Cider apple

Bulmer’s Norman

A large, vigorous French-derived bittersweet imported by H P Bulmer and planted across Herefordshire for heavy cropping and mild, plentiful juice.

Also written Bulmers Norman, Norman, Bulmer Norman.

Classification: Bittersweet — Long Ashton classification
Harvest: Mid (Late September to mid October)
Single varietal: Not suited to a single-varietal cider
Blend role: Bulk juice, Bittersweet base
Origin: Normandy, introduced to Herefordshire
Species: Malus domestica
Flowering: Pollination group 3
Vigour: Very vigorous — a large tree that takes years to settle to cropping
Biennial bearing: Slightly biennial
Keeping: Poor — mill soon after picking
Evidence: Analysed in 4 sources, watched at 3 trial sites

How it is classified

Long Ashton classification

Bittersweet

Low acid, high tannin. The class that has no real equivalent in dessert fruit and that defines West Country cider.

Basis: Below about 0.45% w/v acid and above about 0.2% w/v tannin.

A mild bittersweet: above the tannin threshold, but the juice is soft and the class label overstates it.

Every classification on CiderHQ names its system. Why there is more than one.

What it contributes to a blend

A direction, not a measurement. These bands are the level of resolution the evidence supports, and they say which way adding this fruit pushes a blend rather than what the finished drink will be.

Contribution to a blend, scored 1–5 as a band. The filled segment is the typical value; the paler segments are the range.
Axis	Typical	Range
Acid	Very low
Tannin	Moderate
Sugar	Moderate
Bitterness	Moderate
Astringency	Noticeable
Aroma	Restrained
Body	Medium

Based on: its recorded classification

The Long Ashton class placement plus consistent description, with wide bands because material grown under this name is not reliably uniform.

Gives mild tannin and a large volume of soft juice, and shapes a blend by dilution more than by character.

Aroma

No aroma descriptors are recorded for Bulmer’s Norman, and for a great deal of cider fruit that is a finding rather than a gap. Bittersweet apples in particular contribute tannin, sugar and body while being close to aromatically mute, and most of what a cider made from them smells of was produced by the fermentation rather than carried in by the fruit. CiderHQ publishes the absence rather than filling the space with descriptors nothing supports.

Put Bulmer’s Norman into a blend

Measured analysis

Each figure is shown with where and when it was taken. They are not averaged: the same cultivar grown in another climate genuinely gives different numbers, and collapsing them into one would be the most misleading thing this page could do.

Measured on the fruit

Measured on the fruit itself, before anything was done to it. These figures hold whatever was later made from the juice.

Reported analyses of Bulmer’s Norman, by property and source — measured on the fruit
Property	Reading	Where	When	Source
Fruit diameter2 readings, spanning 68–75 mm	75 mm	WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA	2002–2017Modern analysis	Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center
	68 mm (60–76)	USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA	2017Modern analysis	Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit
Fruit firmness	26.0 N (11.2–40.7)	USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA	2017Modern analysis	Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit
Fruit weight	123 g (89–156)	USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA	2017Modern analysis	Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit
Juice yield	545 L/t	WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA	2002–2017Modern analysis	Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center
Starch pattern index	8.0 SPI	USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA	2017Modern analysis	Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit

Measured on the juice

Measured on juice as pressed, before fermentation. This is where most cider analysis lives and what the classification schemes are defined on.

