Comparison
Dry vs sweet
What does dry mean on a cider label?
In short
Dry means little residual sugar. The categories used commercially — dry, medium, sweet, with off-dry and demi-sec between — are bands of residual sugar, and the thresholds differ between markets and between designation specifications.
Perception does not track the measurement neatly. Acid and tannin both suppress the perception of sweetness, and carbonation does too, so a sharp sparkling cider at a given sugar level tastes drier than a soft still one at the same level. A high-tannin cider can read as bone dry while carrying measurable sugar.
Perry adds a complication of its own. Sorbitol is not fermentable, so a perry that has fermented completely still tastes sweet — the sugar analysis and the palate genuinely disagree, and neither is wrong.
The two things being compared
Each side described in its own terms first, so the table below has something to hang on.
Dry
Little residual sugar. The palate is carried by acid, tannin and fruit rather than by sweetness.
Sweet
Substantial residual sugar, whether unfermented, restored after fermentation, or unfermentable in the case of perry.
Where they differ
Dimension by dimension. Where a row needs a qualification, it carries one rather than being simplified until it fits.
| Dimension | Dry | Sweet |
|---|---|---|
| Residual sugar | Low. | High. |
| Where the category boundaries sitA cider labelled medium in one market may fall in a different band in another. | Defined by threshold in commercial and designation practice, and the thresholds vary between markets. | The same. |
| Interaction with acid | High acid makes a dry cider taste austere. | High acid makes a sweet cider taste balanced rather than cloying. |
| Interaction with tannin | Tannin reinforces the impression of dryness. | Sugar softens the perception of astringency. |
| Interaction with carbonation | Carbonation makes it read drier still. | Carbonation cuts the sweetness. |
| How it was achieved | Fermentation to completion. | Arrested fermentation, keeving, back-sweetening, or sorbitol in perry. |
| Stability | Stable; no fermentable sugar remains. | Requires stabilisation unless the sugar is unfermentable. |
Notes under a dimension name qualify the whole row, not one column.
What the words mean where they are defined
In most of the cider world dry, medium and sweet are conventions, not thresholds: UK sweetness terms are not defined in law, and two ciders labelled medium can differ by tens of grams of sugar. Two schemes do fix the words, and they fix them in different ways.
France’s 2025 décret defines its four categories on acquired alcohol and density rather than on sugar, because density is what a producer can measure on the line and it captures a sweetness that a sugar figure alone would not. Asturias defines the words on its sparkling cider by residual sugar, borrowing the sparkling-wine ladder. A French brut and an Asturian brut are therefore measured on different instruments, and the same word does not promise the same drink.
| Scheme | Term | Defined by |
|---|---|---|
| France | Doux | At most 3% alcohol; density at 20 °C of 1.024 or more |
| France | Demi-sec | More than 3% alcohol; density above 1.016 |
| France | Brut | At least 3.5% alcohol; density at most 1.016 |
| France | Extra brut | At least 5% alcohol; density below 1.013 |
| Asturias, sparkling | Brut nature to dulce | Residual sugar, from under 3 g/L to 80 g/L, in seven steps |
| United Kingdom | Dry, medium, sweet | Not defined in law; a producer’s convention |
- Sweetness decoder — every scheme’s terms side by side, including the conventions.
- Sidra espumosa — the Asturian ladder in full.
When Dry is the relevant one
The circumstances in which this is the thing being described, rather than a reason to prefer it.
- The cider fermented out and carries little sugar.
- You are describing a cider whose structure is acid and tannin.
When Sweet is the relevant one
The circumstances in which this is the thing being described, rather than a reason to prefer it.
- Substantial sugar remains, by whatever route.
- You are explaining why a cider that fermented dry still tastes sweet — which in perry it can.
A misconception worth clearing up
This comparison exists partly because of the claim below, which is repeated often enough that most readers arrive holding it.
Dry cider means strong cider.
What is actually the case: Dryness records how much sugar is left, and strength records how much alcohol was produced. A sweet cider can be strong and a dry one weak; a keeved cider is sweet precisely because fermentation stopped early, which also makes it lower in alcohol.
Related comparisons
Distinctions that turn on the same thing, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Back-sweetening vs arrested fermentation
Both produce a sweet cider, but back-sweetening adds sugar or juice to a dry cider afterwards, while arresting stops the fermentation before the sugar is gone.
Keeved vs fully fermented
Keeving strips nutrients out of the juice before fermentation so that the yeast starves before the sugar is gone, leaving natural sweetness; a fully fermented cider runs to dryness and is sweetened afterwards if at all.
Cider vs perry
Cider is fermented from apples and perry from pears — but the pear brings sorbitol, citric acid and stone cells, which change how the drink ferments, how sweet it finishes and how it must be handled.
