Sensory descriptor
Cider shop
The characteristic smell of a working cider house — ferment, wood, fruit and a trace of acetic lift together.
Also called Cider house, Cellar ferment.
- Aroma family
- Fermentation-derived
- Does it indicate a fault?
- It depends on the style it is met in
What causes it
This is a composite descriptor for a real and recognisable combination: ethyl acetate and acetate esters from active and recently finished ferments, low levels of acetic acid from the inevitable surface activity in partly filled vessels, wood and cellar volatiles, and residual fruit character from pomace nearby. Every component is accounted for elsewhere in this lexicon; what makes the descriptor worth having is that the combination is stable and specific, and that ciders made in traditional premises frequently carry it.
At low intensity this is the background character of traditionally made cider and is what many drinkers recognise as the smell of real cider. Where the acetic and ethyl acetate components dominate it, the descriptor to record is volatile acidity rather than this one.
The compounds responsible
Where the molecule is established. Some descriptors in this lexicon name a compound the compound register does not yet hold a record for; those are named in the cause above instead.
Ethyl acetate
The most abundant ester in cider, giving lift and pear-drop at low concentration and nail varnish at high, and the earliest audible warning that acetic bacteria are at work.
Acetic acid
The vinegar acid, made by bacteria oxidising ethanol whenever air reaches a cider, and the one fault in cider that no later processing can undo.
Higher alcohols
The group of larger alcohols yeast makes from amino acids, welcome as background complexity in trace and harsh and solvent-like in quantity.
The organisms that make it
Where a specific organism is implicated rather than the fruit. Naming one answers a different question from naming a molecule: what is in the cellar, rather than what is in the glass.
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
The yeast that finishes essentially every cider, whether it arrives in a sachet or from the fruit, the press and the vessel.
Oenococcus oeni
The acid-tolerant lactic acid bacterium that carries out most deliberate malolactic fermentation, converting malic acid to lactic acid after the yeast has finished.
Acetobacter aceti
An acetic acid bacterium that oxidises ethanol to acetic acid wherever cider meets air, and the organism behind most volatile acidity in cider.
What raises it
Processes that increase this character, or preserve it where it would otherwise be lost.
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.
Fermentation vessels
The container a cider ferments in — wood, stainless, plastic, glass or concrete — and how its permeability, thermal mass and resident microflora shape the result.
Barrel ageing
Holding cider in wood — which may mean an old neutral vat used simply as a vessel, or fresh or spirit-seasoned oak used as a source of flavour, and the two are not the same operation.
Cellar storage
Holding packaged cider in conditions that let it change slowly and predictably, where stability of temperature matters more than the temperature itself.
Where it is usually met
Fruit and styles this character is recorded in. A record here is where the descriptor is commonly found, not a claim that every example shows it.
About Cider shop
Cider shop is the term the cider trade itself uses, and it is included because it names something an industry vocabulary has a word for and a scientific one does not. It is a legitimate descriptor as long as its components are stated, which is why they are.
It is the note that most divides drinkers new to traditional cider from those familiar with it. Nothing in the descriptor says whether it is welcome; that depends entirely on what the cider set out to be.
Others in the fermentation-derived family
Solvent, nail varnish, bread, yeast, cider-shop.
Nail varnish
The sharp solvent lift of ethyl acetate above threshold, the commonest volatile fault-adjacent note in cider.
Bread dough
A raw, yeasty, faintly sour note from live yeast in suspension, characteristic of unfiltered and bottle-conditioned cider.
Solvent
A general chemical, thinner-like impression from ethyl acetate and higher alcohols together.
Fresh yeast
The clean, faintly sulphidic smell of an active yeast population, met in young cider and during fermentation.
Fusel
A hot, heavy, spirituous impression from elevated higher alcohols, felt as warmth as much as smelled.
Lees
A cloudy, faintly bitter, sedimentary character from yeast and fruit solids carried into the glass.
Yeast extract
A savoury, umami, meaty-broth note from yeast autolysis during extended lees contact.
Fermenting vat
The pungent, CO2-lifted smell of a ferment in full activity, met in very young cider straight from the vessel.
What people ask next
Questions readers ask about the things this page mentions. Each one goes to the section that answers it rather than to a page written to receive the question.
- How does cider ferment — Yeast consumes the sugar in apple juice and produces roughly equal masses of ethanol and carbon dioxide, along with the esters and higher alcohols that give cider much of its aroma. In a wild ferment several yeast species take turns before *Saccharomyces* finishes the job.
- Which yeast ferments cider — Saccharomyces cerevisiae finishes almost every cider fermentation, whether it was pitched or arrived from the press house. In a spontaneous ferment it is not the first organism present, only the one that survives the alcohol it makes.
- How should i store cider — Cool, dark and at a steady temperature. Light causes light-strike in clear glass, warmth accelerates oxidation, and temperature swings push cider past the closure of a bottle that is not tightly sealed.
- What should i ferment cider in — Anything inert, cleanable and closable: glass demijohns, food-grade plastic, stainless steel, or a wooden cask if you can keep it sound. Vessel shape and material change how much oxygen the cider sees and how fast it clears.
- How much acetic acid is normal in cider — A small amount is present in every cider and contributes lift. Sound Asturian sidra natural has been measured at 0.2 to 0.3 g/L, and a clean modern cider much above about 0.7 g/L is generally showing a fault rather than a style.
- What is scrumpy — Scrumpy is an informal West Country word for strong, still, usually cloudy farmhouse cider. It has no legal definition, so it describes a style expectation rather than a guaranteed method.
Where to go next
- The sensory model — The thirteen structural dimensions and the twenty aroma families, in full.
- Compounds — The chemistry behind the words.
- Troubleshooting — When a perception turns out to be a problem, this is where it is diagnosed.
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.
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.
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.