhere, and on the Austrian side it is unevidenced in both directions. Published instead: No sorbitol figure is published for any Austrian pear, and the gap is stated on the dataset. Attempted 2026-08-25.

150 Jahre Klosterneuburger Mostwaage

Höhere Bundeslehranstalt und Bundesamt für Wein- und Obstbau, Klosterneuburg, published 25 June 2020 · AT · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

Babo’s own institution on Babo’s own scale, which makes it the authority on both the derivation and the date. It is worth registering for the date alone: Österreich Wein Marketing gives 1896 for the publication, and Klosterneuburg gives 1869 and marked the 150th anniversary in 2020. The two cannot both be right, and this site follows the institution that employed him. Retrieved and read in full on 2026-08-25. Notable for what it volunteers: the institute states that the scale now tends to under-read sugar by 5 to 10 per cent, which is not something a body has to say about its own instrument.

Competent for: kmw definition; austrian must measurement.

Verified passages:

  • Where the 1:17 in the statutory definition comes from — an empirical finding about grape must, not a unit conversion. Babo found that a must at 20° Balling is about 17 parts sugar to 3 parts everything else, and built the scale on that ratio.Hintergrundinformation zur Geschichte der Klosterneuburger Mostwaage, verified 2026-08-25. “Anhand vieler Mostanalysen erkannte er, dass ein Traubenmost mit 20° Balling … üblicherweise 17 Teile Zucker (=85%) und 3 Teile Nicht-Zucker (=15%…) enthält … 1°KMW entspricht somit ca. 10 g Zucker/kg Traubenmost”
  • The publication date, from the institution Babo directed, against the 1896 that circulates elsewhere.Hintergrundinformation, opening paragraph, verified 2026-08-25. “August Wilhelm Freiherr von Babo, der erste Direktor der HBLA und BA Klosterneuburg, publizierte aber bereits 1869 eine einfache Möglichkeit zur indirekten Ermittlung des Zuckergehaltes.”
  • The institute’s own statement that the scale is now systematically low, which is the caveat any reader converting a modern Austrian figure needs and which almost nobody repeats.Hintergrundinformation, closing paragraph, verified 2026-08-25. “stellt es nur eine annäherungsweise Zuckerbestimmung dar, die insbesondere aufgrund klimatischer und weinbaulicher Veränderungen heutzutage tendenziell um 5-10% zu wenig Zucker anzeigt”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: Any validation of the Klosterneuburg scale for pear must, where sorbitol contributes to dissolved solids and the 17:20 ratio Babo derived from grapes may not hold. Why not: Nothing found. The point appears to be unaddressed in the literature; tellingly, Klosterneuburg’s own perry pear trial reports °Oechsle rather than °KMW. Published instead: CiderHQ states the scale’s grape derivation wherever it appears and does not convert a pear figure into or out of °KMW. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Universities

University research and extension programmes publishing trials and analyses.

Cornell Cider Research and Extension programme

Cornell University, School of Integrative Plant Science · United States · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

Runs cultivar trials in New York State and publishes juice chemistry for European cider varieties grown in a North American climate — the single most useful counterweight to treating English figures as universal.

Competent for: north american cultivar performance; yeast assimilable nitrogen; fermentation management; juice analysis modern.

Verified passages:

  • Cornell’s nitrogen work is real and specific, and it is the basis on which CiderHQ cites the programme for yeast assimilable nitrogen rather than on the strength of the programme’s name.Publications list — Karl, Brown, Ma, Sandbrook, Stewart, Cheng, Mansfield and Peck (2020), HortScience 55(8):1356–1364, verified 2026-08-24. “Foliar urea applications increase yeast assimilable nitrogen concentration and alcoholic fermentation rate in ‘Red Spy’ apples used for cider production”
  • Orchard nitrogen management changes the YAN of the fruit, demonstrated on two cultivars CiderHQ carries.Publications list — Karl et al. (2020), HortScience 55(8):1345–1355, verified 2026-08-24. “Soil nitrogen fertilization increases yeast assimilable nitrogen concentrations in ‘Golden Russet’ and ‘Medaille d’Or’ apples used for cider production”
  • Harvest maturity and storage are levers on the phenolic content of the finished cider.Publications list — Ewing, Peck, Ma, Neilson and Stewart (2019), HortScience 54(1):143–148, verified 2026-08-24. “Management of apple maturity and post-harvest storage conditions to increase flavanols in cider”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The programme site at the address CiderHQ had registered for it. Why not: The registered host cider.cals.cornell.edu no longer resolves. The programme now publishes at hardcider.cals.cornell.edu, and the record has been corrected. A registered-but-never-opened source hides exactly this kind of rot. Published instead: The current address was located and read, and the publication list verified against it. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Washington State University cider research programme

Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center · United States · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

The single most useful open cider dataset CiderHQ has found. The programme’s cultivar performance database gives juice chemistry, orchard behaviour, bloom and harvest timing and cider-maker tasting notes for 73 cultivars grown at one maritime site over fifteen years, and — unusually — publishes its classification thresholds alongside its figures, so the classification can be checked rather than taken on trust. It also states outright that its results diverge from the English ones. Read in full on 2026-08-24 and transcribed into `data/trials/wsu-mount-vernon.ts`; four published figures were found to be impossible and are withheld there with their reasons.

Competent for: cider sensory lexicon; pacific northwest cultivars; trained panel methods; cultivar juice chemistry; cultivar orchard behaviour; classification varies by site.

Verified passages:

  • The site states plainly that its own results reclassify fruit relative to England — the clearest primary statement CiderHQ has that a cider apple’s class describes a place as well as a fruit.Cultivar Performance Database, introductory note, verified 2026-08-24. “Classification is with the English system … Some cultivars are classified differently at this site than they were classified in England.”
  • The numeric cut-offs the site applies, which let its classifications be recomputed and checked.Cultivar Performance Database, classification key, verified 2026-08-24. “Sharp Low tannin < 0.2 High acid > 0.45 · Bittersharp High tannin > 0.2 High acid > 0.45 · Sweet Low tannin < 0.2 Low acid < 0.45 · Bittersweet High tannin > 0.2 Low acid < 0.45”
  • What the published figures are measurements of, and over what period.Cultivar Performance Database, methods note, verified 2026-08-24. “Data collection is from 2002 to 2017, and average values are presented … Juice characteristics were measured for 250 mL. of juice, and juice yield was measured from 25 fruit (2015-2017 only).”
  • The site records that one of its accessions is not true to name — evidence about identity that a bare figure would have hidden.Cultivar Performance Database, “Tramlett’s” entry, Notes, verified 2026-08-24. “Not the true ‘Tramlett’s Bitter’”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: Confirmation of four published figures that cannot describe real fruit. Why not: The database prints a fruit diameter of 258 inches for Fillbarrel, juice yields for Redstreak and Taylor’s that convert to more than 900 L per tonne, and 0.11% acid for Bramley’s Seedling beside a pH of 3.12. Each looks like a lost decimal point, but CiderHQ has no basis for deciding where the point belonged. Published instead: Each figure is withheld on the cultivar it belongs to, with the published value and the reason shown, rather than republished, silently dropped, or adjusted to something plausible. Attempted 2026-08-24.

University of Vermont cider research

University of Vermont Extension · United States · authority tier 2

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

Competent for: ice cider production; cold climate cider.

Hochschule Geisenheim University — beverage technology

Hochschule Geisenheim · Germany · authority tier 1

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

German beverage-technology research covering apple wine and fruit juice processing, including the enzymology of clarification.

Competent for: juice technology; pectinase clarification; german apfelwein.

Characterization of Malus Genotypes within the USDA-PGRU Malus Germplasm Collection for their Potential Use within the Hard Cider Industry

Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit · United States · authority tier 1 · covers 2017 harvest

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

A Cornell masters thesis, open access, read in full on 2026-08-25 including the supplemental tables. The largest single-season cider characterisation CiderHQ holds: 158 accessions from the United States national apple collection, each measured for fruit weight and diameter, starch pattern index, firmness, soluble solids, titratable acidity, pH, total phenolics and the four sugars separately. Every mean is published with its standard deviation, which is why CiderHQ can store dispersion here and cannot for most historic tables. Forty-seven of the accessions correspond to cultivars the site already holds; the figures are transcribed for those and the accession identifier is recorded against each, because a germplasm label is a claim about identity rather than a proof of one.

Competent for: cultivar juice chemistry; cider apple polyphenols; titratable acidity; apple sugars; fruit maturity metrics; long ashton classification.

Verified passages:

  • The Long Ashton thresholds restated in the modern units a laboratory actually reports, and the resulting split of a large accession population.Abstract, verified 2026-08-25. “As per the Long Ashton Research Station (LARS) cider apple classification system where apples with tannin concentration (measured with the Löwenthal Permanganate Titration method) greater than 2.0 g×L-1 are classified as bitter, and those with a malic acid concentration greater than 4.5 g×L-1 are classified as sharp, 29% of the 158 accessions would be classified as bittersweet, 13% bittersharp, 28% sweet (neither bitter nor sharp), and 30% sharp.”
  • The French classification grid, with the acidity cut-offs that separate douce, acidulée and aigre.Chapter 3, §1, and Table 2, verified 2026-08-25. “The douce category is defined as any fruit with less than 4.5 g×L-1 titratable acidity … defined as titratable acidity values between 4.5 g×L-1 and 6.75 g×L-1 titratable acidity, while the aigre category is defined as greater than 6.75 g×L-1 titratable acidity.”
  • How wide the compositional spread of an apple collection actually is, which is the context every single-cultivar figure needs.Chapter 2, §3 Results, verified 2026-08-25. “soluble solids (12.3; 4.93-18.80 °Brix), titratable acidity (4.27; 2.89-18.47 g·L-1 malic acid”

Digital Viez — ViezEtymologie

Universität Trier, Digital Humanities, © 2022 · Germany · authority tier 2

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

A university digital-humanities project on the Viez word, and the only source found that weighs the competing derivations rather than repeating one. Useful chiefly for what it rules out: the vice-vinum derivation that every popular account gives is semantically tidy and phonologically impossible, and the Latin *vitis* that circulates in English writing is not among the candidates any scholar has proposed. Retrieved and read on 2026-08-25.

Competent for: viez etymology; moselle franconian terminology.

