Sensory descriptor
Cream
A soft, rounded dairy impression from acetoin and lactic acid without the sharpness of free diacetyl.
Also called Creamy, Milky.
- Aroma family
- Dairy and lactic
- Does it indicate a fault?
- It depends on the style it is met in
What causes it
Where diacetyl has been reduced by yeast to acetoin and 2,3-butanediol, the sharp buttery aroma disappears and what remains is a softer, rounder dairy impression. Lactic acid itself contributes: it is a weaker and less sharply perceived acid than malic, so a cider that has completed malolactic conversion tastes rounder as well as less acidic, and the two effects together are what a taster records as creamy. Ethyl lactate, formed slowly by esterification of lactic acid with ethanol during maturation, adds a mild milky-solvent dimension.
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.
Acetoin
The intermediate between diacetyl and odourless 2,3-butanediol, far less aromatic than the compound it comes from and a useful marker of how far lactic and acetic activity has run.
Lactic acid
The softer acid that replaces malic when malolactic fermentation runs, halving the acid a cider carries and changing its texture as much as its sharpness.
Ethyl lactate
The slow-forming ester of lactic acid and ethanol, which accumulates after malolactic fermentation and contributes the soft, milky roundness of a long-matured traditional cider.
Glycerol
A syrupy three-carbon alcohol yeast produces as a side reaction of fermentation, which adds weight to a dry cider and is the raw material for one of its more obscure faults.
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.
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.
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
The yeast that finishes essentially every cider, whether it arrives in a sachet or from the fruit, the press and the vessel.
What raises it
Processes that increase this character, or preserve it where it would otherwise be lost.
Malolactic fermentation
A bacterial conversion of sharp malic acid into softer lactic acid, which lowers acidity, changes aroma, and in most traditional cider happens whether it was planned or not.
Lees ageing
Deliberately holding a cider or perry on its fine yeast deposit so that autolysing cells release material that changes texture and foam behaviour.
Bottle maturation
What happens to a cider after it is sealed in glass — which for most ciders is slow decline rather than improvement, and saying so is more useful than implying otherwise.
Tank maturation
Resting cider in stainless steel or a lined vessel, where the point of the container is that it contributes nothing and admits almost no oxygen.
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 Cream
Cream is the settled, post-diacetyl state of a malolactic cider, and it is a useful marker of how far the process and its aftermath have gone. A cider showing butter has recently converted; one showing cream converted some time ago and the diacetyl has been reduced away.
The rounding of acidity is the substantive change, and it is the reason malolactic fermentation is pursued in high-acid regions and blocked in low-acid ones.
Others in the dairy and lactic family
Butter, butterscotch, yoghurt, cream.
Butter
The buttery note of diacetyl, produced by lactic acid bacteria during malolactic conversion.
Butterscotch
Diacetyl at higher concentration with a caramel edge, sitting at the boundary between character and fault.
Cheesy
A rancid, sweaty note from short-chain fatty acids, chiefly butyric and isovaleric, produced by bacteria.
Soured milk
A sharp, unclean dairy note from uncontrolled lactic activity, recorded as a fault in every style.
Yoghurt
A tangy fermented-dairy note from lactic acid with acetaldehyde, indicating vigorous bacterial activity.
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.
- 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.
- Does cider get better with age — Some does. Tannic, dry, bottle-conditioned ciders and ice ciders can gain for several years. Light, fruit-driven and commercially filtered ciders lose their aroma and do not gain anything in exchange.
- What is malolactic fermentation — Malolactic fermentation is a bacterial conversion of sharp malic acid into softer lactic acid, releasing carbon dioxide. It lowers total acidity and raises pH, and in cider it is often the source of a farmyard or buttery note as well.
- How do you pour bottle conditioned cider — Stand the bottle upright for a day, chill it, and pour in one continuous movement, stopping when the sediment reaches the shoulder. Some traditions deliberately rouse the sediment instead, and both are defensible.
- What is the difference between french cidre and english cider — French cidre is usually sweeter, weaker and more carbonated, because fermentation is arrested while sugar remains. English cider is more often fermented dry and finished still or lightly sparkling, and is stronger for it.
- Which bacterium carries out malolactic fermentation in cider — Oenococcus oeni, in cider as in wine. Genome studies find that the cider strains are genetically distinguishable from the wine ones and that the strain most basal to the whole species was isolated from cider.
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.
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.
Institut Français des Productions Cidricoles (IFPC)
IFPC · research institute · retrieved 2026-08-24
The French technical institute for cider production. The authority for the French cultivar classification families, for keeving as an industrial process, and for the pectin and nitrogen chemistry that keeving depends on.
Peer-reviewed literature on cider fermentation microbiology
Various journals · peer-reviewed literature · registered as competent for this subject
Covers the microbial succession of spontaneous cider fermentation, the role of non-Saccharomyces yeasts in the early stages, malolactic conversion by Oenococcus and Lactobacillus species, and the organisms behind the principal spoilage faults.