Reported analyses of Bulmer’s Norman, by property and source — measured on the juice
Property	Reading	Where	When	Source
Total acid3 readings, spanning 0.170–0.240 % w/v	0.120–0.220 % w/v	Long Ashton, Somerset, England	Long Ashton analyses, 1903–1985Historic analysis	National Fruit and Cider Institute / University of Bristol
	0.220 % w/v	WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA	2002–2017Modern analysis	Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center
	0.240 % w/v	Long Ashton Research Station, near Bristol, Somerset, England	1905–1975Historic analysis	Andrew Lea
Total tannin3 readings, spanning 0.200–0.270 % w/v	0.200–0.300 % w/v	Long Ashton, Somerset, England	Long Ashton analyses, 1903–1985Historic analysis	National Fruit and Cider Institute / University of Bristol
	0.200 % w/v	WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA	2002–2017Modern analysis	Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center
	0.270 % w/v	Long Ashton Research Station, near Bristol, Somerset, England	1905–1975Historic analysis	Andrew Lea
Brix2 readings, spanning 10.6–11.3 °Bx	11.3 °Bx	WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA	2002–2017Modern analysis	Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center
	10.6 °Bx (9.8–11.3)	USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA	2017Modern analysis	Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit
pH2 readings, spanning 4.09–4.35 pH	4.09 pH	WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA	2002–2017Modern analysis	Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center
	4.35 pH (4.31–4.39)	USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA	2017Modern analysis	Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit
Fructose	65.2 g/L (61.3–69.1)Not used in comparisons: see note below	USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA	2017Modern analysis	Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit
Glucose	17.1 g/L (14.9–19.3)Not used in comparisons: see note below	USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA	2017Modern analysis	Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit
Sorbitol	18.7 g/L (18.0–19.4)Not used in comparisons: see note below	USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA	2017Modern analysis	Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit
Specific gravity	1.046 SG	WSU Mount Vernon NWREC, Skagit Valley, Washington, USA	2002–2017Modern analysis	Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center
Sucrose	27.9 g/L (20.0–35.8)Not used in comparisons: see note below	USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA	2017Modern analysis	Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit
Titratable acidity	3.1 g/L (3.0–3.2)	USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA	2017Modern analysis	Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit
Total phenolics	1840.0 mg/L (1570.0–2110.0)	USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA	2017Modern analysis	Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit

5 properties here have been measured more than once. The readings are shown as they were taken and are deliberately not averaged — climate, season, ripeness at picking, the age of the tree and the analytical method all move these numbers, and a single figure would hide every one of them. Where a spread is given below a property, it is the distance between separate studies, not the variation within any one of them.

How these were measured

Titration of pressed juice, reported as malic acid
Permanganate titration against indigo carmine, reported as tannic acid equivalent
Titration, reported as malic acid equivalent
Published as 2.95 inches; converted at 25.4 mm to the inch
Juice pressed from 25 fruit, 2015–2017 only. Published as 247 mL/lb; converted at 2.204623 lb to the kilogram
Mean of the fruit sampled per accession; where a bracket is shown it is one standard deviation either side of the mean, not the observed range. Published to two decimal places and shown at the precision CiderHQ displays for the unit.
Mean of the fruit sampled per accession; where a bracket is shown it is one standard deviation either side of the mean, not the observed range.
Cornell generic starch–iodine chart, 1–8, where 1 is no hydrolysis and 8 is complete. Mean of replicate fruit; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of it.
Penetrometer, mean of replicate fruit; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
Refractometer on pressed juice. Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
Titration to pH 8.1 with sodium hydroxide, reported as malic acid equivalents. Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
The starting pH recorded by the autotitrator before titration, on juice stored frozen at −80 °C and thawed; the source describes no separate pH measurement. Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
Folin–Ciocalteu assay against gallic acid standards, published in grams per litre of gallic acid equivalent and stored here as milligrams per litre by exact conversion. The source converts these figures to Löwenthal tannic acid equivalents, by a laboratory factor of 1.6, only to sort its accessions into classes; the figure here is the unconverted one.
Enzymatic assay (Megazyme). Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
D-sorbitol/xylitol assay kit (Megazyme), sorbitol dehydrogenase method. Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
Titration with alkali, reported as malic acid. Composite figure across many seasons; the source states neither the sample count nor the year of any individual analysis.
Löwenthal permanganate titration, reported as tannic acid equivalent. Composite figure across many seasons; the source states neither the sample count nor the year of any individual analysis.