Verified passages:

  • The stand-in-for-wine derivation fails on sound change, whatever its charm. A short i does not become the long i of Viez.ViezEtymologie, verified 2026-08-25. “Obgleich semantisch im Reinen, spricht gegen die vice-Etymologie, dass das kurze i mit der Lautentwicklung niemals ein langes i wie in „Viez” sondern ein ei ergeben hätte.”
  • The lees derivation works phonologically and fails on meaning. No European cider region names its drink after wine lees, and no text shows faex denoting something drunk.ViezEtymologie, verified 2026-08-25. “Recherchen zeigen, dass in keiner europäischen Region, die über eine lange und stolze Apfelweintradition verfügt, zur Bezeichnung des Apfelweins ein Wort verwendet wird, das ursprünglich „Weinhefe“, also „schlechter Wein” bedeutete. Es gibt keine schriftlichen Belege dafür, dass faex eine zum Trinken vorgesehene Flüssigkeit war.”
  • The derivation that survives both tests, and the medieval attestation behind it — a *pott puitz* in a Prüm manuscript of 1413, with *puitz* from Latin potio, a drink.ViezEtymologie, verified 2026-08-25. “In einer Handschrift aus der Eifelstadt Prüm aus dem Jahr 1413 ist von einem „pott puitz” die Rede … Argumente dafür, dass mit „puitz” tatsächlich der Apfelwein bezeichnet wurde, liegen einerseits in dem lateinischen potio (Trank), dem etymologischen Ursprung von puitz.”
  • Where the word is actually used, which is a dialect area and not a state.ViezEtymologie, opening, verified 2026-08-25. “Im gesamten Moseltal, im Saargau, in südlichen Gebieten von Eifel und Hunsrück und sogar in Teilgebieten Luxembourgs werden Viez-Liebhaber*innen fündig.”

Peer-reviewed literature

Registered as a class where a mechanism rests on many studies rather than one paper. Individual papers are cited where a specific figure is quoted.

Peer-reviewed literature on apple phenolics and cider sensory perception

Various journals · International · authority tier 1

Registered as competent · no access date recorded

Registered as a class rather than as one paper, because the mechanisms CiderHQ describes — tannin chain length driving the split between bitterness and astringency, salivary protein precipitation, enzymatic browning — are established across many studies rather than resting on any single one. Individual papers are cited where a specific number is quoted.

Competent for: astringency mechanism; bitterness mechanism; enzymatic browning; sensory thresholds.

Peer-reviewed literature on cider fermentation microbiology

Various journals · International · authority tier 1

Registered as competent · no access date recorded

Covers the microbial succession of spontaneous cider fermentation, the role of non-Saccharomyces yeasts in the early stages, malolactic conversion by Oenococcus and Lactobacillus species, and the organisms behind the principal spoilage faults.

Competent for: microbial succession; non saccharomyces role; malolactic organisms; spoilage organisms; framboise and ropiness.

Research on pear juice composition and sorbitol in perry

Various journals and institute reports · International · authority tier 1

Registered as competent · no access date recorded

The evidence base for the single most important chemical difference between cider and perry: pears carry substantial sorbitol, which yeast does not ferment, so a fully fermented perry retains sweetness a fully fermented cider cannot.

Competent for: sorbitol in pears; perry residual sweetness; pear acid profile; citric acid in pears.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: Sorbitol measured variety by variety, in named perry pears, by a stated method. Why not: Nothing CiderHQ has reached publishes it. The Long Ashton perry pear tables report gravity, acidity and tannin and not sorbitol; the modern Three Counties survey reports the phenolic fractions and the individual amino acids and not sorbitol, and its author says plainly that sorbitol “was not directly measured” in the juices he fermented — inferring it instead from how high the ferments finished. This is a conspicuous gap: sorbitol is the single most repeated fact about perry and nobody appears to have published it per cultivar. Published instead: Perry pear records carry a pooled pear-juice range from the general literature, marked on every measurement as a general figure for pear juice rather than as an analysis of that cultivar, with the reason it is recorded on that record stated alongside it. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Evaluation of Flower, Fruit, and Juice Characteristics of a Multinational Collection of Cider Apple Cultivars Grown in the U.S. Pacific Northwest

Miles, King, Alexander and Scheenstra, HortTechnology 27(3):431–439 · United States · authority tier 1 · covers 2000–2015

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

The peer-reviewed companion to the WSU cultivar database, and the paper that states the reclassification finding as a result rather than as a website footnote. Eighteen cultivars — four American, nine English, four French and one Danish dessert apple — grown at Mount Vernon and assessed over fifteen seasons. The full text sits behind a publisher wall that refuses automated retrieval; the abstract carries the findings below verbatim and was read through the Semantic Scholar record for the DOI.

Competent for: classification varies by site; pacific northwest cultivars; cultivar juice chemistry; cider apple productivity.

Verified passages:

  • Cultivars classified in England fell into different classes when grown in northwest Washington, and the authors attribute it to climate and management.Abstract, verified 2026-08-24. “Classification of three cultivars in northwest Washington, based on juice characteristics, differed from their historical classification in England, likely because of differences in climate and management.”
  • Tannin measured at this site ran below the historic Long Ashton figures for the same cultivars.Abstract, verified 2026-08-24. “Three of the cultivars had tannin content lower than what was historically recorded at the Long Ashton Research Station (LARS) in Bristol, England, for those same cultivars.”
  • The trial-wide means, which give the spread that any single cultivar figure sits inside.Abstract, verified 2026-08-24. “For the 18 cultivars, the mean tannin and titratable acidity (TA) were 0.20% ± 0.14% and 0.54% ± 0.28% … The mean specific gravity (SG) of the 18 cultivars was 1.052 ± 0.007 … and the mean pH was 3.68 ± 0.39.”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The per-cultivar tables from the full text, with sample counts and season-by-season figures. Why not: journals.ashs.org serves a client-side application and returns HTTP 403 to retrieval. The publisher location Unpaywall lists is the same blocked address, and no repository copy was found. Published instead: The per-cultivar figures CiderHQ publishes come from the programme’s own cultivar database, which covers a longer period (2002–2017) and a larger set of fruit. This paper is cited for the findings its abstract states. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Regional Variation in Juice Quality Characteristics of Four Cider Apple (Malus ×domestica Borkh.) Cultivars in Northwest and Central Washington

Alexander, King, Zimmerman and Miles, HortScience 51(12):1498–1502 · United States · authority tier 1 · covers 2012–2015

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

A designed test of the question every cultivar page implicitly raises: does the same fruit give different juice in a different climate? Brown Snout, Dabinett, Kingston Black and Yarlington Mill, at four orchards across a cool maritime region and a hot dry one, over four seasons. The answer is more interesting than a yes: within Washington the region made no significant difference, but the season did — and all four cultivars sat below the tannin threshold that would have made them bitter under the English scheme. The paper also supplies the numeric definition of the English classes as the cider literature states them, attributed to Barker and Burroughs (1953).

Competent for: regional variation in juice; season variation in tannin; classification varies by site; long ashton thresholds.

Verified passages:

  • The numeric thresholds behind the English bittersweet and bittersharp classes.Introduction, verified 2026-08-24. “Quality cider is traditionally made from bittersweet (acid <0.45%, tannin >0.20%) and bittersharp (acid >0.45%, tannin >0.20%) cider apples (Barker and Burroughs, 1953).”
  • Region did not significantly change juice quality within Washington, but cultivar did — a result that cuts against the assumption that any climate difference must show up in the juice.Abstract, verified 2026-08-24. “There were no significant differences in any of the juice quality characteristics due to region and no significant interaction of region, cultivar, and/or year. Results did show, as expected, a significant difference in all five juice characteristics due to cultivar.”
  • Season moved tannin even where region did not.Abstract, verified 2026-08-24. “There was also a difference in SG and tannin due to year; SG was lowest in 2013 while tannin was highest in 2012. … The difference in tannin from year to year was likely due to climatic variation over the four years of this study.”
  • Four cultivars treated as bitter fruit in England did not reach the bitter threshold when grown in Washington.Abstract, verified 2026-08-24. “in the current study, the four cultivars exhibited tannin levels below 0.20% and would not be classified as bitter, unlike their historical classification at LARS.”

Yeast species associated with the spontaneous fermentation of cider

Suárez Valles, Pando Bedriñana, Fernández Tascón, Querol Simón and Rodríguez Madrera, Food Microbiology 24(1):25–31 · Spain · authority tier 1 · covers 2001–2002

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

SERIDA’s survey of what is actually growing in an Asturian cellar during a spontaneous ferment, across two harvests and two pressing technologies. Read in full from the author institution’s open repository (ria.asturias.es, handle 123456789/925) on 2026-08-24. Two things make it worth citing rather than summarising: it identifies its isolates molecularly rather than by colony appearance, and it publishes the analytical composition of the finished ciders alongside the microbiology, so a reader can see the organisms and the numbers they produced in the same paper. It also contradicts the textbook account of apiculate yeasts dying out early, which is why CiderHQ cites it on that point specifically.

Competent for: microbial succession; non saccharomyces role; spontaneous fermentation temperature; asturian cider composition; cider organic acids; cider volatile composition.

Verified passages:

  • How the fruit is pressed changes which organisms are in the must before fermentation starts — a technology effect, not a terroir one.Abstract, verified 2026-08-24. “The musts obtained by pneumatic pressing were dominated by non-Saccharomyces yeasts (Hanseniaspora genus and Metschnikowia pulcherrima) whereas in the apple juices obtained by traditional pressing Saccharomyces together with non-Saccharomyces, were always present.”
  • Two Saccharomyces species share the ferment in sequence rather than one running it throughout.Abstract, verified 2026-08-24. “Apparently S. bayanus, was the predominant species at the beginning and the middle fermentation steps of the fermentation process, reaching a percentage of isolation between 33% and 41%, whereas S. cerevisiae took over the process in the final stages of fermentation.”
  • Hanseniaspora valbyensis survived to the end of every fermentation in one harvest, against the usual account that apiculate yeasts are killed off by rising alcohol within days.Abstract; §4 Discussion, verified 2026-08-24. “During the 2001 harvest, with independence of cider-making technology, the species Hanseniaspora valbyensis was always isolated at the end of fermentations.”
  • The conditions the survival result depends on: a cold cellar, no sulphite, and a juice too low in sugar to reach a high alcohol.§2.1 Cider-making; §4 Discussion, verified 2026-08-24. “spontaneously fermented at 12–15 °C (cellar temperature) … the cider making technology (fermentation at low temperature, without SO2 added), and the composition of apple musts, with sugar contents lower than 110 g/l, which yields a low alcohol content in the final product”
  • The analytical composition of the finished Asturian natural ciders, which is where CiderHQ’s lactic, acetic, succinic, glycerol, sorbitol and volatile figures for this style come from.Table 3, Analytical characteristics of natural ciders, verified 2026-08-24. “pH 3.67–3.84; Glycerol (g/l) 3.6–4.8; Etanol (% v/v) 6.3–6.6; Sorbitol (g/l) 6.5–6.6; Lactic acid (g/l) 4.0–4.7; Acetic acid (g/l) 0.2–0.3; Succinic acid (g/l) 0.4–0.8; Acetaldehyde (mg/l) 2–3; Ethyl acetate (mg/l) 24–50; Methanol (mg/l) 40–87; Amyl alcohols (mg/l) 142–253; Acetoin (mg/l) 2–4; 2-Phenylethanol (mg/l) 45–121”
  • Both fermentations ran on the indigenous flora, and the malic acid was gone by the end.§3 Results and discussion, verified 2026-08-24. “In all the ciders of our study, both the alcoholic and malolactic fermentations were carried out by the indigenous flora and malic acid contents were lower than 0.5 g/l”

Free amino nitrogen concentration correlates to total yeast assimilable nitrogen concentration in apple juice

Boudreau, Peck, O’Keefe and Stewart, Food Science & Nutrition 6(1):119–123 · United States · authority tier 1 · covers 2014–2015

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

Open access; read in full on 2026-08-24. The paper that gives cider its own nitrogen numbers instead of borrowing wine’s. A hundred and eight apple samples from Virginia over two seasons, with the two fractions of assimilable nitrogen measured separately — which matters, because the finding is that apple juice is short of ammonium specifically, and that the wine practice of measuring both fractions may be unnecessary for apples while the wine practice of assuming there is enough nitrogen is badly wrong.

