Cider apple
GoldRush
A scab-resistant Golden Delicious descendant released in 1994, unusually high in both sugar and acid, exceptionally long-keeping, and one of the modern American selections that cider makers actively seek out.
Also written Gold Rush, Coop 38.
- Classification
- Sharp — Long Ashton classification
- Harvest
- Very late (November onwards)
- Single varietal
- Established as a single-varietal cider
- Blend role
- Acid lift, Sugar and body, Late season, Vintage quality
- Origin
- The Purdue–Rutgers–Illinois co-operative apple breeding programme, released through Purdue University, Indiana
- Species
- Malus domestica
- Vigour
- Moderate
- Biennial bearing
- Slightly biennial
- Keeping
- Very good — holds in store for weeks
How it is classified
Long Ashton classification
Sharp
High acid, low tannin. Includes both purpose-grown sharps and many culinary apples.
Basis: Above about 0.45% w/v acid and below about 0.2% w/v tannin.
Assessed in Fruit grown in New York State trial plantings.
A sharp by the scheme’s thresholds, though its sugar is far higher than the sharp class implies.
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 cider will be.
| Axis | Typical | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Acid | High | |
| Tannin | Light | |
| Sugar | High | |
| Bitterness | None | |
| Astringency | Slight | |
| Aroma | Pronounced | |
| Body | Full |
Cornell acid and Brix figures from New York trial fruit.
Sharp, dense and spicy-aromatic, with a sugar level that keeps the acid from tasting austere.
Aroma
No aroma descriptors are recorded for GoldRush, 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.
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.
| Property | Reading | Where | When | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brix2 readings, spanning 15.0–16.0 °Bx | 14.0–18.0 °Bx | Geneva, New York State | 2010sModern analysis | Cornell University, School of Integrative Plant Science |
| 15.0 °Bx | Winchester, Virginia, USA | 2012–2013Modern analysis | Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry | |
| pH | 3.49 pH | Winchester, Virginia, USA | 2012–2013Modern analysis | Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry |
| Titratable acidity | 11.1 g/L | Winchester, Virginia, USA | 2012–2013Modern analysis | Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry |
| Total acid | 0.750–1.050 % w/v | Geneva, New York State | 2010sModern analysis | Cornell University, School of Integrative Plant Science |
| Total phenolics | 359.0 mg/L | Winchester, Virginia, USA | 2012–2013Modern analysis | Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry |
One property here has 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
- Refractometer on pressed juice.
- Meter on pressed juice.
- Titration, reported as malic acid. Published to two decimal places and shown at the one the site displays.
- Folin–Ciocalteu, reported as gallic acid equivalents.
- Reported as malic acid. GoldRush is among the sharpest of the modern American releases and mellows appreciably over several months in store.
- Refractometric. High for a modern dessert apple, and the reason cider makers value it alongside its acid.
- A Folin–Ciocalteu figure in gallic acid equivalents. It is not interchangeable with a Löwenthal permanganate “tannin” figure: the two assays respond to different things and can differ by a factor of two on the same juice.
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.
Virginia cultivar polyphenol characterisation
Winchester, in the northern Shenandoah Valley, Virginia · 2012–2013 · Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
Humid subtropical shading into continental, with hot summers — warm enough that acid falls faster through the ripening period than it does in a maritime autumn, which is part of why the titratable acidities here run lower than English figures for comparable fruit.
- Held as
- Listed as “Gold Rush”
Soluble solids by refractometer, pH by meter, titratable acidity by titration as malic acid, total polyphenols by Folin–Ciocalteu as gallic acid equivalents. Twenty cultivars, one site.
In the orchard
- Harvest window
- Very late
- Flowering
- Not recorded
- Vigour
- Moderate
- Cropping
- Slightly biennial
- Keeping
- Very good — holds in store for weeks
One of the last apples picked, and it genuinely needs the full season; picked early it is merely acid.
Exceptional. It is often better after several months in store than at picking, which is very unusual.
Disease and pest susceptibility
| Issue | Susceptibility | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Apple scab | low | Vf-resistant, from the same co-operative breeding line as Liberty. |
| Fire blight | moderate | — |
| Powdery mildew | high | Its principal weakness, and the reason it is not entirely a low-spray cultivar despite its scab resistance. |
Juice and pressing
- High acid and high sugar together, which is the combination that makes it useful.
- A spicy aromatic character inherited from the Golden Delicious side.
