Glossary · Equipment
Bag-in-box
Also written BIB, box cider. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
A collapsible plastic bag inside a cardboard carton, fitted with a tap. Because the bag collapses as the cider is drawn, no air enters, which makes it a good format for still, unpasteurised cider.
- Subject
- Equipment
- Also written
- BIB, box cider
In more detail
Bag-in-box is the standard container for traditional West Country draught cider and for farm-gate sales. It protects against oxidation and light strike, but it will not hold carbonation, so it suits still cider only.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Cider
Draught cider
Cider dispensed from a cask, keg or box rather than from a bottle or can. In British usage it also implies a serving format eligible for the reduced draught rate of alcohol duty.
Equipment
Keg
A sealed pressurised container for dispensing cider under applied gas, as distinct from a cask, which is vented and served by gravity or hand pump.
Equipment
Cask
A wooden vessel of staves bound by hoops, bulging at the middle so it can be rolled and turned. Casks both store cider and shape it, admitting a slow ingress of oxygen through the wood.
Faults
Light strike
Damage caused by light, particularly in the ultraviolet and near-blue range, generating sulphur compounds that give a cabbage or skunky aroma in ciders bottled in clear or green glass.
Law and labelling
Draught relief
A reduced United Kingdom duty rate for qualifying products packaged in large containers for dispense on licensed premises, intended to favour on-trade draught sales over packaged retail.
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.
CAMRA cider and perry standards
Campaign for Real Ale · specialist organisation · retrieved 2026-08-24
Opened on 2026-08-24. Registered for the consumer-campaigning vocabulary — "real cider", "full juice" — which is advocacy language rather than legal definition, and is recorded as such wherever CiderHQ uses it.
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.