Glossary · Cider
Apfelwein
German. Kept in its own language here rather than translated into the nearest English word, because the nearest English word is usually cut on a different axis.
Definition
German apple wine: cider fermented dry from culinary and wild apples, usually still or lightly sparkling, sharply acidic and served in the Frankfurt region as a regional speciality.
- Subject
- Cider
- Language
- German
In more detail
The German name places the drink with wine rather than beer, and the profile follows: Apfelwein is typically 5 to 7% ABV, bone dry, high in acid and low in tannin, because it is made from sharp culinary fruit rather than from tannic cider apples. In Hessen a proportion of Speierling or wild service fruit is traditionally added for tannin and stability.
It is served from a stoneware Bembel into a ribbed glass, the Geripptes, and often cut with water or lemonade — a practice that is part of the local convention rather than a comment on the drink.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Style
Apfelwein
The dry, sharp, still apple wine of Hesse, fermented out from culinary and local fruit and served in ridged glasses from a stoneware jug.
Region
Hessen
Germany’s principal apple wine region, where *Apfelwein* is dry, sharp, low in tannin and served by the jug in dedicated taverns, and where the fruit comes from meadow orchards rather than from planted cider orchards.
Region
Frankfurt
The city where Hessian apple wine acquired its public institutions: the tavern quarter, the fixed vessels and measures, and a drinking culture that is urban rather than agricultural.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Cider
Ebbelwoi
The Hessian dialect name for Apfelwein, used in and around Frankfurt where the drink is a civic institution. *Stöffche*, "the little stuff", is an affectionate local synonym.
Serving
Bembel
The grey salt-glazed stoneware jug, decorated with cobalt blue, in which Apfelwein is served in and around Frankfurt. It comes in graduated sizes and keeps the contents cool.
Serving
Geripptes
The ribbed, faceted glass used for Apfelwein. The diamond cutting gives grip to a hand greasy from food and refracts light through a drink that is otherwise plain in appearance.
Serving
Schoppen
A traditional German measure of drink, and the standard serving of Apfelwein in a *Geripptes* — commonly around a quarter or a third of a litre depending on the region and the house.
Fruit
Speierling
The true service tree, *Sorbus domestica* — a tree, not an apple and not a rowan. Its small astringent fruit is added in small quantity to Hessian Apfelwein, and on a German label the word is now a flavour indication rather than a statement that the fruit is in the bottle.
Cider
Most
In German-speaking Europe, either fresh fruit juice or the fermented drink made from it. Which one it means is settled by the country you are standing in, and in Austria it is settled by statute.
Where to go next
- Cider glossary — The whole vocabulary, by subject and A–Z.
- Comparisons — Terms that are only really clear when set against the thing they are not.
- Search — Finds terms by their aliases and by their spellings in other languages.
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.
Hochschule Geisenheim University — beverage technology
Hochschule Geisenheim · university · retrieved 2026-08-24
German beverage-technology research covering apple wine and fruit juice processing, including the enzymology of clarification.
European Cider and Fruit Wine Association (AICV)
AICV · specialist organisation · retrieved 2026-08-24