Learning path

Understand perry

You can explain how perry differs from cider in fruit, chemistry and law, and read the names and claims made about it.

Who this is for

You have heard perry is not pear cider and want to know what it is instead.

11 pages, each assuming only the ones before it. Every step is an ordinary page on the site; at the foot of each one is the way to the next.

The steps

What perry is · Explainer
The drink, defined on its own terms.
Perry and pear cider · Comparison
Two names, and where they mean different things.
The perry pear · Comparison
Why the fruit is not a dessert pear grown for juice.
Sorbitol · Science
The sugar yeast cannot ferment, and why perry finishes sweeter.
Perry chemistry · Science
What is measured to differ, and what is only said to.
Perry pear names · Explainer
One tree, five names; one name, five trees.
Perry as a style · Style
What it tastes like, and what it is confused with.
A history of perry · History
Where it was made and why.
Why perry declined · History
Trees that take a lifetime to crop, in a century that would not wait.
The revival · History
Who brought it back, and from how few trees.
Making perry · Guide
Where the process departs from cider, step by step.

Understand cider — You drink cider, or are curious about it, and have never been told what it actually is.
Make your first cider — You have a demijohn or a fermenting bucket, juice or fruit, and no experience — and you want a sound first batch rather than a lucky one.
Become a better cider maker — You have made a few batches and want them to be good on purpose rather than by luck.
Cider science — You want the mechanisms: why cider tastes, smells and behaves as it does.
Orchards and fruit — You want to understand where cider fruit comes from: the tree, the orchard and the year.
History and culture — You want the story: where cider came from, who drank it, and the customs that still survive.