Glucose, fructose, sucrose and sorbitol: Not used in any distribution, ranking or comparison. This programme’s enzyme-assayed sugars do not reconcile with its own refractometer readings across the collection — for many varieties the sugars add up to more than the Brix reading allows. The figures were checked against the thesis’s own tables in October 2026 and are transcribed exactly: the disagreement is in the published source, which does not say which reading is wrong. Proportions between glucose, fructose and sucrose, which came from one assay, are still used in summary.
A Herefordshire orchard cultivar analysed on Somerset-grown fruit.
Given as a range, and a wide one: material distributed under this name has not necessarily been genetically uniform, which is a further reason not to state a single figure.
A chart position, not a quantity. Almost every accession here scored at or near 8, which says the fruit was picked at or past full starch conversion rather than that the cultivars are alike.
One harvest at one site. Soluble solids move several degrees between seasons and with crop load.
A Folin–Ciocalteu figure counts everything that reduces the reagent, not tannin alone, and is not interchangeable with a Löwenthal permanganate figure for the same juice. Compare this reading with other Folin–Ciocalteu readings in gallic acid equivalents.
A composite of Long Ashton analyses reaching CiderHQ through three hands: the station’s own work, a printed compilation (Bulmer’s Pomona, 1987, and Beech and Carr, 1977), and a transcription of that compilation. CiderHQ has seen only the transcription.
A composite of Long Ashton analyses reaching CiderHQ through three hands: the station’s own work, a printed compilation (Bulmer’s Pomona, 1987, and Beech and Carr, 1977), and a transcription of that compilation. CiderHQ has seen only the transcription. A permanganate figure. It is not comparable with a Folin–Ciocalteu total-phenolics figure for the same fruit, and the two can differ by a factor of two.

Where it sits among the varieties each programme measured

Bulmer’s Norman against every other variety the same programme measured the same way. Repeat samples are reduced to their median first, and where a programme published a range and not a single figure the midpoint of that range stands for it. Laboratories disagree on absolute figures more than on order, so the position is the sturdier reading.
Programme	Property	Bulmer’s Norman	Programme median	Position
The Long Ashton cider apple table	Total acid	0.24 % w/v	0.23 % w/v	Above 22, level with 2, below 18 of the other 42: upper middle
The Long Ashton cider apple table	Total tannin	0.27 % w/v	0.23 % w/v	Above 26, level with 1, below 15 of the other 42: upper middle
Long Ashton Research Station cider fruit analyses	Total acid	0.17 % w/v	0.20 % w/v	Above 1, level with 10, below 24 of the other 35: lowest quarter
Long Ashton Research Station cider fruit analyses	Total tannin	0.25 % w/v	0.24 % w/v	Above 18, level with 3, below 13 of the other 34: upper middle
The USDA-PGRU germplasm characterisation	Titratable acidity as malic	3.1 g/L	4.1 g/L	Above 19 and below 27 of the other 46: lower middle
The USDA-PGRU germplasm characterisation	pH	4.35	3.64	Above 31, level with 2, below 7 of the other 40: highest quarter
The USDA-PGRU germplasm characterisation	Total phenolics	1840 mg/L	980 mg/L	Above 38 and below 8 of the other 46: highest quarter
The USDA-PGRU germplasm characterisation	Brix	10.6 °Bx	12.5 °Bx	Above 8, level with 1, below 37 of the other 46: lowest quarter
The USDA-PGRU germplasm characterisation	Fruit diameter	68.0 mm	65.0 mm	Above 27, level with 2, below 17 of the other 46: upper middle
The USDA-PGRU germplasm characterisation	Fruit weight	123 g	124 g	Above 22 and below 24 of the other 46: lower middle
The USDA-PGRU germplasm characterisation	Fruit firmness	26.0 N	58.9 N	Above 0 and below 44 of the other 44: lowest quarter
The USDA-PGRU germplasm characterisation	Starch pattern index	8.0 SPI	8.0 SPI	Above 20, level with 24, below 0 of the other 44: upper middle
The WSU Mount Vernon cider cultivar trial	Total acid	0.22 % w/v	0.32 % w/v	Above 9, level with 2, below 39 of the other 50: lowest quarter
The WSU Mount Vernon cider cultivar trial	pH	4.09	3.92	Above 26, level with 2, below 17 of the other 45: upper middle
The WSU Mount Vernon cider cultivar trial	Total tannin	0.20 % w/v	0.20 % w/v	Above 21, level with 3, below 20 of the other 44: upper middle
The WSU Mount Vernon cider cultivar trial	Specific gravity	1.046	1.051	Above 7, level with 1, below 36 of the other 44: lowest quarter
The WSU Mount Vernon cider cultivar trial	Brix	11.3 °Bx	12.5 °Bx	Above 6, level with 1, below 43 of the other 50: lowest quarter
The WSU Mount Vernon cider cultivar trial	Juice yield	545.0 L/t	545.0 L/t	Above 21, level with 1, below 20 of the other 42: upper middle
The WSU Mount Vernon cider cultivar trial	Fruit diameter	75.0 mm	63.0 mm	Above 39 and below 4 of the other 43: highest quarter