Sweet vs bittersweet
Both classes are low in acid; the bittersweet is above the tannin threshold and the sweet is below it, which is the difference between fruit that gives structure and fruit that gives only body.
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.
- What is keeving, and how does it differ from an ordinary fermentation — Keeving deliberately strips nitrogen out of the juice before fermentation so the yeast runs out of nutrient and stops with sugar still present. The result is naturally sweet without anything being added, where an ordinary fermentation runs to dryness and any sweetness has to be put back.
- What is the difference between cider and perry — Cider is fermented apple juice and perry is fermented pear juice. Perry is lower in tannin, higher in unfermentable sorbitol so it tastes faintly sweet even when dry, and considerably harder to make.
- How do cider makers make a cider sweet without it refermenting — Back-sweetening adds sugar to a finished dry cider, which then has to be stabilised or pasteurised or it will referment in the bottle. An arrested fermentation stops before the sugar is gone, by cold, by racking or by keeving, so the sweetness was never added.
- What is the difference between a sweet and a bittersweet cider apple
Where to go next
- All comparisons — The rest of the pairs, grouped by what kind of difference is at stake.
- Glossary — Either term on its own, defined without a second thing to hold it against.
- Learn about cider — The background these pages assume, written from the beginning.
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.
The Science of Cidermaking and associated technical writing
Andrew Lea · reference work · passage verified 2026-08-24
Written by a food chemist who worked at Long Ashton on apple phenolics. Unusual among specialist cider writing in that it is primary-research-adjacent: the author is describing work he did, and cites the literature. This is why it is registered at tier 1 for chemistry while a general cider book is not.
Research on pear juice composition and sorbitol in perry
Various journals and institute reports · peer-reviewed literature · registered as competent for this subject
The evidence base for the single most important chemical difference between cider and perry: pears carry substantial sorbitol, which yeast does not ferment, so a fully fermented perry retains sweetness a fully fermented cider cannot.
National Association of Cider Makers
NACM · specialist organisation · retrieved 2026-08-24
The UK trade association. Useful for industry-agreed definitions and for the voluntary labelling standards its members work to. A trade body has an interest in how its product is described, so CiderHQ cites it for what the industry says about itself rather than for neutral scientific claims.
Institut national de l’origine et de la qualité (INAO)
INAO · regulator · passage verified 2026-08-24
The Cidre Pays d’Auge cahier des charges was read in full on 2026-08-24, in the version homologated by arrêté of 17 January 2026 and published in the Journal officiel on 21 January. That qualification is not decoration. A revision adopted by the Comité national on 10 September 2025 is currently under the procédure nationale d’opposition, is clearly marked as not prejudging the final text, and specifies carbonation differently from the text in force — as grams of CO2 per litre rather than as a minimum pressure in bar. A summary citing the draft would have put a figure on the page that no producer is held to. CiderHQ records the operative text and says which one it is.
Révision du décret cidre : le nouveau décret entre en vigueur au 1er juillet 2025
Union Nationale Interprofessionnelle Cidricole (UNICID), Jean-Louis Benassi · specialist organisation · passage verified 2026-08-24
The French cider interbranch organisation’s own briefing on the 2025 décret, read in full on 2026-08-24. It is registered because the primary text could not be retrieved verbatim and this one reproduces the operative sweetness table, and it is registered at tier 2 rather than tier 1 because an interbranch body explaining a decree is not the decree. Where it is cited, it is cited for what the instrument says, alongside the instrument.
Légifrance, JORF texte n° JORFTEXT000051223792 · legislation · retrieved 2026-08-24 · covers In force from 1 July 2025; “artisanal” and “rosé” from 1 January 2026
Opened on 2026-08-24, and it turned out that the entry CiderHQ had was describing a repealed instrument. The décret of 20 February 2025 replaces the 1953 décret and the 1987 one that amended it, and it changes the thing this site had been repeating: the doux, demi-sec and brut categories are no longer residual-sugar bands. They are now defined on acquired alcoholic strength together with density at 20 °C, an extra-brut tier has been added, and the four bands deliberately overlap so that a producer can place a product with a hydrometer rather than a sugar analysis. The pages that said otherwise have been corrected. What could not be done is a verbatim read: legifrance.gouv.fr returns HTTP 403 to retrieval, so the text was read through a summarising fetch and every operative figure was then checked independently against the UNICID interbranch briefing, which reproduces the table. The two agree.
Consejo Regulador de la DOP Sidra de Asturias; Gobierno del Principado de Asturias · designation authority · passage verified 2026-10-08
The designation’s specification itself, read in full on 2026-10-08 in the regulating council’s copy (eighteen pages, dated September 2025) and compared with the Principality’s copy, whose text is identical. The address first recorded for the Principality’s copy returns 404. The specification gives analytical limits for sidra natural as well as for the sparkling category, lists what may not be added, and contains no ban on filtration.