Competent for: apple juice yan; free amino nitrogen; ammonium in apple juice; stuck fermentation risk; fermentation nutrition.

Verified passages:

  • The range and mean of yeast assimilable nitrogen in Virginia apple juice, and the split between its two fractions.Abstract, verified 2026-08-24. “FAN was the largest fraction of YAN, with a mean value of 51 mg N L−1 FAN compared to 9 mg N L−1 ammonium. Observed YAN values ranged from nine to 249 mg N L−1, with a mean value of 59 mg N L−1.”
  • Almost all apple juice falls below the nitrogen concentration wine practice treats as the minimum for a complete ferment.Abstract, verified 2026-08-24. “Ninety-four percent of all samples analyzed in this study contained <140 mg N L−1 YAN, a concentration generally considered the minimum level needed in grape-based wines for yeast to fully utilize all of the fermentable sugars.”
  • In apple juice the amino fraction tracks the total and the ammonium fraction does not, which is the opposite of the grape case.Abstract; §3 Results, verified 2026-08-24. “FAN concentration was correlated with total YAN concentration, but ammonium concentration was not. Likewise, there was no correlation between FAN and ammonium concentration.”
  • The same cultivar on the same trees can be nitrogen-sufficient one year and deficient the next, so a single measurement does not carry forward.§4 Discussion, verified 2026-08-24. “This finding demonstrates that apple juice with sufficient YAN concentration for fermentation in 1 year may not have sufficient YAN the next year, even for the same cultivar grown using similar management practices in both seasons.”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The per-cultivar yeast assimilable nitrogen figures behind the study means. Why not: The published figures report the two seasons in aggregate and present the per-cultivar data as plotted regressions rather than as a table of values. Published instead: CiderHQ publishes the study-wide range and means with their sample count, and does not attribute a nitrogen figure to any individual cultivar. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Yeast Assimilable Nitrogen Concentrations Influence Yeast Gene Expression and Hydrogen Sulfide Production During Cider Fermentation

Song, Gibney, Cheng, Liu and Peck, Frontiers in Microbiology 11:1264 · United States · authority tier 1 · covers 2016

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

Open access; read in full on 2026-08-24. This is the paper CiderHQ cites against the folk rule that low nitrogen causes sulphide and adding nutrient cures it. Two Saccharomyces strains fermented the same Cornell juice at three nitrogen levels: one strain produced no detectable hydrogen sulphide at any level, and in the strain that did, the middle nitrogen treatment produced the most — twice the low treatment and six times the high. A rule that is true on average is being applied to individual batches where it can be exactly backwards, and the correction is worth a page of its own.

Competent for: hydrogen sulphide formation; yan and sulphide; yeast strain effects; nutrient addition; cider fermentation conditions.

Verified passages:

  • The concentration at which hydrogen sulphide becomes perceptible, stated in a cider paper.§1 Introduction, verified 2026-08-24. “Hydrogen sulfide, which smells like “rotten eggs” (sensory threshold >0.00041 mg L–1), is a common off-aroma compound formed by yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) during cider fermentation.”
  • The relationship between nitrogen and sulphide is not a straight line, and the middle of the range was the worst place to be.§3 Results, Hydrogen Sulfide Production, verified 2026-08-24. “In the UCD522 Intermediate DAP fermentation, H2S production was two and six times greater (288.250 μg 100 ml–1) than the Low (123.750 μg 100 ml–1) and High (44.125 μg 100 ml–1) treatments.”
  • Whether sulphide appears at all is a property of the yeast strain before it is a property of the juice.§3 Results, Hydrogen Sulfide Production, verified 2026-08-24. “Hydrogen sulfide was not detected for the fermentations using the UCD932 yeast strain, regardless of DAP treatment concentration.”
  • The juice and the fermentation conditions the result was obtained under, without which the numbers do not transfer.§2 Materials and Methods, verified 2026-08-24. “The pre-fermentation juice chemistry was: YAN = 63.7 mg L–1, soluble solids concentration = 12.95 °Brix; titratable acidity = 3.45 g L–1; pH 4.15; and total polyphenols (as measured by the Folin-Ciocalteu Assay) = 1.1 g gallic acid equivalents⋅L–1. … Two sets of fermentations were carried out in a temperature-controlled room set at 20°C … The starter yeast was then added to 100 ml of apple juice at a rate of 1 × 10 7 cells⋅ml–1.”
  • When in the ferment sulphide appears and when it stops.§3 Results, Hydrogen Sulfide Production, verified 2026-08-24. “For UCD522, the release of H2S started after 24 h for the High treatment and after 72 h for the Low and Intermediate treatments. Hydrogen sulfide production ceased after 192 h for all three UCD522 fermentations.”

Phylogenomic Analysis of Oenococcus oeni Reveals Specific Domestication of Strains to Cider and Wines

Campbell-Sills, El Khoury, Favier and others, Genome Biology and Evolution 7(6):1506–1518 · International · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

Open access; read in full on 2026-08-24. Fifty genomes of the bacterium that performs malolactic fermentation, and the finding that the cider strains are not simply wine strains that happened to land in cider. The strain basal to the whole species came out of cider, and the authors read the pattern as separate domestication of one ancestral low-alcohol fruit organism into two drinks. It is also the source CiderHQ uses for what a malolactic population actually reaches, which is the difference between an organism being present and an organism running the process.

Competent for: malolactic organisms; oenococcus populations; cider versus wine microbiology; bacterial strain diversity.

Verified passages:

  • What an Oenococcus population reaches once it takes hold, and that it does so in cider as well as in wine.§Introduction, verified 2026-08-24. “It proliferates in wine and cider during or after the yeast-driven alcoholic fermentation and reaches population levels above 10 6 cells/ml, thus becoming the only detectable bacterial species.”
  • Cider strains are genetically distinguishable from wine strains, and the most basal strain in the species came from cider.§Results and Discussion, verified 2026-08-24. “The strain from putative group C was isolated from cider and genetically closer to group B strains. … group A strains proved to be predominant in wine and to form subgroups adapted to specific types of wine such as champagne, group B strains were found in wine and cider.”
  • Why the same bacterium suits both drinks, and the one parameter on which cider is materially easier.§Results and Discussion, verified 2026-08-24. “It is not surprising that O. oeni develops well in cider because cider is rather similar as wine regarding stress parameters: acidity, ethanol, polyphenols, and available substrates (sugars, malate, and citrate). The main difference is probably the total level of alcohol that rarely exceeds 6% in cider, whereas it is usually 11–14% in wine.”

Variability of the Polyphenolic Composition of Cider Apple (Malus domestica) Fruits and Juices

Guyot, Marnet, Sanoner and Drilleau, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 51(21):6240–6247 · France · authority tier 1

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

The reference measurement of what phenolic material actually survives into a French cider juice, and at what chain length. Bibliographic record and abstract verified on 2026-08-24 through Crossref and Semantic Scholar; the full text sits behind the ACS paywall and was not opened. Worth recording: a correction to this paper was published by the same authors in the same volume at 51(25):7522, doi:10.1021/jf0306993 — a fact that a citation copied from a secondary source would not carry.

Competent for: procyanidin concentration; procyanidin chain length; phenolic losses in processing; french cider apple phenolics.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The per-variety phenolic tables and the degree-of-polymerisation distributions. Why not: pubs.acs.org is paywalled and refuses automated retrieval; the HAL record for the paper is served behind an access-control challenge that also refuses retrieval. No open repository copy was found. Published instead: CiderHQ publishes only the figures the abstract states, attributed to the study as a whole rather than to any named variety. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Impact of apple procyanidins on sensory perception in model cider (parts 1 and 2)

Symoneaux, Baron, Marnet, Bauduin and Chollet, LWT — Food Science and Technology 57:22–27; and Symoneaux, Chollet, Bauduin, Le Quéré and Baron, LWT 57:28–34 · France · authority tier 1

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

A pair of companion papers that do the one experiment the tannin question needs: hold the acid, the sugar and the alcohol constant, vary only the procyanidin fraction, and ask a panel what changed. They are the reason CiderHQ can say that bitterness and astringency separate on chain length rather than on quantity, and that they do not separate the same way at every concentration. Both abstracts and both bibliographic records verified on 2026-08-24; the full texts are on ScienceDirect behind a paywall and were not opened. Part 2 is doi:10.1016/j.lwt.2014.01.007.

Competent for: astringency mechanism; bitterness mechanism; procyanidin chain length; tannin perception; sensory interaction.

Verified passages:

  • At a fixed concentration, chain length decides how much of a phenolic load reads as bitterness and how much as astringency — and the relationship is not monotonic for bitterness.Part 2, abstract, verified 2026-08-24. “At 750 mg/L of procyanidins, the DP impacted astringency and bitterness but not sweetness or sourness. The medium DP (tetramer) of apple procyanidins was the most bitter and astringency increased with the DP.”
  • Tannin changes perceived sweetness and sourness even when the sugar and the acid have not moved, which is why a tannic cider tastes drier than its analysis.Part 1, abstract, verified 2026-08-24. “Despite the fact that pH, fructose and malic acid concentrations were the same in all samples, the perception of sweetness and sourness were modified according to the concentration of procyanidins.”
  • The chain-length effect is not a constant: it depends on how much phenolic material is present.Part 1, abstract, verified 2026-08-24. “The degree of polymerization (DP) of procyanidins influenced only bitterness and astringency but this impact was not the same for all concentrations.”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The panel scores and the concentration series behind the two abstracts. Why not: Both papers are paywalled on ScienceDirect and no repository copy was found. Published instead: CiderHQ states the direction of each effect and the one concentration the abstracts name, and does not publish a curve it has not seen. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Prevalent lactic acid bacteria in cider cellars and efficiency of Oenococcus oeni strains

Sánchez, Coton, Coton, Herrero, García and Díaz, Food Microbiology 32(1):32–37 · Spain · authority tier 1

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

Which lactic acid bacteria are actually in working Asturian cider cellars, rather than which ones the wine literature would predict. Bibliographic record verified through Crossref on 2026-08-24 and the abstract read; the full text is paywalled on ScienceDirect. Cited for the identification of the prevalent species and for the finding that strains sort by producing area, not for any figure.

