Glossary · Cider
Dry
Definition
A cider or perry with little or no residual sugar, in which fermentation has taken the sugars essentially to completion.
- Subject
- Cider
In more detail
Perceived dryness is not the same as measured sugar. Tannin and acid both make a drink taste drier, and carbonation sharpens the effect, so a cider at 10 g/L of residual sugar can taste dry if it is tannic and acidic while the same sugar reads as off-dry in a soft, low-acid perry. European labelling conventions for cidre set numerical bands for brut and doux; British retail usage is looser and largely conventional.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Style
Dry cider
Cider fermented out or finished so that little fermentable sugar remains, leaving acid, tannin and alcohol to carry the palate.
Style
Cidre brut
The dry tier of the French cider scale, defined since 2025 by a density no greater than 1.016 with an acquired strength of at least 3.5% vol — correspondingly more of the juice’s sugar converted to alcohol.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Cider
Medium
A cider between dry and sweet, carrying enough residual sugar to be noticeable without dominating. British retail practice uses it as the middle of a three-step scale.
Cider
Off-dry
A cider with a small amount of residual sugar — enough to soften acid and tannin but not enough to read as sweet. Competition vocabulary uses it for the step between dry and medium.
Cider
Sweet cider
In Britain and Europe, a cider at the sweet end of the sweetness scale, with enough residual or added sugar to taste distinctly sweet. In North America, the same phrase means fresh unfermented apple juice, usually unfiltered.
Chemistry
Residual sugar
The fermentable sugar remaining in a finished cider, usually expressed in grams per litre. It is what sweetness legislation and style bands are written against.
Fermentation
Attenuation
The proportion of the original sugar that fermentation has consumed, calculated from the fall in gravity from the starting to the current reading and expressed as a percentage.
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.
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.
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.
European Cider and Fruit Wine Association (AICV)
AICV · specialist organisation · retrieved 2026-08-24