Cider apple
Sturmer Pippin
An English-raised apple that became a southern-hemisphere export staple — very late, very long-keeping, firmly acid, and for a century the backbone of the Tasmanian and Nelson orchard trade.
Also written Sturmer, Sturmer’s Pippin.
- Classification
- Not classified under any recorded system
- Harvest
- Very late (November onwards)
- Single varietal
- Sometimes bottled on its own
- Blend role
- Acid lift, Sugar and body, Late season, Vintage quality
- Origin
- Sturmer, Suffolk, England
- Species
- Malus domestica
- Vigour
- Vigorous
- Biennial bearing
- Slightly biennial
- Keeping
- Very good — holds in store for weeks
How it is classified
No classification scheme has been recorded for Sturmer Pippin. 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 | High | |
| Tannin | Light | |
| Sugar | High | |
| Bitterness | None | |
| Astringency | Slight | |
| Aroma | Present | |
| Body | Medium |
Description of a very late, firm, high-acid, high-sugar keeper. CiderHQ holds no juice analysis for southern-hemisphere-grown fruit of any cultivar, and the profile is marked described for that reason. These bands were authored from description; published analyses of this fruit have since been transcribed onto the record from named trial programmes and are shown above. The bands are not derived from those figures, which is why this profile is marked as classified rather than measured.
Firm, sharp and slightly aromatic, developing a nutty richness after several months in store that it entirely lacks at picking.
Aroma
No aroma descriptors are recorded for Sturmer Pippin, 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.
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.
| Property | Reading | Where | When | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fruit diameter | 65 mm (61–69) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Fruit firmness | 73.1 N (59.6–86.5) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Fruit weight | 119 g (92–147) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Starch pattern index | 7.1 SPI (6.6–7.5) | 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.
| Property | Reading | Where | When | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brix | 11.9 °Bx (10.9–12.9) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Fructose | 57.5 g/L (55.4–59.6) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Glucose | 12.6 g/L (12.2–13.0) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| pH | 3.28 pH (3.26–3.30) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Sorbitol | 19.7 g/L (19.6–19.8) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Sucrose | 54.8 g/L (52.8–56.8) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Titratable acidity | 6.8 g/L | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Total phenolics | 650.0 mg/L (550.0–750.0) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
How these were measured
- 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 8.2 with sodium hydroxide, reported as malic acid equivalents. Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- Meter on pressed juice before fermentation. Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- Löwenthal permanganate titration, reported by the source as grams per litre of tannic acid equivalent and stored here as milligrams per litre by exact conversion so that it sits in one column with the Folin–Ciocalteu figures the site also holds. The two methods do not measure the same thing and are not interchangeable.
- 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.
- 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 permanganate figure and a Folin–Ciocalteu figure for the same juice can differ by a factor of two. Compare this reading with other permanganate readings, not with a Folin one.
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.
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 307382, held as “Sturmer Pippin”
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 8.2 as malic acid, pH by meter, total phenolics by Löwenthal permanganate titration as tannic acid equivalent, and glucose, fructose, sucrose and sorbitol by enzymatic assay.
In the orchard
- Harvest window
- Very late
- Flowering
- Not recorded
- Vigour
- Vigorous
- Cropping
- Slightly biennial
- Keeping
- Very good — holds in store for weeks
The last apple picked in a Tasmanian season — May or later. The northern-hemisphere harvest window labels used by this schema map onto a southern calendar six months displaced, and the label above should be read as a position in the season rather than as a month.
Exceptional keeping was the whole commercial case for it: fruit picked in Tasmania in May reached British markets in good condition months later.
Disease and pest susceptibility
| Issue | Susceptibility | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Apple scab | moderate | Assessed from general cultivar description rather than from any southern-hemisphere trial; CiderHQ has no registered Australian or New Zealand research source. |
| Requires a long growing season | high | It ripens too late for much of Britain, which is precisely why it succeeded in Tasmania and Nelson and failed at home. |
Juice and pressing
- Firm acid that persists through very long storage.