Competent for: malolactic organisms; lactic acid bacteria in cider; asturian cider microbiology.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The strain tables and the malolactic efficiency results. Why not: Paywalled on ScienceDirect; no repository copy found. Published instead: CiderHQ cites the species identification the abstract states and does not reproduce efficiency figures it has not read. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Enhancing fruit spirit quality: Novel approaches to mash acidification techniques

Fejzullahu, Kun-Farkas and Kun, Acta Alimentaria 53(3):360–372 · International · authority tier 1

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

Registered because it is the one study CiderHQ found that tests biological acidification on apple mash rather than on grape must. That distinction matters: the extensive Lachancea thermotolerans literature is a wine literature, and a result obtained in grape juice at pH 3.5 with 220 g/L of sugar does not transfer to apple juice at pH 3.9 with 110. Bibliographic record verified through Crossref and the abstract read on 2026-08-24; the full text is behind the publisher’s wall.

Competent for: bioacidification; lachancea in apple fermentation; lactic acid production by yeast.

Verified passages:

  • How much acidification two organisms actually achieved on apple mash, which is the difference between a mechanism and a technique.Abstract, verified 2026-08-24. “Through their outstanding lactic acid production (1.05–1.26 g L−1), they were able to reduce the pH of the mash by 0.29–0.40 pH units.”
  • Sequential inoculation changed the aroma as well as the acid.Abstract, verified 2026-08-24. “the sequential fermentation of these strains with Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a powerful strategy to modulate the aroma profile of apple spirits. Spirits were characterised by an enhanced ester profile with particularly increased ethyl lactate concentrations.”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The strain identities, the mash chemistry before and after, and the ester quantification. Why not: akjournals.com returns HTTP 403 to automated retrieval and no repository copy was found. Published instead: CiderHQ publishes only the two figures the abstract states, and says that the substrate was apple mash destined for spirit rather than cider. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Aroma Release and Consumer Perception During Cider Consumption

Chen, Zhao, Jiang, Liu, Cao, Ye, Mao and He, Foods 14(6):1005 · International · authority tier 1 · covers 2025

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

Open access; read in full on 2026-08-24. Registered for one finding that changes how every descriptor page on this site should be read: the aroma compounds that correlate with a perceived attribute are not the same set when the cider is sniffed as when it is in the mouth. Five commercial ciders, a trained panel and a consumer panel, with the headspace sampled both ways. A compound present above its threshold in the glass was in one case detectable retronasally in only one of the five samples.

Competent for: retronasal olfaction; aroma release; sensory thresholds; cider sensory analysis.

Verified passages:

  • Which compounds drive a perceived attribute depends on whether the cider is being smelled or drunk, and the difference is not small.Abstract, verified 2026-08-24. “The results revealed that the compounds with high correlation with “t-sweet” and “f-fruity” were roughly the same in two PLS models, whereas the number of compounds contributing positively to “t-sour” and “f-fermented” changed significantly.”
  • Being above a published odour threshold in the glass does not mean a compound reaches the nose from the mouth.§3 Results and Discussion, verified 2026-08-24. “compared to the volatile compounds identified by GC-MS, isoamyl acetate and ethyl hexanoate were detected at concentrations exceeding their thresholds in all samples. However, in oral aroma compounds, isoamyl acetate was detected only in MMKL, while ethyl hexanoate was detected only in HYPP.”
  • Ethyl lactate is present in cider in quantity and is nevertheless hard to smell.§3 Results and Discussion, verified 2026-08-24. “SNB showed the highest concentration of ethyl lactate, which contributes fruity and milky notes to cider. However, its odor detection threshold is relatively high (approximately 14 mg/L), making it less impactful on the wine aroma compared to ethyl acetate.”

Effects of Torulaspora delbrueckii and Saccharomyces cerevisiae Co-Fermentation on the Physicochemical and Flavor Compounds of Huaniu Apple Cider

Zeng, Mu, Yuan, Zhang, Song and Kang, Molecules 29(8):1750 · International · authority tier 1 · covers 2024

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

Open access; read in full on 2026-08-24. Cited for a threshold rather than for its main result: β-damascenone, which smells of baked apple, flowers and honey, is stated at 0.05 micrograms per litre. That is two orders of magnitude below hydrogen sulphide and it explains why a compound nobody would find on a routine analysis can be among the first things a taster names. The paper’s co-fermentation findings are on a Chinese dessert cultivar in a laboratory ferment and are not generalised here.

Competent for: sensory thresholds; non saccharomyces role; cider volatile composition.

Verified passages:

  • How little of a potent aroma compound is needed, stated for one of the most potent in cider.§3 Results and Discussion, verified 2026-08-24. “β-Damascenone is characterized by baked apple, floral, and honey aromas, and this metabolite has a very low odor threshold, at 0.05 micrograms per liter, meaning that even minor changes can significantly impact the sensory evaluation of wine.”

Characterization of the Polyphenol Composition of 20 Cultivars of Cider, Processing, and Dessert Apples (Malus × domestica Borkh.) Grown in Virginia

Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry · United States · authority tier 1 · covers 2012–2013

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-25

Twenty cultivars spanning cider, processing and dessert fruit, measured by one laboratory with one method — which makes it the cleanest evidence CiderHQ holds for what actually separates a cider apple from an eating apple. Harrison reaches 926 mg/L total phenolics against a Golden Delicious of 218. The published table reached CiderHQ through a specialist transcription rather than from the journal itself, which is recorded as a gap; the paper’s bibliographic identity, authorship and DOI were verified against the Crossref register on 2026-08-25 — which caught a transcription error in the DOI CiderHQ had first recorded, and is the reason the register is checked rather than assumed.

Competent for: apple polyphenols; cultivar juice chemistry; cider apple versus dessert apple.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The published tables and methods as printed in the journal. Why not: The article sits behind a subscription. The table CiderHQ transcribes was republished, with attribution, on a specialist compilation page whose author is a phenolic chemist; the figures are therefore secondary, and no part of the paper’s discussion is cited. Published instead: Only the numeric table is used, and every measurement records that it reaches the site through a transcription rather than from the journal. Attempted 2026-08-25.

The Long Ashton Legacy: Characterising United Kingdom West Country cider apples using a genotyping by targeted sequencing approach

Harper, Winfield, Copas, Przewieslik-Allen, Barker, Burridge, Hughes, Davies and Edwards, University of Bristol, in PLANTS, PEOPLE, PLANET 2(2) · United Kingdom · authority tier 1 · covers 1950s–2019

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

Open access under CC BY, read on 2026-08-25. The single most useful genetics source CiderHQ has found for cider apples: 245 cultivars genotyped at 1,500 SNP markers, with the explicit aim of recovering the parentage of the Long Ashton breeding selections known collectively as “The Girls”. It is the reason this site can now separate a genetically supported parentage from a traditional attribution and mean something by the distinction. It also quantifies the identity problem from inside a collection — 17 of 76 cultivars sampled in replicate failed to cluster with themselves — and demonstrates the boundary of the method, which cannot separate a sport from the cultivar it arose on.

Competent for: cider apple genetics; cultivar parentage; cultivar identity; long ashton breeding; cultivar synonyms.

Verified passages:

  • The genetically supported parentage of the Long Ashton breeding selections, in three groups rather than one.§3 Results, on the relationship of the selections to their putative parents, verified 2026-08-25. “The cultivars Angela, Fiona, Gilly, Hastings, Helen’s Apple, Jane, Jean, Naomi, Sally, Three Counties, Tina, Tracey, Vicky, and Willy … are clearly more similar to Dabinett and James Grieve. … Amanda, Betty, Debbie, Joanna, Lizzy, Margaret, and Prince William … are more similar to Michelin and James Grieve. … Hannah and Jenny are most similar to Dabinett and Worcester Pearmain.”
  • How often a labelled tree is not what the label says, measured from inside a collection rather than asserted.§3 Results, on replicate clustering, verified 2026-08-25. “Of these 76 cultivars, in 59 cases, the putative replicates clustered in accordance with the labeling provided by the various orchards. In 17 cases, however, putative replicates failed to cluster … indicating that many cultivars are labeled incorrectly.”
  • The boundary of the method: genotyping separates cultivars and does not separate a sport from its parent.§3 Results, and §4 Discussion, verified 2026-08-25. “Due to the high level of heterozygosity in apple, we were able to discriminate between all cultivars sampled except those derived as sports from other named cultivars. … Cox’s Orange Pippin and its sport, Queens Cox; only one SNP difference between them. Similarly, Tom Putt and the sport derived from it, Red Tom Putt … were 99.6% identical.”
  • That two trees a grower judges identical on habit and juice can be genetically unrelated — the case against identifying fruit by how it behaves.§3 Results, verified 2026-08-25. “Loders M and Loders P, two cultivars found during a hunt for old Dorset cider apple trees and thought to be the same type because they had similar growth habit and shared the same juicing characteristics … had only 50% of SNP markers in common.”
  • The size and the sponsors of the Long Ashton cider breeding programme, which is what “The Girls” came out of.§2 Materials and methods, verified 2026-08-25. “1,500 seedlings (500 D x JG; 200 D x WP; 650 M x JG and 150 M x WP)”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: A resolved genotype for the selections the study could not settle. Why not: The authors state that where only two samples of a cultivar were available and those two differed, they could not determine which — if either — was correct, and they name Amelia, Connie, Eleni and Nicky. CiderHQ holds no record for any of the four and would need a resolved genotype before creating one. Published instead: The four unresolved selections are not given records. The site publishes the twenty-three whose grouping the study states. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Differentiation of Basque cider apple juices from different cultivars by means of chemometric techniques

Campo, Santos, Berregi and Munduate, Food Control 16(6) · Spain · authority tier 1 · covers 2005

Bibliographic record verified · consulted 2026-08-25

Thirty-five juices from five Basque cider apple varieties — Gezamina, Moko, Goikoetxea, Txalaka and Urtebi — characterised on fourteen variables and shown by cluster and principal-component analysis to separate by cultivar. Bibliographic identity, authorship, journal and DOI verified against the Crossref register on 2026-08-25; the article itself is behind a subscription, its abstract is elided from every open index CiderHQ tried, and no numeric figure from it is published here. It is cited on the Basque cultivar pages for the finding that the varieties are chemically distinguishable, which is what a citation to an unread paper can honestly support.

