Glossary · Cider
Farmhouse cider
Definition
Cider made on the farm that grew the fruit, traditionally in small volumes for the farm’s own use and local sale, and by extension any cider made in that manner.
- Subject
- Cider
In more detail
Historically the term described a genuine production model rather than a style: fruit milled and pressed on site, fermented in wooden casks in an unheated building, and drunk within the year. The sensory consequences follow from the method — wild ferment, cask maturation, no filtration and considerable batch variation.
Because the phrase is unprotected in Britain, it is also used as a marketing register by large producers. The French equivalent, cidre fermier, is more tightly bounded in practice, being tied to farm production from the producer’s own fruit.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Style
West Country farmhouse cider
Cider made on the farm from tannic bittersweet fruit, wild-fermented in wood and sold still and unfiltered, in a tradition whose variability is one of its defining features.
Production
Wild fermentation
Letting the microflora already present on the fruit and in the press house carry the ferment, in a succession rather than as a single organism.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Cider
Cidre fermier
French farm cider: made on the holding, from the holding’s own fruit, by the farmer. The term describes the production unit rather than a taste profile.
Cider
Scrumpy
A West Country word for rough, strong, usually still and cloudy farm cider, sold with little processing and no attempt at clarity.
Cider
Real cider
A campaigning definition, established by consumer organisations, for cider made from fresh-pressed juice without pasteurisation, carbonation, concentrate or extensive additions.
History
Pound house
The farm building in which apples were pounded, pressed and fermented — the West Country name for the cider house, from the old verb to pound, meaning to mill.
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.
Somerset Rural Life Museum — cider collections
South West Heritage Trust · museum · retrieved 2026-08-24
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.
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.