Compare within a study to see where these figures sat among the other cultivars the same work analysed — which is a more robust statement than the figures themselves, because absolute values move between laboratories and the ordering inside one study mostly survives.

Watched in the orchard

What named research programmes recorded about this fruit at their own sites. Bloom, harvest and cropping belong to a place and a run of seasons rather than to a cultivar, so they are reported site by site rather than merged.

WSU Mount Vernon cider cultivar trial

Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center, Mount Vernon, Skagit Valley, Washington · 2002–2017 · Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center

Maritime, with cool summers and mild wet winters — the closest North American analogue to the English West Country, and the reason the programme planted European cider fruit here rather than east of the Cascades.

Mean full bloom: 8 May
Harvest: 12 September
Bloom density: 4.5 of 5
Productivity: 2.8 of 5
Growth habit: Spreading
Bearing: Semi Spur
Alternate bearing: Semi alternate
Blind wood: 1 of 5
Rootstocks: MM106

Filed here as sweet.

Tasted at this site

Color gold, mildly bitter, bittersweet. Good balance, light body for a bittersweet. Cider a little thin, aftertaste short-lived but astringent, builds and lingers, refreshing.

Recorded by the programme from professional cidermakers in the region. One panel, one place, one set of seasons — a description of these ciders rather than of the cultivar everywhere.

Juice characteristics measured on 250 mL of pressed juice; juice yield from 25 fruit, 2015–2017 only. Bloom density, productivity and blind wood are the site’s own subjective 1–5 ratings. Figures are means across the seasons each cultivar was in the trial.

USDA-PGRU Malus germplasm characterisation

USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, in the Finger Lakes region of western New York State · 2017 · Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit

Humid continental, with cold winters and warm summers moderated by the Finger Lakes — a sharper seasonal swing than any of the European cider regions whose fruit the collection holds, and warm enough in late summer to bring acid down faster than a maritime autumn does.

Held as: PI 588808, held as “Bulmer Norman”

One harvest season. Fruit assessed for weight, diameter, starch pattern index on the Cornell 1–8 chart and flesh firmness by penetrometer; juice pressed and measured for soluble solids by refractometer, titratable acidity by titration to pH 8.1 as malic acid, pH as the autotitrator’s starting reading on juice that had been frozen, total phenolics by Folin–Ciocalteu assay as gallic acid equivalent, and glucose, fructose, sucrose and sorbitol by enzymatic assay.

Long Ashton composite cider apple analyses

Long Ashton Research Station, near Bristol, North Somerset, England · 1905–1975 · Andrew Lea

Maritime and mild, with wet autumns and few hard frosts — the climate the English cider cultivars were selected in, and the reason their acid and tannin figures here are the ones the rest of the world has spent a century comparing its own fruit against.

Held as: Listed as “Bulmers Norman”, early/mid season

Filed here as bittersweet.

Freshly expressed juice, not finished cider. Acid by straight titration against alkali, reported as malic acid; tannin by Löwenthal permanganate titration, reported as tannic acid equivalent. Composite figures across seventy years of analyses: the source gives neither a sample count nor the year of any individual reading.

In the orchard

Harvest window: Mid
Flowering: Pollination group 3
Vigour: Very vigorous — a large tree that takes years to settle to cropping
Cropping: Slightly biennial
Keeping: Poor — mill soon after picking

Mid to late October. Large fruit that falls readily.

Crops heavily and fairly regularly on a very large tree; it was planted as a standard, not a bush.

Large soft fruit that bruises and breaks down quickly.

Mid-season flowering.

109 other cultivars on this site with a recorded group could pollinate it — diploids flowering in group 3 or a group either side. See which, with their class and harvest window.