Competent for: basque cider apples; cultivar juice chemistry; cultivar differentiation.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The per-cultivar figures — titratable acidity, malic acid, pH, epicatechin, glucose and fructose for each of the five varieties. Why not: Subscription only. Unusually, the abstract is elided from Semantic Scholar and absent from OpenAlex, so not even the summary figures could be read at source. Secondary summaries quote a total sugar range of 96.7 to 128.7 grams per litre across the five varieties; CiderHQ has not seen that in the paper and does not publish it as a measurement. Published instead: The Basque cultivar records carry no figure from this study. They cite it for the qualitative finding — that the five are chemically separable — and for nothing else. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Review of William Kerrigan, Johnny Appleseed and the American Orchard: A Cultural History

Jeff Bremer, Indiana Magazine of History vol. 109 no. 1, March 2013, pp. 78–79 · United States · authority tier 2 · covers 1774–1845

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

Open access, retrieved as PDF and read in full on 2026-08-25. Short, but it is the most citable statement anywhere of what the archival record actually establishes about Chapman and what it does not, and it is careful about the difference — the cider-mill seed is given as a probability, not a fact. One caution: the review misstates the death year as 1846. The date is 1845, and it is not in dispute; a reviewer’s slip in a two-page notice does not weaken what the review says about the book’s findings, but this record should not be cited for dates.

Competent for: appleseed scholarship; american orchard history.

Verified passages:

  • The cider-mill origin of Chapman’s seed is supported and scholarly-endorsed, and it is still a probability rather than a documented transaction. No bill of sale for pomace or pips has been produced.p. 78, verified 2026-08-25. “He began to plant apple orchards, probably using easily carried seeds discarded from cider mills.”
  • The austere teetotal vegetarian of the schoolbooks is contradicted by the earliest hard commercial record of the man, and the reviewer says so.p. 79, verified 2026-08-25. “Chapman appears in 1799 merchant ledgers in Pennsylvania, bringing bushels of corn for sale. He bought alcohol, tobacco, pork, sugar, and shoes. Some of those purchases raise questions about the virtuous life attributed to the legend”
  • What a frontier seedling was worth, and how it was paid for — the commercial detail the legend removes.p. 79, verified 2026-08-25. “By 1801, he had moved further west to Ohio, selling seedlings for three or five cents each and in return accepting almost any payment. Chapman continued to speculate, unprofitably, in land.”
  • The specific legend elements the scholarship clears away, listed by a reviewer rather than assembled by CiderHQ.p. 78, verified 2026-08-25. “He is remembered as a pacifist and a vegetarian, a man trusted by natives and white pioneers, and a meek person who reportedly refused to start a fire for fear that the flames would kill mosquitoes. William Kerrigan’s fine book portrays a man quite different from the myth.”

Specialist organisations

Strong within their competence and weak outside it. Cited for what a sector says about itself, not for chemistry.

Révision du décret cidre : le nouveau décret entre en vigueur au 1er juillet 2025

Union Nationale Interprofessionnelle Cidricole (UNICID), Jean-Louis Benassi · France · authority tier 2

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

The French cider interbranch organisation’s own briefing on the 2025 décret, read in full on 2026-08-24. It is registered because the primary text could not be retrieved verbatim and this one reproduces the operative sweetness table, and it is registered at tier 2 rather than tier 1 because an interbranch body explaining a decree is not the decree. Where it is cited, it is cited for what the instrument says, alongside the instrument.

Competent for: french sweetness categories; french labelling mentions; french cidre definition; french industry guidance.

Verified passages:

  • The four French sweetness categories as the 2025 décret defines them — on acquired alcoholic strength and density, not on sugar.Table, “Ces catégories sont ainsi définies”, verified 2026-08-24. “Doux : titre alcoométrique volumique acquis inférieur ou égal à 3% volumique ; densité à 20°C supérieure ou égale à 1,024. Demi sec : supérieur à 3% volumique ; densité supérieure à 1,016. Brut : supérieur ou égal à 3,5% volumique ; densité inférieure ou égale à 1,016. Extra brut : supérieur ou égal à 5% volumique ; densité inférieure à 1,013.”
  • Why the basis was changed, in the interbranch body’s own words.Body text preceding the table, verified 2026-08-24. “une évolution des critères définissant les mentions "doux", "demi-sec", "brut" et maintenant "extra-brut", qui reposent, dans le texte révisé, sur la densité et le titre alcoolique et non plus sur la teneur en sucre. Ceci donne plus de souplesse (et donc moins de risque d’erreur) entre les catégories, qui se recouvrent en partie, et permet à tous les producteurs de suivre et positionner plus facilement leurs produits dans l’une des catégories, à l’aide d’un simple densimètre.”
  • When the new rules bite, and what happens to stock labelled under the old ones.Opening paragraph and closing paragraph, verified 2026-08-24. “Il entre en vigueur le 1er juillet 2025, sauf pour les mentions « artisanal » et « rosé », qui entrent en vigueur au 1er janvier 2026. … Les cidres et poirés mis sur le marché ou étiquetés jusqu’au 30 juin 2025 et qui sont conformes aux dispositions en vigueur jusqu’à cette date pourront en revanche être commercialisés jusqu’à épuisement des stocks.”
  • The qualifying mentions the décret defines, including the two that describe how the bubble got there.List, “Les mentions distinguant des qualités spécifiques”, verified 2026-08-24. “« Pur jus » : obtenu sans moûts concentrés et sans emploi d’eau. « Effervescence naturelle » ou « Prise de mousse naturelle » : l’effervescence provient exclusivement de la fermentation alcoolique, sans ajout lors de la mise en bouteille de gaz exogène ou issu de cette fermentation. « Bouché » : présentant une teneur en anhydride carbonique au moins égale à 3 grammes par litre ; commercialisé sous des volumes nominaux égaux ou supérieurs à 37,5 centilitres dans des bouteilles de type « vins mousseux » fermées au moyen de bouchons de type « champignon ».”
  • Two producer-status mentions that French law defines and British labelling has no equivalent of.List, “De nouvelles mentions sont définies”, verified 2026-08-24. “« Fermier » : l’ensemble des opérations relatives à l’élaboration du produit, jusqu’au conditionnement final y compris l’étiquetage, est réalisé par un chef d’exploitation agricole … sur son exploitation ; le produit est pur jus et obtenu exclusivement à partir de fruits récoltés sur l’exploitation. « Artisanal » : … est réalisé par un artisan au sens de l’article L. 211-1 du code de l’artisanat ou sous sa responsabilité, sur son ou ses sites de production ; le produit est pur jus.”
  • What changed in the definition of a primeur or nouveau cider.Paragraph on “primeur” ou “nouveau”, verified 2026-08-24. “la mention, suivie de l’année de la récolte des fruits, est réservée aux boissons élaborées à partir d’un moût dont le volume est constitué d’au moins 85 pour 100 de fruits récoltés lors de l’année mentionnée.”

National Association of Cider Makers

NACM · United Kingdom · authority tier 2

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

The UK trade association. Useful for industry-agreed definitions and for the voluntary labelling standards its members work to. A trade body has an interest in how its product is described, so CiderHQ cites it for what the industry says about itself rather than for neutral scientific claims.

Competent for: uk industry definitions; uk labelling code; uk industry structure.

Welsh Perry and Cider Society

WPCS · United Kingdom · authority tier 2

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

Documents Welsh cider and perry traditions and has done substantial work identifying and conserving Welsh perry pear cultivars that were close to being lost.

Competent for: welsh tradition; welsh perry pears; cultivar conservation.

National Perry Pear Centre

National Perry Pear Centre, Hartpury · United Kingdom · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

Read on 2026-08-24 — and the address CiderHQ had registered, perrypears.co.uk, is no longer the Centre at all. It fails the TLS handshake over https, and over plain http it resolves to a Sedo domain-parking page: an earlier pass in this sprint recorded it as retrieved on the strength of an HTTP 200, which was wrong, and the correction is the point. The Centre publishes at nationalperrypearcentre.org.uk. It is the closest thing British perry has to an identity authority: it holds at least two examples of most known varieties, states that the DNA of most of them has been determined and is used as an aid to identification, and publishes a variety register with synonym lists. Its 121-variety register is transcribed into the perry pear records, including the nineteen names it shows being claimed by more than one variety.

Competent for: perry pear identity; perry pear synonyms; perry pear distribution; perry pear classification.

Verified passages:

  • How much of the perry pear population the specialist collection holds, against the national fruit collection.The Collection → How it all started, verified 2026-08-24. “By 2015 the perry pear collection had increased to 105 distinct varieties … By way of comparison the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale includes only 25 perry pear varieties.”
  • Why this register outranks a nursery catalogue on identity: the synonymy is backed by DNA rather than by report.The Collection → Perry Pear Varieties, introductory note, verified 2026-08-24. “The DNA of most of these varieties has been determined from trees in the collection and is used as an aid to identification.”
  • That a perry pear name can belong to more than one variety at once — the identity problem, stated by the body best placed to know.The Collection → Perry Pear Varieties, register entries for Green Longdon, Winnal’s Longdon and White Longdon, verified 2026-08-24. “Green Longdon — Synonyms: Brown Longdon, Longdon, Longland, Longland(s), Old Fashioned Longdon, Russet Longdon … Winnal’s Longdon — Synonyms: Longdon, Longland, Longland(s) … White Longdon — Synonyms: Bastard Barland, Bastard Longdon, Dandoe, Garradine, Longland, Longlands, Port”
  • When and by whom the collection was assembled, and from where.The Collection → How it all started, verified 2026-08-24. “In 1991 Charles Martell conceived the idea of establishing a collection of perry pears. Farms across the three counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire were scoured for the old varieties. 59 had been rediscovered and planted around the Three Counties Agricultural Society showground at Malvern by 1998.”

Marcher Apple Network

Marcher Apple Network · United Kingdom · authority tier 2

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

Has rediscovered and DNA-fingerprinted a number of lost Welsh border cultivars. Cited for identity work on cultivars the national collections do not hold.

Competent for: border cultivar identity; rediscovered cultivars.

American Cider Association

ACA · United States · authority tier 2

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

Publishes a widely used US cider style framework and runs the Certified Cider Professional programme. Cited as one framework among several rather than as a universal classification.

Competent for: us style framework; us industry terminology.

CAMRA cider and perry standards

Campaign for Real Ale · United Kingdom · authority tier 3

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

Opened on 2026-08-24. Registered for the consumer-campaigning vocabulary — "real cider", "full juice" — which is advocacy language rather than legal definition, and is recorded as such wherever CiderHQ uses it.

Competent for: real cider definition; uk consumer campaigning terms.

Traditional Orchard Habitat Inventory and orchard loss surveys

People’s Trust for Endangered Species / Natural England · United Kingdom · authority tier 1

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

Opened on 2026-08-24. The traditional orchard campaign pages were reached and confirmed, but the orchard-loss figures CiderHQ wants from this body sit in survey outputs rather than on the campaign page, and were not located in this pass.

Competent for: orchard loss scale; traditional orchard habitat; orchard biodiversity.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The measured scale of traditional orchard loss in the UK, with its survey period and method. Why not: The campaign pages confirm the habitat’s priority status but carry no figure; the numbers are in survey reports that were not retrieved in this pass. Published instead: CiderHQ describes traditional orchard decline qualitatively and attaches no percentage to it. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Gloucestershire Orchard Trust

Gloucestershire Orchard Trust · United Kingdom · authority tier 2

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

Competent for: gloucestershire cultivars; perry pear conservation; local orchard history.

