Cider and perry styles

Apfelwein

The dry, sharp, still apple wine of Hesse, fermented out from culinary and local fruit and served in ridged glasses from a stoneware jug.

Cidre Pays d’Auge

The controlled appellation cider of the Pays d’Auge in Calvados, made by keeving from bitter Norman fruit and bottle-conditioned to a low alcohol and a high residual sugar.

Modern mainstream cider

The industrially produced, consistent, carbonated cider that accounts for most of what is sold worldwide, generally made partly from concentrate and finished to a fixed specification.

Sidra natural

The still, dry, unfiltered cider of Asturias and the Basque Country, wild-fermented from local high-acid fruit and poured from a height to raise a momentary sparkle.

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.

American heritage cider

Cider made from the North American heirloom cultivars that survived the collapse of the country’s cider industry, and presented as an expression of that recovered fruit.

Cidre de Normandie

Protected Normandy cider made from the region’s bitter and bittersweet fruit, characteristically low in alcohol, sweet-edged and lightly sparkling.

Euskal Sagardoa

Basque cider under its own protected designation, made from Basque-grown apples in the sagardotegi tradition of barrel service and dry, high-acid, still cider.

Herefordshire cider

Cider from the county with England’s largest cider orchard area, protected as a geographical indication and spanning farmhouse practice, bottle-fermented cider and industrial-scale production.

Modern American cider

The dominant contemporary American category: cider from culinary and dessert apples, fermented clean, often carbonated and frequently flavoured, defined against the heritage sector rather than by any tradition.

Most

The farmhouse fermented fruit drink of Austria and southern Germany, made from apples, pears or both, and belonging to a meadow-orchard landscape as much as to a recipe.

New England cider

A strong, dry, oxidative American cider historically raised in gravity with sugar, molasses or raisins and matured in wood, now defined chiefly as a competition category.

Somerset cider

Cider from the Somerset levels and the surrounding hills, built on a locally selected bittersweet fruit population and a tradition of full-bodied, tannic, still cider.

Three Counties cider

The shared cider and perry tradition of Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, defined by a common fruit inventory and by the perry pear orchards that survive nowhere else in comparable numbers.

Traditional draught cider

Cider dispensed from cask, bag-in-box or gravity without added gas, in the form that British cider has historically been drunk in pubs and at the farm gate.

Australian cider

Cider from Australia, dominated by a large mainstream sector using dessert fruit and concentrate, with a smaller full-juice movement working from cool-climate orchards.

Cidre de Bretagne

Protected Breton cider, built on a distinct western fruit inventory and generally drier, lighter and more acid-led than its Norman counterpart.

Cidre fermier

Farm-made French cider, pressed and fermented on the holding that grew the fruit, sold as an agricultural product of that farm rather than as a regional or industrial one.

Eastern counties cider

Cider from eastern and south-eastern England made largely from dessert and culinary apples, giving a lighter, sharper and less tannic drink than the West Country tradition.

Irish cider

Cider from Ireland, dominated commercially by large-scale production from Armagh and imported fruit, with a smaller full-juice sector working from orchard-grown apples.

New Zealand cider

Cider from New Zealand, made in a country with a substantial export apple industry and a small but technically confident craft cider sector.

Scrumpy

A colloquial West Country word for rough farm cider that has never had a fixed definition and now carries as much marketing weight as descriptive meaning.

Sidra de nueva expresión

A modern Asturian category of filtered, clean, dry cider made with controlled fermentation and presented in a wine format rather than in the poured tradition.

Sidra espumosa

Sparkling Asturian cider made by a second fermentation under pressure or in bottle, presented as a fine sparkling drink rather than in the still poured tradition.

Tasmanian cider

Cider from Tasmania, whose cool maritime climate and long apple-growing history give fruit with the acid that most Australian districts cannot hold.

Viez

The cider of the Moselle and Saarland, dry and still in the local manner, drunk from a distinctive lidded pot and named from a word for the second pressing.

Welsh cider

Seidr Cymreig

Cider from Wales, rebuilt over recent decades from a nearly lost tradition, with protected names for traditional Welsh cider and perry and a fruit inventory shared with the English border counties.

Galician cider

Sidra galega

Cider from Galicia and the north-western Iberian fringe, made in a smaller and less codified tradition than its Asturian and Basque neighbours, from a distinct local fruit population.

Polish cider

Cydr

Cider from Poland, a recent sector built on Europe’s largest apple crop and on dessert and culinary fruit rather than on an inherited cider tradition.

Scottish cider

Cider from Scotland, made in a cool maritime climate from dessert, culinary and cold-tolerant fruit, in a small sector built largely within recent decades.

South African cider

Cider from South Africa, where a very large mainstream category built on Western Cape dessert fruit dominates and a small craft sector works alongside it.

Suure Most

The Swiss farmhouse cider of the plateau, typically dry and still, drawn from meadow-orchard fruit and distinguished in local usage from the unfermented sweet juice of the same name.

Perry

The fermented drink of pears, a tradition parallel to cider rather than derived from it, in which unfermentable sorbitol leaves a sweetness the maker never chose.

Bottle-conditioned perry

Perry that completes its fermentation in the sealed bottle, generating carbonation and lees character while the fruit’s sorbitol keeps a sweetness the yeast cannot remove.