- Good sugar, developing further as starch converts in store.
- Very little tannin.
- A nutty aromatic character that emerges only with time.
How it is used
- The dominant export apple of Tasmania and of the Nelson district of New Zealand through the first half of the twentieth century.
- Pressed as culls and end-of-season fruit into Australian and New Zealand cider.
- Used deliberately by modern Tasmanian producers as the acid and gravity base of heritage blends.
On its own
Sometimes bottled on its own
Tasmanian producers have bottled it alone, and the combination of firm acid and good sugar carries it. There is no tannin and the finish is correspondingly short.
About Sturmer Pippin
Sturmer Pippin is an English apple that made no impression in England. It ripens too late for a British autumn and rarely came to anything there. Transplanted to Tasmania and to the Nelson district of New Zealand — both with long, mild, late growing seasons — it became the export apple on which two regional economies were built, precisely because it could be picked in May and still be sound in a British shop in September.
When Britain joined the European Communities in 1973 and the preferential trade that sustained those exports ended, the Tasmanian industry collapsed. Orchards were pulled out under government-assisted tree-removal schemes through the 1970s, and a fruit-growing region that had defined itself as the Apple Isle lost most of its orchards within a decade. That is the southern-hemisphere counterpart of the American story told at the head of this file: an industry ended by policy, and a modern cider revival rebuilding from what survived.
For a cider maker Sturmer is a useful base. The acid is firm and lasts, the sugar is good and improves in store, and a Tasmanian producer using it is working with the fruit their own orchards were planted for. It carries no tannin, so it wants a phenolic partner, and Tasmania’s answer to that has generally been imported English and French bittersweets rather than any local fruit.
No juice analysis for southern-hemisphere-grown fruit appears anywhere in this file, for any cultivar. CiderHQ’s register contains no Australian or New Zealand research source competent for juice chemistry, and the honest response is to say so rather than to import a northern figure and present it as though the climate did not matter.
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
English by origin and included in this family because its history, its commercial significance and its cider use are almost entirely southern-hemisphere. It was never an important English cider apple.
| Name | Kind | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Sturmer | Regional name | Tasmania and New Zealand. The usual short form in the southern hemisphere, where the fruit had by far its greatest commercial life. |
Why it matters
- The clearest case of an English cultivar whose real career happened in the southern hemisphere, and whose cider identity is Tasmanian rather than English.
- Its rise and collapse tracks the rise and collapse of the Tasmanian export apple industry, which is the context for everything Tasmanian cider is now built on.
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.
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.
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.
Boskoop
A large, russeted, extremely acid Dutch apple found at Boskoop in the mid-nineteenth century, grown across northern Europe as a culinary fruit and used heavily in German and Swiss *Most*.
Brettacher
A large, acid, exceptionally long-keeping Württemberg apple found as a chance seedling in the early twentieth century, and one of the most planted *Most* cultivars of southern Germany.
Manttoni
A Basque cultivar of good reputation with balanced acid and pronounced aroma, one of the cultivars a *sagardotegi* will name when describing a serious blend.
Styles it is characteristic of
Australian cider
Cider from Australia, dominated by a large mainstream sector using dessert fruit and concentrate, with a smaller full-juice movement working from cool-climate orchards.
Tasmanian cider
Cider from Tasmania, whose cool maritime climate and long apple-growing history give fruit with the acid that most Australian districts cannot hold.
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 i balance acid and tannin in a blend — Acid and tannin do different jobs and cannot substitute for each other: acid gives freshness and microbiological safety, tannin gives structure and length. A blend short of acid tastes flabby however tannic it is.
- How do you blend 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 australian cider
- What is new zealand 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.
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.
GRIN-Global germplasm database — Malus and Pyrus
United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service · research institute · retrieved 2026-08-24
Cider and perry production technical training material
Peter Mitchell / Cider and Perry Academy · reference work · registered as competent for this subject
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.
Research Evidence standard for this record. What that means.