Vocabulario sidrero — the Asturian cider vocabulary

Sidraturismo Asturias / Comarca de la Sidra · Spain · authority tier 2

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

The Asturian cider-tourism body’s own glossary, and the only source CiderHQ has found that defines the glass-behaviour vocabulary — romper, espalme, aguante, pegue, restallu, filado, espoleta — as a set of distinct terms rather than as loose synonyms. It is the source that corrected this site’s definition of espalme, which had it exactly backwards. A promotional body rather than an academy, so it is cited for vocabulary in use and not for the physical claims it makes alongside them.

Competent for: asturian terminology; cider serving tradition; escanciado practice.

Verified passages:

  • That espalme names the collapse of the foam and not the foam — the definition English-language writing routinely inverts.Vocabulario sidrero, entry “Espalme”, verified 2026-08-25. “Espalme: Desaparición rápida y completa de la espuma superficial, que se genera en el vaso al escanciar.”
  • That the Asturian trade distinguishes four separate behaviours of cider in the glass, which English writing collapses into one.Vocabulario sidrero, entries “Romper”, “Aguante”, “Pegue”, verified 2026-08-25. “Romper: … chocar la sidra contra el vaso … generando cierta espuma … Aguante: la persistencia de burbujas finas, que se han generado durante el escanciado … Pegue: la fina película de espuma que se pega al vaso tras su escanciado”

Classification frameworks

A written, internally consistent scheme. Named wherever used, because a judging category is not a legal one.

BJCP Beer Style Guidelines — cider and perry categories

Beer Judge Certification Program · International · authority tier 2

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-24

Opened on 2026-08-24, and the edition matters. CiderHQ registered the 2015 cider guidelines; BJCP has since published a 2025 cider edition, and the old URL now redirects into the current guidelines index. A competition style guide is a dated framework rather than a standing definition, and citing the wrong edition of one is the same class of error as citing a superseded specification. CiderHQ treats BJCP as one competition framework among several and never as the universal cider taxonomy.

Competent for: competition style categories; judging descriptors.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The 2025 cider style guidelines in full, with the vital statistics for each style. Why not: The current guidelines index paginates through a client-side application that returns no style content to a plain retrieval. The existence of the 2025 edition was confirmed; its per-style figures were not. Published instead: CiderHQ states BJCP categories as a competition framework and does not publish per-style ABV or gravity ranges attributed to it. Where a strength range is given for a style, it is sourced elsewhere and dated. Attempted 2026-08-24.

Reference works

Established technical writing. Tiered by how close the author is to the underlying research.

The Science of Cidermaking and associated technical writing

Andrew Lea · United Kingdom, International · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

Written by a food chemist who worked at Long Ashton on apple phenolics. Unusual among specialist cider writing in that it is primary-research-adjacent: the author is describing work he did, and cites the literature. This is why it is registered at tier 1 for chemistry while a general cider book is not.

Competent for: cider phenolic chemistry; keeving mechanism; fermentation chemistry; fault mechanisms; malolactic in cider.

Verified passages:

  • Why keeving starves the ferment: the charge argument, which is the part most accounts of keeving leave out.The Science of Cidermaking — keeving, “Traditional keeving”, verified 2026-08-24. “Because the pectin is negatively charged, but the nutrients such as thiamine and asparagine (the major amino acid in apple) are positively charged, the nutrients are attracted to the pectin gel and hence removed from the system.”
  • How much of the nutrient load keeving actually removes.The Science of Cidermaking — keeving, “Traditional keeving”, verified 2026-08-24. “Scientific studies have shown that the pectin and the amino nitrogen nutrients are reduced by at least 50% during keeving. The number of yeast cells is also substantially lowered by entrapment.”
  • The calcium dosage used to make the gel form reliably, and when it goes in.The Science of Cidermaking — keeving, “Keeving brought up to date”, verified 2026-08-24. “The maximum dosage used is 400 parts per million or 4 grams per 10 litres, which is stirred into the juice immediately after pressing.”
  • The distinction that decides whether a keeve works at all: de-esterifying the pectin against depolymerising it.The Science of Cidermaking — keeving, “Keeving brought up to date”, verified 2026-08-24. “these PME enzymes are not at all the same as the commonly available pectic enzymes used for clarifying purposes … must not contain any trace of the other polygalacturonase or ‘depolymerising’ activities … The pectin must only be de-esterified; if it is de-polymerised too, then the gel will never form.”
  • A procedural rule that decides success and is easy to get wrong.The Science of Cidermaking — keeving, “Keeving brought up to date”, verified 2026-08-24. “the PME and calcium chloride must never be added together but only as two separate sequential operations”
  • What failure looks like, and that some fruit cannot be keeved at all.The Science of Cidermaking — keeving, “Traditional keeving”, verified 2026-08-24. “If excessive yeast growth begins too soon, the ‘chapeau brun’ is replaced by the normal ‘chapeau blanc’ and turbulent fermentation take over. In this case keeving has failed … With some varieties of apples, no head forms at all and so they cannot be keeved.”
  • The fruit keeving needs, and the sugar floor.The Science of Cidermaking — keeving, “Traditional keeving”, verified 2026-08-24. “a blend of late season fully ripened mostly bittersweet fruit, taken from mature orchards which are naturally low in nutrients but fairly high in tannin. Dessert fruit is much less likely to be successful here … The sugar level should be at least 12% (SG 1.055).”
  • The seventeenth-century English name for the brown cap.The Science of Cidermaking — keeving, “Traditional keeving”, verified 2026-08-24. “In 17th century English writings this cap was picturesquely known as the ‘flying lees’!”

The New Cider Maker’s Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Craft Producers

Claude Jolicoeur, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013. ISBN 9781603584739 · Canada, International · authority tier 2

Bibliographic record verified · consulted 2026-08-25

Bibliographic record verified on 2026-08-25 against the Open Library union catalogue: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013, ISBN 9781603584739, one edition recorded. That establishes the citation points at a real book in a stated edition, which is what a citation needs and is all it establishes. No copy was opened and nothing is quoted from it. The book itself is in print and not digitised in any open collection; where CiderHQ needs a figure from this territory it uses an accessible research source instead and says so.

Competent for: production method; gravity alcohol arithmetic; pressing practice; ice cider method.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The text itself — chapter and page for any figure attributed to it. Why not: The book is in print, not out of copyright, and not held in any open digital collection. Open Library records no scanned copy. There is no lawful route to a full text by retrieval. Published instead: Claims resting on this source are general production statements that CiderHQ can also support from an open source, and no number is attributed to it alone. Its state records what was verified: the edition, not the contents. Attempted 2026-08-25.

A Somerset Pomona: The Cider Apples of Somerset

Liz Copas, The Dovecote Press, 2001. ISBN 9781874336877 · United Kingdom · authority tier 2

Bibliographic record verified · consulted 2026-08-25

Bibliographic record verified on 2026-08-25 against Open Library: Liz Copas, The Dovecote Press, 2001, ISBN 9781874336877. The author was Long Ashton’s cider pomologist, which is why this work is registered for Somerset cultivar identity at all — it is the nearest thing to a successor to the station’s own descriptions. No copy was opened. Not digitised in any open collection.

Competent for: west country cultivar description; cultivar classification english; harvest timing; orchard behaviour; blending roles.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: Per-cultivar descriptions and any acid or tannin figures the Pomona carries. Why not: In print, in copyright, and not held in any open digital collection; Open Library records no scanned copy. Published instead: Cultivar identity claims citing this source are corroborated by the National Fruit Collection or by a trial programme, and CiderHQ publishes no measurement attributed to it. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Perry Pears

L. C. Luckwill and A. Pollard (eds), published for the National Fruit and Cider Institute by the University of Bristol, 1963 · United Kingdom · authority tier 1 · covers 1963

Bibliographic record verified · consulted 2026-08-25

Bibliographic record verified on 2026-08-25 against Open Library, which records the work as Luckwill, 1963, published for the National Fruit and Cider Institute by the University of Bristol. The catalogue entry names Luckwill alone where the standard citation names Luckwill and Pollard as joint editors; CiderHQ keeps both names and records the discrepancy rather than silently following one catalogue. This is the foundational descriptive work on English perry pears and the ancestor of most later variety lists. No copy was opened: it is sixty years old, out of print, and held in research libraries rather than in open digital collections.

Competent for: perry pear description; perry pear classification; perry pear history; perry pear chemistry.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The variety descriptions and any juice analyses the 1963 volume records. Why not: Out of print since the 1960s and not digitised in any open collection. Open Library records no scanned copy and no Internet Archive identifier. Published instead: Perry pear identity on this site rests on the National Perry Pear Centre’s living collection and its DNA work, both of which were opened and passage-verified. This source is cited for provenance of the tradition rather than for figures. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Cider and perry production technical training material

Peter Mitchell / Cider and Perry Academy · United Kingdom, International · authority tier 2

Registered as competent · no access date recorded

Searched again on 2026-08-25 and it remains the one printed source here that a bibliographic check cannot fix, because it is not a published work with an edition. It is course material issued to participants of a training programme, so there is no catalogue record to verify, no ISBN, and no lawful public copy. Its state stays `registered` for that reason rather than through inattention.

Competent for: commercial production practice; quality control; fault diagnosis.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: A citable, publicly obtainable version of the training material. Why not: Verified on 2026-08-25: this is course material distributed to participants rather than a published work. Open Library and the union catalogues hold no record of it, and there is nothing to retrieve. Published instead: Every claim citing it is also carried by an open technical source, and CiderHQ attributes no figure to it. It is retained in the register because it is genuinely where a good deal of modern commercial practice was taught, and pretending otherwise would misdescribe the provenance of the practice. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Cider: Making, Using and Enjoying Sweet and Hard Cider

Annie Proulx and Lew Nichols, Storey Communications, 1997; first published as Sweet & Hard Cider by Garden Way, 1980 · United States · authority tier 3

Bibliographic record verified · consulted 2026-08-25

Bibliographic record verified on 2026-08-25 against Open Library, and the verification changed what CiderHQ knows about it. The work first appeared in 1980 as Sweet & Hard Cider: Making It, Using It, & Enjoying It (Garden Way, Charlotte, Vermont) and was retitled for the 1997 Storey edition the site had registered; nine editions are recorded in total. That matters for a source cited on North American practice, because a passage in the 1980 text and a passage in the 1997 one are not interchangeable and neither is the 2003 revision. Two scans exist in the Internet Archive — sweethardciderma0000prou for the 1980 edition and cidermakingusing0000prou for the 1997 — both access-restricted to the lending library and the print-disabled collection, so neither is openable by retrieval.