Poiré

French perry, made chiefly in southern Normandy and Maine from local perry pears, characteristically sweet, low in alcohol and firmly sparkling.

Poiré Domfront

The controlled appellation perry of the Domfrontais in southern Normandy, made predominantly from the Plant de Blanc pear on high-standard trees and finished sweet, low in alcohol and bottle-conditioned.

Sparkling perry

Perry carrying a persistent bubble, a presentation that suits pear’s aromatics and residual sorbitol and has a documented history going back to the seventeenth century.

Still perry

Perry without carbonation, in which the fruit’s sorbitol sweetness and its texture carry a drink that has no bubble to lean on.

Mostviertel Birnenmost

Birnenmost

Austrian pear Most from the Mostviertel, made from the region’s tannic standard-tree perry pears, in which sorbitol leaves a soft sweetness no fermentation removes.

Keeved cider

Cidre défécqué

Cider clarified before fermentation by a pectin gel that strips nutrients from the juice, producing a slow ferment that stops naturally with sugar still in solution.

Single-varietal cider

Cider made wholly or overwhelmingly from one apple cultivar, presented so that the fruit’s own character is the subject of the drink.

Wild-fermented cider

Cider fermented by the yeast population already present on the fruit and in the cellar, without an added cultured strain.

Apple wine

A fermented apple drink made to wine strength, usually by raising the starting gravity, and presented and taxed as a wine rather than as a cider.

Barrel-aged cider

Cider matured in wood, where slow oxygen ingress, extraction from the staves and the barrel’s resident microflora all change the finished drink.

Blended cider

Cider assembled from several cultivars, parcels or vintages so that the finished balance is a made decision rather than an inherited one.

Cider vinegar

Not a cider but its next stage: cider whose ethanol has been oxidised to acetic acid by bacteria, made deliberately as a condiment and arrived at accidentally as a fault.

Pommeau

A blend of fresh apple juice and apple brandy, mixed before fermentation so that the spirit prevents it, then aged in oak.

Unfiltered cider

Cider packaged without filtration, retaining suspended yeast and fine solids and the body and aroma that come with them.

Vintage cider

Cider from the fruit of a single named harvest, made and sold as an expression of that season rather than of a house style.

Dry cider

Cider fermented out or finished so that little fermentable sugar remains, leaving acid, tannin and alcohol to carry the palate.

Medium cider

Cider carrying enough residual or added sugar to be perceptible without dominating, the commonest sweetness level in British retail.

Sweet cider

Cider in which sugar is the leading sensation, whether retained from an arrested fermentation, added after it, or produced by keeving.

Cidre brut

The dry tier of the French cider scale, defined since 2025 by a density no greater than 1.016 with an acquired strength of at least 3.5% vol — correspondingly more of the juice’s sugar converted to alcohol.

Cidre demi-sec

The middle tier of the French cider scale, sitting between doux and brut on density and forming the commercial centre of ground for much French cider.

Cidre doux

The sweet tier of the French cider scale, defined since 2025 by a density at or above 1.024 together with an acquired strength no greater than 3% vol, so that the sweetness is demonstrably unfermented juice sugar.

Bottle-conditioned cider

Cider that completes a fermentation inside its sealed bottle, generating its own carbonation and, in most cases, leaving a yeast deposit behind.

Sparkling cider

Cider carrying enough dissolved carbon dioxide to produce a persistent bubble, by bottle fermentation, tank fermentation or injection.

Still cider

Cider with no perceptible dissolved carbon dioxide, presented as a fermented fruit drink whose texture rests on body, acid and tannin alone.

Pétillant cider

Pétillant

Lightly carbonated cider in which the gas is felt as a prickle rather than a stream of bubbles, the level most traditional bottle fermentation reaches on its own.

Ice cider

Cidre de glace

Cider made from apple juice concentrated by freezing, fermented slowly and stopped while a large residual sugar remains, giving a dessert-strength drink of high acid and high sweetness.

Quebec ice cider

Cidre de glace du Québec

Ice cider made under Quebec’s reserved designation, which sets out how the juice may be concentrated, what may be added and what the finished product must contain.

Ice perry

Poiré de glace

Perry made from pear juice concentrated by freezing, in which the fruit’s unfermentable sorbitol adds to the residual sweetness the arrested ferment leaves behind.

Fruit cider

Cider with other fruit added as juice, purée or flavouring, a category that now accounts for a large share of the global market and spans a very wide range of practice.

Hopped cider

Cider dry-hopped or hopped in process, borrowing aroma and bitterness from a brewing ingredient to supply what low-tannin apples cannot.

Spiced cider

Cider flavoured with spices, either fermented and packaged that way or mulled and served warm, with the two practices frequently confused.

Botanical cider

Cider infused with herbs, flowers, roots or bark, a small modern category with old antecedents in the practice of flavouring fermented drinks with what was to hand.

Graff

A hybrid of cider and beer, fermented from apple juice with malt and usually hops, originating in North American homebrewing rather than in any orchard tradition.

Alcohol-free cider

A cider-derived drink at or near zero alcohol, distinct from apple juice in having been fermented, and facing the same problem of what replaces the ethanol.

Low-alcohol cider

Cider at a reduced strength, reached either by removing alcohol from a finished cider or by arranging for less to be produced, with different consequences for flavour.