- Very little tannin.
- Long storage without significant acid loss.
How it is used
- A late-season market and storage apple for low-spray growers.
- Increasingly planted specifically for cider across the eastern United States.
On its own
Established as a single-varietal cider
Bottled single-varietal by a growing number of eastern producers, and it stands up: the acid gives structure and the sugar gives body. The absence of tannin still shortens the finish.
About GoldRush
GoldRush is the answer to a question the American cider revival kept asking: is there a modern, plantable, commercially viable apple that actually makes good cider? It was bred for scab resistance and long storage rather than for cider, but the resulting fruit carries high acid and high sugar simultaneously, keeps for six months without losing either, and brings a spiced aroma from its Golden Delicious parentage.
That combination is rare and useful. Most fruit available to an American maker forces a choice between acid and gravity; GoldRush supplies both, from a tree that crops annually, resists scab and is sold by every nursery. Where Wickson achieves the same balance in a fruit that is uneconomic to pick, GoldRush achieves it in a normal-sized apple on a normal commercial tree, and eastern growers have planted it accordingly.
Its limits are honest ones. There is no tannin, so a GoldRush cider is bright and dense but finishes abruptly, and blenders pair it with something phenolic. It is mildew-prone, so the scab resistance does not amount to a spray-free orchard. And it needs the full season: a grower who picks it in early October has a very sharp apple and none of the sugar that makes it worth growing.
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.
Parentage · a recorded cross
Golden Delicious crossed with a co-operative selection carrying Vf scab resistance. The second parent has no CiderHQ record. Recorded as a cross by the breeding programme that made it, which is strong evidence about what was intended and weaker evidence about which pollen took; no genotyping study CiderHQ has read confirms it.
The breeding programme recorded making this cross. Strong evidence about what was intended; weaker evidence about which pollen actually took, which only genotyping settles.
| Name | Kind | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Coop 38 | Trade name | The selection number under which it was tested and is still sometimes listed by nurseries. |
Why it matters
- The clearest case of a modern North American breeding release that cider makers adopted on its own merits rather than because it was surplus.
Related cultivars
Recorded relationships, including the ones this fruit is routinely confused with.
Parent
Golden Delicious
The source of its sugar and its spiced aroma; GoldRush is what Golden Delicious would be with the acid put back.
Similar role
Liberty
Both carry Vf scab resistance from the same programme.
Similar role
Wickson Crab
Both supply acid and sugar together, which is what a low-tannin blend most needs.
Parentage
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.
Golden Russet
The highest-gravity fruit in widespread North American cider use — a small bronze russet from New York whose juice regularly presses above 1.060 and which many revival makers treat as their benchmark cultivar.
Wickson Crab
A Californian dessert crab raised by Albert Etter, exceptional for carrying very high sugar and very high acid at the same time, and now one of the most sought-after cider cultivars in North America.
Roxbury Russet
Generally reckoned the oldest apple cultivar raised in North America — a Massachusetts russet from the seventeenth century, pressed for cider for as long as it has existed.
Newton Wonder
A large English dual-purpose apple, sharper than a dessert fruit and sweeter than Bramley, pressed on farms and used in modern blends for acid with some substance.
Kingston Black
The most celebrated English single-varietal cider apple: a small dark-red bittersharp carrying acid and tannin in one fruit, and a tree difficult enough that its reputation has always outrun its plantings.
Baldwin
The dominant New England apple of the nineteenth century until a single catastrophic winter destroyed the orchards; a firm, moderately sharp keeper still used in northeastern cider blends.
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
- Is golden delicious used to make cider — Heavily, and by volume it is one of the largest single inputs to cider worldwide. It brings sugar and a genuine honeyed aroma; what it does not bring is acid or tannin, so it is a component rather than a cider.
- How long can apples be kept before pressing
- Is single variety cider better than a blend — Neither is inherently better and CiderHQ does not rank them. A single varietal shows one cultivar’s character and depends entirely on that fruit being balanced; a blend is how most makers reach balance deliberately.
- What is modern american cider like
- What is wickson crab
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.
Cornell Cider Research and Extension programme
Cornell University, School of Integrative Plant Science · university · passage verified 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.
GRIN-Global germplasm database — Malus and Pyrus
United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service · research institute · retrieved 2026-08-24
Washington State University cider research programme
Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center · university · passage verified 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.
Research Evidence standard for this record. What that means.