Competent for: north american small scale practice; north american cider history.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The text of either edition, to attribute a statement to a page. Why not: Both Internet Archive holdings are marked access-restricted and sit in the inlibrary and printdisabled collections. Borrowing is a lawful route for a person and not one available to automated retrieval, and CiderHQ does not record a book as read because a catalogue confirms a scan exists. Published instead: Claims citing this source are general statements about North American practice that are also carried by an open source. The edition history is now recorded, so a future reading can say which text it read. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Cider, Hard and Sweet: History, Traditions, and Making Your Own

Ben Watson, The Countryman Press, first edition 1999; third edition 2013 · United States · authority tier 3

Bibliographic record verified · consulted 2026-08-25

Bibliographic record verified on 2026-08-25 against Open Library: first published 1999 by The Countryman Press, with five editions recorded and a 2008 printing scanned by the Internet Archive as ciderhardsweethi0000benw. The scan is access-restricted to the print-disabled collection. The site had registered this without a year; it now carries one, and the first-edition date matters because a general trade book on cider written in 1999 predates almost the whole of the North American cider revival it is sometimes cited about.

Competent for: north american cider context; american cultivars.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The text, to attribute a statement to an edition and a page. Why not: The Internet Archive holding is access-restricted to the print-disabled collection and cannot be retrieved. Later editions are in print and in copyright. Published instead: Cited for general North American context only, alongside an open source, and never for a figure. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Cider Apple Compositional Data

Andrew Lea · United Kingdom, United States · authority tier 2 · covers 1905–2014

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

Registered separately from the same author’s Science of Cidermaking, and at a lower tier, because its evidential character is different. The Science of Cidermaking is a chemist writing about work he did; this page is that chemist transcribing other people’s tables, and CiderHQ can vouch for the transcription without vouching for what lies behind it. It carries three tables: the Long Ashton composite for forty-two cultivars, credited to Bulmer’s Pomona (1987) and Beech and Carr (1977); a late-1970s New York analysis credited to unpublished work printed in a 1989 food-technology chapter; and a 2014 Virginia polyphenol study. Every figure CiderHQ takes from it records that chain.

Competent for: english cultivar acid tannin; long ashton classification; historic juice analysis.

Verified passages:

  • The 1903 Barker classification stated as the two numeric thresholds it actually is.Introduction, “Barker’s Classification of Cider Apples (LARS 1903)”, verified 2026-08-25. “Sharp > 0.45 < 0.2 · Bittersharp > 0.45 > 0.2 · Bittersweet < 0.45 > 0.2 · Sweet < 0.45 < 0.2”
  • What the Long Ashton composite table is a table of, and by what method — the sentence that lets CiderHQ label the figures honestly.Heading note above the Long Ashton table, verified 2026-08-25. “This table is from composite data obtained at the Long Ashton Research Station, near Bristol, over many years from 1905 to 1975. … The acid figures were obtained by straightforward titration with alkali, and the “tannin” figures by permanganate titration (the Lowenthal method). This data was obtained on the freshly expressed apple juice, not the finished cider.”
  • That two “tannin” figures produced by different assays are not comparable — the rule CiderHQ enforces by storing the method with every phenolic measurement.Commentary on the Geneva table, verified 2026-08-25. “it is known that different methods of tannin “measurement” can give wildly different figures on the same sample”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: Bulmer’s Pomona (1987) and Beech and Carr (1977), the compilations this page transcribes. Why not: Neither is available in digital form; both are out-of-print printed works. The page is therefore the third hand between the fruit and CiderHQ, and the last one the site can open. Published instead: The figures are published as a transcription with the chain named on every measurement, and are never described as primary Long Ashton data. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Processed Apple Products, chapter on Apple Cider

AVI / Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1989, edited by Donald L. Downing (ISBN 0-442-22117-7) · United States · authority tier 2 · covers late 1970s

Bibliographic record verified · consulted 2026-08-25

A 1989 food-technology volume whose cider chapter prints a table of cultivar analyses from the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva, credited to unpublished 1980 work by a station staff member. CiderHQ has not opened the book; the table reaches the site through a specialist transcription that names the volume, its editor, its publisher and its ISBN. It is the only dataset here measured on finished cider rather than on juice, which is why it is worth carrying at all despite the length of the chain. The bibliographic identity was verified on 2026-08-25 against the Open Library catalogue record for ISBN 0-442-22117-7, which confirms the editor, the title, the 1989 publication, 448 pages, the LCCN 88003960 and the OCLC number 17650082 — and confirms nothing whatever about what is printed in the cider chapter.

Competent for: finished cider analysis; north american cultivar analysis.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The printed chapter, its stated methods, and the season the analyses were made in. Why not: Out of print and not digitised. The transcriber notes that the method for the tannin column is not given by the book either, and that the data appear to come from a single unnamed season in the late 1970s. Published instead: The numeric rows are published as finished-cider measurements under their own properties so they cannot be compared with juice figures, the Brix column is withheld as irreconcilable with the stated substrate, and the Tremlett’s Bitter row is withheld as a documented misidentification. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Euskaltzaindiaren Hiztegia — the dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Basque Language

Euskaltzaindia · Spain, France · authority tier 1

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

The language academy for Basque, and the authority CiderHQ uses for what a Basque cider word actually means rather than what English cider writing has made of it. Two of its entries corrected this site: txotx is a peg, not a toast, and the -a on sagardoa and txotxa is the definite article rather than part of the word.

Competent for: basque terminology; basque cider language.

Verified passages:

  • That txotx literally names the peg closing the barrel — the same object Asturian calls an espicha.Euskaltzaindiaren Hiztegia, s.v. txotx, sense 3, verified 2026-08-25. “iz. Upelaren zuloa ixteko ziria.”
  • The citation form of the Basque word for cider, without the definite article.Euskaltzaindiaren Hiztegia, s.v. sagardo, verified 2026-08-25. “iz. Sagarren zukua hartzituz egiten den edari alkoholduna.”

Johnny Appleseed and the American Orchard: A Cultural History

William Kerrigan, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2012. ISBN 9781421407968. Pp. xiii, 231 · United States · authority tier 2 · covers 1774–1845, and the making of the legend to the twentieth century

Bibliographic record verified · consulted 2026-08-25

The scholarly treatment, and the only one built on archival work rather than on the accumulated retellings. Bibliographic record and full chapter pagination verified on 2026-08-25 against Project MUSE, DOI 10.1353/book.19609: Introduction 1–6; Seeds 7–35; Becoming Johnny Appleseed 36–65; Suckers 66–100; Walking Barefoot to Jerusalem 101–126; To Serve God or Mammon? 127–161; Yankee Saint and the Red Delicious 162–194; Notes 195–215; Essay on Sources 217–223. The publisher’s own summary states the argument: that Kerrigan “carefully dissects the oral tradition of the Appleseed myth and draws upon material from archives and local historical societies across New England and the Midwest”, and that men who planted from seed rather than grafting “came under assault from agricultural reformers who promoted commercial fruit stock”. The body text is not open; where CiderHQ needs a finding from it, the finding is taken from the peer-reviewed review registered alongside this record, which is open and which states what the book establishes.

Competent for: appleseed scholarship; american orchard history.

A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The chapters themselves, to cite findings to a page. Why not: Project MUSE serves the book’s front matter and table of contents openly and the chapters only to subscribers; the Johns Hopkins University Press site returns HTTP 403 to every request. Published instead: Findings attributed to Kerrigan on this site are taken from Bremer’s review in the Indiana Magazine of History, which is open access, peer-reviewed and read in full. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Specialist publications

Specialist press and periodicals.

Perry Pears and Perry — Research and Survey Work

Cider and Perry Academy (Peter Mitchell) · United Kingdom · authority tier 2 · covers 2022–2024

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

Ongoing survey work by a cider and perry technologist who has taught production for decades, published openly and updated annually; retrieved and read in full on 2026-08-25. Thirty-eight single-variety perry pear juices analysed for gravity, titratable acidity, the tannin and phenolic acid fractions separately, and the individual amino acids by HPLC — the last of which nobody else has done at this scale for perry. Not peer-reviewed, and the author is explicit that the accompanying fermentation trials are initial surveys needing statistical treatment before differences are called significant; CiderHQ repeats that wherever the fermentation results are used.

Competent for: perry pear analysis; perry juice nitrogen; perry phenolics; perry aroma compounds; perry fermentation.

Verified passages:

  • The compositional fact that separates perry from cider on the nitrogen side, stated with its consequence.Comments beneath the juice composition table, verified 2026-08-25. “the total concentration of Yeast Assimilable Nitrogen (YAN), in the form of amino acids in all perry pear varieties sampled to date, is typically much lower than that found in cider apples, whereas proline is much higher. Indeed, in the juices sampled in the Autumn of 2024, some varieties (e.g., Tumper along with others previously surveyed in earlier years) contained almost no assimilable amino acids, but had high concentrations of proline.”
  • Why a high total amino acid figure in pear juice does not mean the yeast is fed.Introductory notes, *5, verified 2026-08-25. “As a secondary AA however, Proline is often the main one found in pear juice, but it cannot be utilised by the yeast during anaerobic fermentation.”
  • Sorbitol inferred from a fermentation that stopped high, with the author’s own reservation attached.Comments on the fermentation results, verified 2026-08-25. “Although not directly measured, the actual amount of sorbitol in the original pear juices did seem to vary between each of the three different perry pears, as indicated by the variable final attenuated alcohol concentrations and S.G. For example, Blakeney Red perry had a surprisingly high final S.G. of 1.00898.”
  • That the modern figures and the Long Ashton figures broadly agree, and where they do not.Comments beneath the juice composition table, verified 2026-08-25. “there were general similarities in the concentration of Total Acidity and “Tannin” in the varieties listed compared to the data reported by LARS, although there are some notable differences e.g., in the concentration of acidity and/or “Tannin” in the Taynton Squash, Green Horse, Coppy and Barland pears.”

Johnny Appleseed: A Pioneer Hero

W. D. Haley, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine vol. XLIII, November 1871, pp. 830–836 · United States · authority tier 3 · covers 1774–1845, written 1871

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

The text that made John Chapman a national figure, and the origin of almost every element of the legend. It is cited here as the source of the story, not as evidence about the man. Haley wrote twenty-six years after Chapman’s death, names no informant and gives no citation, and his own basic facts are wrong in five places: he calls his subject Jonathan rather than John, places the birth at Boston in 1775 rather than Leominster in 1774, and has him die at seventy-two, which puts the death in 1847 rather than 1845. Anything that appears only in Haley should be treated as story. Access: Harper’s own archive returns HTTP 402 for the article, and no scan of the magazine volume itself was reachable. The passages below were read as OCR through the Internet Archive full-text index (queried at openlibrary.org/search/inside.json), where the wording is reproduced identically across more than twenty independent reprints and anthologies, including the 1994 Chapman Billies facsimile. That corroboration is strong enough to quote Haley’s wording; it does not put a page number on it.

