Sharp

In more detail

Related terms

Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.

• Fruit

  Bittersweet

  In the Long Ashton classification, a cider apple low in acid — conventionally below about 0.45 per cent — and high in tannin, above about 0.2 per cent. Bittersweets form the structural base of West Country cider.

• Fruit

  Bittersharp

  In the Long Ashton classification, a cider apple high in both acid and tannin — conventionally above about 0.45 per cent acid and 0.2 per cent tannin. The smallest of the four classes and the most self-sufficient.

• Fruit

  Sweet

  In the Long Ashton classification, a cider apple low in both acid and tannin. Sweet fruit contributes sugar, alcohol and volume but little structure, and makes a bland cider on its own.

• Fruit

  Culinary apple

  An apple grown for cooking, typically large, high in acid and low in tannin. Culinary fruit is used in cider chiefly to raise acidity and lower pH in a blend dominated by low-acid apples.

• Chemistry

  pH

  A logarithmic measure of hydrogen ion activity, and in cider the single most important number for microbial safety. Apple juice usually falls between pH 3.2 and 3.9.

• Chemistry

  Titratable acidity

  The total concentration of titratable acid in a juice or cider, measured by neutralising a sample with alkali to an end point and expressed as an equivalent of malic acid in grams per litre.

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.

• Long Ashton Research Station cider fruit analyses

  National Fruit and Cider Institute / University of Bristol · research institute · registered as competent for this subject · covers 1903–2003

  The foundational body of cider-fruit science in English. Long Ashton produced the acid-and-tannin classification that divides cider apples into sweet, sharp, bittersweet and bittersharp, and analysed hundreds of cultivars grown at its Somerset site. Its figures are historic measurements of specific fruit at a specific place, not universal constants — a distinction CiderHQ preserves in every measurement record that cites it.

• A Somerset Pomona: The Cider Apples of Somerset

  Liz Copas, The Dovecote Press, 2001. ISBN 9781874336877 · reference work · bibliographic record verified, not opened 2026-08-25

  Bibliographic record verified on 2026-08-25 against Open Library: Liz Copas, The Dovecote Press, 2001, ISBN 9781874336877. The author was Long Ashton’s cider pomologist, which is why this work is registered for Somerset cultivar identity at all — it is the nearest thing to a successor to the station’s own descriptions. No copy was opened. Not digitised in any open collection.

• The Science of Cidermaking and associated technical writing

  Andrew Lea · reference work · passage verified 2026-08-24

  Written by a food chemist who worked at Long Ashton on apple phenolics. Unusual among specialist cider writing in that it is primary-research-adjacent: the author is describing work he did, and cites the literature. This is why it is registered at tier 1 for chemistry while a general cider book is not.