Glossary · Culture
Cider competition
Definition
A judged event at which ciders and perries are assessed blind against style guidelines, usually by trained or accredited judges working to a scoresheet.
- Subject
- Culture
In more detail
Competitions matter to the vocabulary as much as to the producers, because the style guidelines they use — and the descriptor language on their scoresheets — have become a common frame of reference internationally. They also expose the difficulty of judging a traditional cider against a guideline written elsewhere.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Sensory
Blind tasting
Assessing a drink without knowing its identity, producer or price. Where the server also does not know, the tasting is double blind.
Sensory
Sensory lexicon
An agreed, defined and reference-anchored vocabulary for describing a product category. A cider lexicon fixes what terms such as "cooked apple" or "barnyard" mean and what standard demonstrates each.
Sensory
Trained panel
A group of assessors calibrated against reference standards to use an agreed vocabulary consistently, so that their scores measure the drink rather than their preferences.
Sensory
Tasting note
A written description of a drink’s appearance, aroma, taste, mouthfeel and finish. Its usefulness depends entirely on whether its vocabulary is shared with the reader.
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.
BJCP Beer Style Guidelines — cider and perry categories
Beer Judge Certification Program · classification framework · retrieved 2026-08-24
Opened on 2026-08-24, and the edition matters. CiderHQ registered the 2015 cider guidelines; BJCP has since published a 2025 cider edition, and the old URL now redirects into the current guidelines index. A competition style guide is a dated framework rather than a standing definition, and citing the wrong edition of one is the same class of error as citing a superseded specification. CiderHQ treats BJCP as one competition framework among several and never as the universal cider taxonomy.
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.