Cider apple
Handsome Norman
A Herefordshire bittersweet of the loosely defined Norman group, giving mild tannin from a large, well-coloured fruit.
Also written Handsome Norman Apple.
- Classification
- Bittersweet — Long Ashton classification
- Harvest
- Mid (Late September to mid October)
- Single varietal
- Not suited to a single-varietal cider
- Blend role
- Bittersweet base, Bulk juice
- Origin
- Herefordshire
- Species
- Malus domestica
- Vigour
- Vigorous
- Biennial bearing
- Slightly biennial
- Keeping
- Moderate
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 to medium bittersweet on description. No verified per-cultivar analysis is attached.
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 | Low | |
| Tannin | Moderate | |
| Sugar | Moderate | |
| Bitterness | Moderate | |
| Astringency | Noticeable | |
| Aroma | Restrained | |
| Body | Medium |
Description within the Herefordshire Norman group, held at described confidence because group identity is unreliable.
Adds mild tannin and volume in a Three Counties blend.
Aroma
No aroma descriptors are recorded for Handsome 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.
Measured analysis
CiderHQ holds no sourced juice analysis for Handsome Norman. Figures for this cultivar circulate, but they reach the present through compilation rather than through the original tables, and publishing a number we cannot attribute would give it an authority it has not earned. What is known about how the fruit behaves is described above and below.
In the orchard
- Harvest window
- Mid
- Flowering
- Not recorded
- Vigour
- Vigorous
- Cropping
- Slightly biennial
- Keeping
- Moderate
October.
No pollination group is recorded.
Disease and pest susceptibility
| Issue | Susceptibility | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Canker | high | Canker is a general problem in the Norman group on Herefordshire clay. |
| Scab | moderate | — |
Juice and pressing
- Low acid
- Mild tannin
- Large fruit, good juice yield
How it is used
- A bittersweet component of Herefordshire blends
On its own
Not suited to a single-varietal cider
A bulk bittersweet.
About Handsome Norman
Handsome Norman is a name that describes an appearance and a supposed nationality, and there is no certainty about either being informative. The Herefordshire Normans are a loose group of large, mild, low-acid bittersweets that were understood in the county as French or French-derived, and which include genuine imports, English seedlings raised from imported fruit, and apples that were simply large and mild enough to fit the category.
This particular one is a well-coloured, large-fruited, mild bittersweet used for bulk in Three Counties blends. It crops well and cankers, which is characteristic of the group on heavy Herefordshire ground.
The honest summary of the Norman group is that the label describes a type and a supposed provenance, that its members are not reliably distinguishable in old orchards, and that any analysis attributed to one of them should be treated with care. This record follows that: description, no numbers, and confidence held at described.
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
A Herefordshire cultivar of the Norman group. Whether it is genuinely of French origin, an English seedling of French parentage, or an English apple that acquired the label by resemblance is not established — and that uncertainty applies to the whole group.
| Name | Kind | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Norman | Disputed identity | The bare name was used in Herefordshire for any French-derived or French-looking bittersweet and identifies nothing. |
Related cultivars
Recorded relationships, including the ones this fruit is routinely confused with.
Often confused with
Bulmer’s Norman
The most widely planted of the Herefordshire Normans, and the one the group name is most often attached to.
Often confused with
Strawberry Norman
Another named member of the same group with the same identification difficulties.
Similar role
Michelin
A documented French cultivar filling the same role.
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.
Michelin
A Norman bittersweet raised near Yvetot in the 1870s that became, in England rather than in France, one of the most widely planted cider apples in the world.
Somerset Redstreak
A mild bittersweet planted at very large scale in the late twentieth century for its heavy, regular cropping on bush trees, and a fruit whose commercial importance exceeds its character.
Brown Snout
A Herefordshire mild bittersweet named for the russet patch at its eye, valued for compact growth and regular cropping rather than for concentration.
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.
Hangdown
A Devon mild bittersweet named for its weeping habit, sitting close enough to the tannin threshold that sources place it on both sides of it.
Backwell Red
A north Somerset bittersweet from the village of Backwell, close to Long Ashton itself, giving moderate tannin from a heavy-cropping tree.
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
- 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 herefordshire cider
- Where are perry pears grown
- What is bulmers norman
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.
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.
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.
Three Counties Cider and Perry Association
TCCPA · specialist organisation · retrieved 2026-08-24
Traditional record Evidence standard for this record. What that means.