Disease and pest susceptibility

Recorded susceptibility. Pressure differs enormously by region and by season, so these are tendencies rather than predictions.
Issue	Susceptibility	Note
Canker	high	Canker-prone in the Herefordshire orchards it was planted in.
Scab	moderate	—

Juice and pressing

Very low acid
Mild tannin
High juice yield from large fruit

How it is used

Bulk bittersweet juice for Herefordshire commercial cider
Widely planted as a standard tree in the first half of the twentieth century

On its own

Not suited to a single-varietal cider

A bulk fruit with nothing distinctive to offer alone.

About Bulmer’s Norman

Bulmer’s Norman is a name that records a company rather than a cultivar. H P Bulmer imported bittersweet material from Normandy in the early twentieth century and distributed it to Herefordshire growers, and what went into the ground under that name became one of the standard bulk bittersweets of the county. It is a very large, very vigorous tree carrying large fruit, planted as a standard in the days when Herefordshire orchards were grazed underneath.

The juice is mild: low acid, moderate tannin, a lot of it per tonne. Its function was volume, and in that it succeeded. The characteristic Herefordshire cider of the mid twentieth century was built on fruit like this, with a small proportion of something more concentrated to give it definition.

The identity question is genuinely unresolved and worth being blunt about. "Norman" was used in Herefordshire as a general term for French-derived bittersweets, material was propagated locally from whatever was growing well, and there is no guarantee that trees labelled Bulmer’s Norman across the county are one clone. This record describes the fruit as it is generally understood and deliberately gives wide analytical bands, because a precise figure would be asserting a uniformity that the plantings do not have.

Its weakness is canker, which on Herefordshire clay has taken a steady toll, and the very large tree size, which fits badly with the mechanised bush orchards that replaced standards from the 1960s onwards. Both are reasons its share of English orchard area has declined even as the ciders it helped define remain in production.

Names, origin and identity

Cultivar naming is the hardest problem in cider fruit data. The same tree carries different names across ten miles, and two different trees have shared a name for two centuries.

Origin · traditional account

Imported from Normandy by H P Bulmer and distributed in Herefordshire under the company’s name. Which Norman cultivar or selection the imported material actually was is not settled, and the English name records the importer rather than the fruit.

Other names this fruit is known by. Each is a name for the same cultivar, not a separate one — which is why none of them has a page of its own.
Name	Kind	Note
Norman	Regional name	Herefordshire. Used alone in Herefordshire orchards for this cultivar and, indiscriminately, for any French-derived bittersweet. An orchard record saying "Norman" identifies nothing.

Related cultivars

Recorded relationships, including the ones this fruit is routinely confused with.

Fruit that plays a similar part

Cultivars sharing a classification under the same system and a comparable role in a blend. Not a similarity score — a stated relationship.

Styles it is characteristic of

Herefordshire cider
Cider from the county with England’s largest cider orchard area, protected as a geographical indication and spanning farmhouse practice, bottle-fermented cider and industrial-scale production.

Where it grows

What people ask next

Questions readers ask about the things this page mentions. Each one goes to the section that answers it rather than to a page written to receive the question.

How do you blend cider
What is a michelin apple
How is supermarket cider made
What are the three counties in cider — Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire — the block of country where England’s cider and, above all, its perry have historically concentrated.
What is normandy cider
What is herefordshire cider

Where to go next

How cider apples are classified — Why there are four schemes and none of them is universal.
The blend explorer — See which way changing the proportions moves a blend.
Blending — What a cider maker is actually deciding when they build a blend.

Sources

What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.

Long Ashton Research Station cider fruit analyses
National Fruit and Cider Institute / University of Bristol · research institute · registered as competent for this subject · covers 1903–2003
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.
A Somerset Pomona: The Cider Apples of Somerset
Liz Copas, The Dovecote Press, 2001. ISBN 9781874336877 · reference work · bibliographic record verified, not opened 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.
National Fruit Collection
University of Reading / Defra, Brogdale · research institute · retrieved 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.
Hereford Museum of Cider collections and interpretation
Hereford Cider Museum Trust · museum · retrieved 2026-08-24

Traditional record Evidence standard for this record. What that means.