Comparison
Perry vs pear cider
Is pear cider the same as perry?
In short
Perry is the long-established English word for fermented pear juice, cognate with the French poiré, and it is the term used in law and in the protected regional designations. "Pear cider" is a much more recent commercial coinage.
The two are not simply synonyms in practice. Perry, especially when the word appears on a designated product, generally implies perry-pear cultivars and a fermented pear base. Products sold as pear cider have included apple-based cider flavoured with pear, cider blended with pear juice, and fermentations of dessert-pear juice.
The term is not a fraud, and some products labelled pear cider are entirely straightforward pear fermentations. But the word "perry" carries an expectation about the fruit that "pear cider" does not, which is why traditional producers object to the two being treated as interchangeable.
The two things being compared
Each side described in its own terms first, so the table below has something to hang on.
Perry
Fermented pear juice, the traditional term in English, used in legislation and in the protected regional designations. Implies perry-pear fruit in traditional use.
Pear cider
A recent commercial term. May describe a genuine pear fermentation, a pear-flavoured apple cider, or a blend of the two.
Where they differ
Dimension by dimension. Where a row needs a qualification, it carries one rather than being simplified until it fits.
| Dimension | Perry | Pear cider |
|---|---|---|
| Age of the term | Centuries old in English, with cognates across Europe. | A late twentieth-century marketing coinage. |
| Fruit implied | Pears, traditionally perry-pear cultivars. | Not fixed. May be dessert pears, may be apples with pear flavouring. |
| Use in law and designation | The term used in national definitions and in the protected regional registrations. | Not used as a legal category. |
| What is actually in the bottleIngredient lists and juice-content statements are the reliable guide, not the category name. | Fermented pear juice. | Varies, and the label alone does not settle it. |
| Sensory expectation | Sorbitol sweetness, often astringent tannin, and a texture from the pear itself. | Frequently sweeter and more overtly pear-scented, because flavouring reads differently from fermented fruit. |
| Producer attitude | Defended by traditional perry makers as a distinct product with its own craft. | Adopted commercially because the word "perry" was unfamiliar to many buyers. |
Notes under a dimension name qualify the whole row, not one column.
What the word perry commits a producer to
Under UK duty rules perry and cider are defined together: a minimum of 35% apple or pear juice, under 8.5% alcohol. At that level the two words promise little more than each other. The difference opens up in the protected names, where perry is defined and pear cider does not appear at all.
Traditional Welsh Perry is the clearest case. Its specification fixes the strength at 3.00–8.49%, attributes the drink’s natural sweetness to the sorbitol in perry pears, forbids water, concentrate and added sugar before, during or after fermentation, and limits additives to cultured yeast, sulphite up to 200 mg/kg, and the calcium chloride and pectin esterase used for keeving. The Three Counties perry names carry the same composition table as their ciders. None of the frameworks on this site defines pear cider, so a bottle using that name is bound by the duty definition and nothing more.
| Traditional Welsh Perry PGI | Three Counties perry PGIs | “Pear cider” | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strength | 3.00–8.49% | 4.0–8.5% | Under 8.5% for UK cider duty |
| Juice | Pear juice only: no water, no concentrate | Composition limits shared with the cider names | At least 35% apple or pear juice, which may include concentrate and water |
| Added sugar | None, except to start a second fermentation in bottle | Not in the passages read | Not restricted beyond the duty definition |
| Additives | Cultured yeast; sulphite up to 200 mg/kg; calcium chloride and pectin esterase for keeving | Total sulphite under 200 mg/L | Not restricted beyond general food law |
When Perry is the relevant one
The circumstances in which this is the thing being described, rather than a reason to prefer it.
- The drink is fermented pear juice.
- You are describing a Three Counties, Welsh, Domfrontais or Mostviertel product.
- A legal definition or designation is in play.
When Pear cider is the relevant one
The circumstances in which this is the thing being described, rather than a reason to prefer it.
- You are reporting what a label says rather than what the drink is.
- The subject is the commercial category and its marketing history.
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.
Pear cider is simply the modern word for perry.
What is actually the case: It is a marketing term rather than a translation. Perry means fermented pear juice; pear cider has been used for pear-flavoured apple cider and for blends, and carries no commitment about the fruit. The words are not interchangeable even where a particular product happens to be both.
Related comparisons
Distinctions that turn on the same thing, or that this one is routinely confused with.
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.
Perry pear vs eating pear
Perry pears are small, hard, tannic and frequently inedible raw; eating pears are bred for soft flesh and sweetness, and make a thin, low-tannin perry.
Perry vs poiré
The same drink in two languages and two traditions: English perry is usually fermented dry or lightly sweet and often still, while Norman *poiré* is keeved, sweet, low in alcohol and bottle-conditioned.
Cider vs fruit cider
A fruit cider has fruit other than apple added, as juice, purée or flavouring — which in most jurisdictions takes it outside the legal definition of cider and into a separate labelled category.
Where this comes up in a guide
An ordered path that passes through this page, for a reader who wants the sequence rather than the reference.
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 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.
- Can you make perry from ordinary pears — You can, and the result is usually thin. Eating pears are low in tannin and in acid, so they give a soft perry without the structure that perry pear cultivars provide.
- Is fruit cider still cider — It depends on the jurisdiction and on how much apple juice is left. In the United Kingdom a product must contain at least 35% apple or pear juice to be taxed as cider, so a heavily flavoured drink may be sold as something else.
- Is poiré the same as perry
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.
Alcoholic Products Technical Guide, section 2 — alcoholic products (formerly Excise Notice 162)
HM Revenue & Customs · regulator · passage verified 2026-08-24
What may be called cider or perry for UK duty purposes. The substantive text now lives in section 2 of the Alcoholic Products Technical Guide rather than in the notice itself, and the passages below were read there. The widely repeated "35% juice" figure checks out — but note two things the figure alone hides: it is a tax threshold rather than a quality standard, and concentrate and dilution both count towards it.
Three Counties Cider and Perry Association
TCCPA · specialist organisation · retrieved 2026-08-24
WPCS · specialist organisation · retrieved 2026-08-24
Documents Welsh cider and perry traditions and has done substantial work identifying and conserving Welsh perry pear cultivars that were close to being lost.
National Perry Pear Centre, Hartpury · specialist organisation · passage verified 2026-08-24
Read on 2026-08-24 — and the address CiderHQ had registered, perrypears.co.uk, is no longer the Centre at all. It fails the TLS handshake over https, and over plain http it resolves to a Sedo domain-parking page: an earlier check recorded it as retrieved on the strength of an HTTP 200, which was wrong, and the correction is the point. The Centre publishes at nationalperrypearcentre.org.uk. It is the closest thing British perry has to an identity authority: it holds at least two examples of most known varieties, states that the DNA of most of them has been determined and is used as an aid to identification, and publishes a variety register with synonym lists. Its 121-variety register is transcribed into the perry pear records, including the nineteen names it shows being claimed by more than one variety.
UK protected geographical food and drink names register
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs · government · passage verified 2026-08-25
The register itself is an index; the substance is in the product specification attached to each entry as a PDF. Eight cider and perry specifications were downloaded and read on 2026-08-24 — the six Three Counties names and the two Welsh ones. Reading them settled a question CiderHQ had previously described in the abstract and got wrong: the Three Counties specifications state a composition table, not a minimum juice content. The Traditional Welsh Perry specification was re-read on 2026-08-25 for the comparison with Austrian fruit-wine law, and its prohibition list transcribed in full: the two instruments turn out to regulate opposite things, one composition and one technique.