Cider apple
Lobo
A McIntosh seedling raised at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa and introduced in 1930, larger and earlier than its parent and widely planted in Quebec and northern Europe.
Also written Lobo.
- Classification
- Not classified under any recorded system
- Harvest
- Early (September)
- Single varietal
- Rarely bottled on its own
- Blend role
- Early season, Aroma
- Origin
- Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa, Ontario
- Species
- Malus domestica
- Vigour
- Moderate
- Biennial bearing
- Slightly biennial
- Keeping
- Poor — mill soon after picking
How it is classified
No classification scheme has been recorded for Lobo. That is common outside Europe: the English, French and Spanish systems were each built for their own fruit, and a cultivar grown where none of them applies simply has no class. What the fruit contributes to a blend is described below regardless — the class is a shorthand for that, not a substitute.
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 | Moderate | |
| Tannin | Negligible | |
| Sugar | Moderate | |
| Bitterness | None | |
| Astringency | None | |
| Aroma | Pronounced | |
| Body | Light |
Description of a large, soft, aromatic McIntosh seedling. No juice analysis is registered.
A softer, sweeter, larger McIntosh — the same perfume with rather less acid behind it.
Aroma
No aroma descriptors are recorded for Lobo, 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 Lobo. 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
- Early
- Flowering
- Not recorded
- Vigour
- Moderate
- Cropping
- Slightly biennial
- Keeping
- Poor — mill soon after picking
Earlier than McIntosh, which is its main practical advantage: it lets a Quebec mill start pressing before the main crop.
Disease and pest susceptibility
| Issue | Susceptibility | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Apple scab | high | Inherited from McIntosh in full measure. |
| Winter cold injury | low | — |
Juice and pressing
- A McIntosh-family aroma at good intensity.
- Lower acid than McIntosh, which is a disadvantage rather than an advantage for cider.
- No tannin and modest sugar.
How it is used
- A market and home-orchard apple across Quebec, and widely grown in the Nordic and Baltic countries for its hardiness.
- Pressed early in the Quebec season as a first-run cider fruit.
On its own
Rarely bottled on its own
Aromatic but soft and short of acid; it makes a slight cider that needs sharpening from elsewhere.
About Lobo
Lobo is a Canadian government breeding release from the era when the Dominion Experimental Farms were systematically working through McIntosh seedlings looking for something hardier, larger or earlier. It found earlier and larger, at the cost of some acid and most of the keeping quality.
For a Quebec cider maker its value is scheduling. It ripens ahead of McIntosh, which lets a press start work before the main crop arrives and spreads the labour of a very compressed northern harvest. That is a real operational benefit and it is most of why the cultivar appears in cider at all — the juice itself is a slightly diluted McIntosh.
It travelled unusually far for a Canadian apple, and is grown across Scandinavia, the Baltic states and Poland where its hardiness suits the climate. A proportion of northern European cider and juice therefore contains an Ottawa-bred McIntosh seedling, which is a small illustration of how far the North American hardiness breeding effort reached.
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 · documented
A documented Canadian government breeding release, raised as an open-pollinated McIntosh seedling.
Parentage · a recorded cross
An open-pollinated McIntosh seedling; the pollen parent is unknown. 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.
Related cultivars
Recorded relationships, including the ones this fruit is routinely confused with.
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.
Foxwhelp
The oldest named English cider apple still grown, a Herefordshire bittersharp of extraordinary acidity whose identity has fractured into a family of sports, seedlings and impostors.
Gravensteiner
A famously aromatic early apple from the Danish–German borderlands, whose origin has been claimed for at least three countries, and the fruit that Nordic cider most often reaches for when it wants perfume.
Broxwood Foxwhelp
A Herefordshire selection of Foxwhelp from Broxwood, keeping much of the parent’s acidity in a fruit that is easier to grow, and the form most commonly planted today.
Chestnut Crab
A Minnesota-bred crab from 1946 with a distinctive nutty flavour and good sugar, cold-hardy enough for the upper Midwest and Quebec, and widely used as an aroma component in northern cider.
Discovery
A very early red dessert apple raised in Essex, used by cidermakers to start the season with something aromatic and sharp.
Ilzer Rosen
A Styrian apple named for the Ilz valley, aromatic and moderately acid, grown in Austrian meadow orchards for the table and for *Most*.
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 apples is quebec cider made from — McIntosh above all. It is to eastern Canada what a bittersweet is to Somerset — the assumed default — and its perfumed, high-acid juice is the aromatic foundation of most Quebec and northeastern cider.
- What is modern american cider like
- What is quebec ice cider
- Why is quebec known for ice cider — Because the winters are cold enough and long enough to concentrate apple juice by freezing reliably, which is the one thing ice cider needs and most cider regions cannot supply.
- Is cider made in nova scotia — Yes. The Annapolis Valley has grown apples since French colonial settlement, which makes it one of the oldest continuously planted orchard districts in North America.
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.
GRIN-Global germplasm database — Malus and Pyrus
United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service · research institute · retrieved 2026-08-24
The New Cider Maker’s Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Craft Producers
Claude Jolicoeur, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013. ISBN 9781603584739 · reference work · bibliographic record verified, not opened 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.
University of Vermont cider research
University of Vermont Extension · university · retrieved 2026-08-24
Traditional record Evidence standard for this record. What that means.