Competent for: appleseed legend; american cider folklore.

Verified passages:

  • The tin pot worn as a hat — the single most reproduced image of Johnny Appleseed — is a misreading of the sentence that invented it. In Haley the cooking vessel is the experiment that failed, and a peaked pasteboard hat is what replaced it.The passage on his dress; no page number recoverable, see notes, verified 2026-08-25. “his first experiment was with a tin vessel that served to cook his mush; but this was open to the objection that it did not protect his eyes from the beams of the sun, so he constructed a hat of pasteboard with an immense peak in front”
  • The cider mill as the source of the seed is in the founding text itself, unsourced. It is the earliest widely circulated statement of the thing the modern retelling presents as a discovery.The passage on his supply of seed; no page number recoverable, see notes, verified 2026-08-25. “The seeds he gathered from the cider presses of western Pennsylvania”
  • The coffee-sack garment, in the words that fixed it.The passage on his dress; no page number recoverable, see notes, verified 2026-08-25. “was made of a coffee sack, in which he cut holes for his head and arms to pass through”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The magazine pages themselves, to attach pp. 830–836 to each quotation by direct reading rather than by citation. Why not: Harper’s own archive returns HTTP 402 Payment Required for the article, and no scan of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine vol. XLIII was reachable in this environment. Published instead: The quotations are published with their wording corroborated across more than twenty independent reprints and no page number claimed. The page range is given as the Harper’s archive gives it. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Author Michael Pollan Talks About the History of the Apple

Ketzel Levine with Michael Pollan, NPR Morning Edition, 5 June 2001; transcript published by the author · United States · authority tier 3 · covers Colonial America to the twentieth century, spoken in 2001

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

Registered because the modern correction of the Appleseed legend has a source, and this is the cleanest statement of it in its author’s own words, on the day The Botany of Desire was being introduced to a national audience. Pollan’s framing is now repeated everywhere, usually without attribution and usually harder than he put it. It is cited on this site as the origin of a widely held modern account, in the same way Haley 1871 is cited as the origin of the older one — not as evidence for what Chapman did. Chapter 1 of the book carries no footnotes, and the back-matter essay on sources was not opened. Retrieved and read in full on 2026-08-25 from the author’s own site.

Competent for: appleseed legend; american cider folklore.

Verified passages:

  • The mechanism the modern account rests on, stated plainly: seed does not come true, most of what it produces is useless on the table, and all of it is usable in a press.Transcript, Pollan on the colonists’ seedlings, verified 2026-08-25. “what happens when you plant apples from seed is you get all different kinds of apples. Every single seed in an apple produces a different variety, most of which are useless. However, apples grown from seed are perfectly good for making cider.”
  • The rhetorical form the correction took, which is what actually travelled. This is the sentence behind every later retelling of Appleseed as a bringer of drink, and it is a construction rather than a finding.Transcript, Pollan on Chapman, verified 2026-08-25. “Johnny Appleseed was bringing the gift of alcohol to the frontier. That’s why he was so popular. That’s why he was welcome in every cabin in Ohio. He was the American Dionysus. He was the guy bringing the booze.”

Historical sources

Period documents. Evidence of what people then did and believed, not of modern fact.

The Archive of Cider Pomology

Hereford Cider Museum Trust / National Association of Cider Makers · United Kingdom · authority tier 1 · covers 1989–2012

Retrieved · consulted 2026-08-25

The single most useful discovery of Mega Sprint 4. When the Ministry closed Long Ashton’s cider work, the National Association of Cider Makers took over cider pomology research; the resulting archive is held at the Hereford Cider Museum and publishes some seventy-five research reports openly, including compilations of Long Ashton material that had otherwise reached the present only through books. It is the route by which CiderHQ finally obtained per-cultivar perry pear figures, having failed to reach the 1963 volume they originate in.

Competent for: cider orchard trials; cider pomology research; long ashton material; orchard management; cider apple pollination.

Verified passages:

  • Who holds the Long Ashton cider research legacy, and where the physical archive sits.About the Archive, verified 2026-08-25. “In 1990 the National Association of Cider Makers took over the responsibility for cider pomology research following the closure by MAFF of the Long Ashton Research Station.”

Pomona, or an Appendix concerning Fruit-Trees in relation to Cider

John Evelyn, Royal Society · United Kingdom · authority tier 2 · covers 1664

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

Identified on 2026-08-24 from the 1670 edition held by the Internet Archive. The attribution needs correcting and CiderHQ has corrected it: *Pomona* is not a book by John Evelyn. It is an appendix annexed to Evelyn’s *Sylva*, published by express order of the Royal Society, and the contributors recorded for the volume are John Evelyn, John Beale, Daniel Colwall, Paul Neile, John Newburgh and Sylas Taylor. Beale has his own entry in this register, and the overlap is not a coincidence — the two texts come out of the same Royal Society enquiry into cider in the 1660s. Citing *Pomona* as Evelyn’s flattens a collaborative compilation into a single-author work.

Competent for: seventeenth century practice; historic cultivar names; royal society cider interest.

Verified passages:

  • The full title, the publishing body, and the fact that Pomona is an annexe to Sylva rather than a work of its own.Title page, Sylva, second edition, London 1670, verified 2026-08-24. “Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-trees … By J. E. Esq … To which is Annexed Pomona; or, An Appendix Concerning Fruit-trees in Relation to Cider; the Making, and Severall Wayes of Ordering It. Published by Expresse Order of the Royal Society.”

Vinetum Britannicum, or a Treatise of Cider

John Worlidge · United Kingdom · authority tier 2 · covers 1676

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

Identified on 2026-08-24 from the 1678 edition held by the Internet Archive. John Worlidge, active 1669–1698; the work ran to further editions including 1691, so a citation to it should say which. The full title is broader than the short one CiderHQ uses and matters for what the book can be cited for: it covers other fruit wines and drinks alongside cider, so it is evidence about seventeenth-century English fruit fermentation generally rather than about cider alone.

Competent for: historic press design; early bottling; seventeenth century method.

Verified passages:

  • The full title and scope of the work, and its date.Title page, 1678 edition, verified 2026-08-24. “Vinetum Britannicum: or, A treatise of cider and other wines and drinks extracted from fruits growing in this kingdom”

Herefordshire Orchards, a Pattern for all England

John Beale · United Kingdom · authority tier 2 · covers 1657

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-24

Identified on 2026-08-24. John Beale’s account of Herefordshire orcharding was first printed in 1657; the copy located and confirmed is the 1724 reprinting held by the Internet Archive, and CiderHQ says which it has seen rather than implying it has read the first edition. The work is an epistolary address rather than a treatise, which is worth knowing before quoting it: it argues a case for Herefordshire practice to a correspondent, and reads as advocacy as much as description. Beale is also one of the contributors to *Pomona*.

Competent for: herefordshire orchard history; redstreak history.

Verified passages:

  • The title, the author, and the epistolary form that shapes how the text argues.Title page, 1724 edition, verified 2026-08-24. “Herefordshire orchards, a pattern for all England. Written in an epistolary address”

Ethnographic and folklore records of wassailing and orchard custom

Various county record offices and folklore societies · United Kingdom · authority tier 2

Registered as competent · no access date recorded

Wassailing is unusually well documented for a folk custom, and unusually badly reported: much popular writing dates it far earlier than the evidence supports. CiderHQ describes what the record shows and marks the rest as contested.

Competent for: wassail practice; orchard custom; folk tradition dating.

Obituary of John Chapman

Fort Wayne Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 22 March 1845 · United States · authority tier 2 · covers 1845

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

The only contemporaneous description of Chapman CiderHQ has, printed four days after his death. It is the reason the bare feet, the ragged clothing and the Swedenborgianism are treated on this site as record rather than as legend: all three are in it. It also shows how little his own contemporaries knew about him, since it estimates his age at not less than eighty when he was seventy. Access: no scan of the newspaper was reachable. The wording below was read on 2026-08-25 through the Internet Archive full-text index and appears verbatim and identically in four independent compilations — Harris, Johnny Appleseed Source Book (Allen County–Fort Wayne Historical Society); Price, Johnny Appleseed: Man and Myth; the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County’s Johnny Appleseed, Orchardist (1952); and Warrick, John Chapman. Four independent transcriptions agreeing word for word is good evidence of the text; it is not the same as reading the paper.

Competent for: appleseed contemporary record.

Verified passages:

  • The bare feet and the scavenged clothing are contemporaneous, not legend. This is one element of the popular picture that the record supports.Obituary, 22 March 1845, as transcribed identically in four compilations, verified 2026-08-25. “In the most inclement weather he might be seen barefooted and almost naked except when he chanced to pick up articles of old clothing”
  • The Swedenborgianism is attested at the death, in print, by people who knew him.Obituary, 22 March 1845, as transcribed identically in four compilations, verified 2026-08-25. “He was a follower of Swedenborg … He always carried with him some work on the doctrines of Swedenborg with which he was perfectly familiar.”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The newspaper page, to read the obituary in its own column. Why not: Chronicling America returned HTTP 503 throughout, and archive.org was unreachable at the network level from this environment. Published instead: The text is published as transcribed, with the four independent compilations named and the indirection stated. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Town record of the birth of John Chapman, Leominster, Massachusetts

Town of Leominster, Massachusetts, entry dated 26 September 1774 · United States · authority tier 1 · covers 1774

Passage verified · consulted 2026-08-25

The clerk’s entry settles the two facts the founding text of the legend gets wrong: the name is John, not Jonathan, and the birth is at Leominster in 1774, not Boston in 1775. Access: the town book was not opened, and no image of it or of the printed Vital Records of Leominster was reachable. The wording below was read on 2026-08-25 through the Internet Archive full-text index, where it is quoted identically in three independent works — Lawlor, The Real Johnny Appleseed; Fortriede, Johnny Appleseed (Allen County Public Library, 1978); and Price, Johnny Appleseed: Man and Myth. The spelling, including “Sun” for son, is the clerk’s.

Competent for: appleseed contemporary record.

Verified passages:

  • The name, the parents and the date, in the clerk’s own words.Leominster town records, birth entry, as transcribed identically in three works, verified 2026-08-25. “John Chapman Sun of Nathanael and Elizabeth Chapman Born at Leominster September ye 26th 1774”
A retrieval that did not happen
  • Wanted: The record book, or a page image of it. Why not: No Massachusetts vital-records image service reachable from this environment served the entry, and the town’s own site carries nothing. Published instead: The transcription is published with the three concurring works named. Attempted 2026-08-25.

Museums

Collections and their interpretation, chiefly for equipment and industrial history.

Using this register

Every citation on the site resolves through this list. An identifier that is not registered here fails the evidence audit and the build stops, which is what stops a source appearing in a footnote without appearing here.

If you believe a source is being cited outside its competence, or that a source is missing which would change something the site says, that is a correction and it is welcome.

Report it through corrections. The grading model behind the register is at the evidence policy.