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Cider (or cyder) is an alcoholic beverage made primarily from the juices of specially grown varieties of apples. In most places in the world, the term refers to fermented apple juice, but the drink is known as hard cider in the United States, where the term "cider" almost exclusively refers to apple cider, a fresh, minimally processed variety of apple juice.

Cider generally has a stronger alcoholic content than typical beer, usually over 5%, and appears golden yellow and often cloudy. To produce cider, apples are washed and mashed, pressed (usually in a stone mill or hydraulic press), then fermented in oak vats using natural or added yeasts.

Cider is very popular in the United Kingdom, especially in South West England, in comparison to other countries. The UK has the highest per capita consumption as well as the largest cider producing companies in the world including H. P. Bulmer, the largest . The drink is also popular and traditional in Brittany and Normandy (France), in Ireland and northern Spain. The Netherlands and Germany also produce cider. The drink is making a resurgence in both Europe and the United States . Overall, the UK produces 110 million imperial gallons (500,000,000 L) of cider per year.

Apples grown for consumption or consumer outlets are far from ideal for cidermaking, as they are low in tannins. Most makers use cider apples, the cultivars developed specifically for cidermaking, of which there are many hundreds of varieties.

Types of cider

Cider comes in a variety of tastes, from sweet to dry, although flavor differs enormously within these descriptions. The appearance of cider ranges from very dark, cloudy and sludgy through to very crisp, clean and golden yellow, and with the most processed, almost entirely clear. The varying colours and appearances are generally as a result of how much of the apple material is removed between pressing and fermentation.

Modern, mass-produced ciders are generally heavily processed and resemble sparkling wine in appearance. More traditional brands tend to be darker and cloudier, as less of the apple is filtered out. They are often stronger than processed varieties, tasting more strongly of apples.

"White cider" is made by processing cider after the traditional milling process is complete, resulting in a nearly colourless product. This processing allows the manufacturer to produce strong (typically 7-8% ABV) cider cheaply, quickly, and on an industrial scale.

White Lightning is a classic amongst this genre, although many many others abound, such as Three Hammers, Polaris and Frosty Jacks (which, uniquely amongst white ciders, has a burgeoning range of merchandise and its own catchphrase 'You Don't Know Jack'.)

More in depth descriptions of some of the various types of cider are available under the country headings below.

Cider production

Scratting and pressing

Once the apples are gathered from trees in orchards they are "scratted" (ground down) into what is called "pomace" or "pommage". Historically this was done using pressing stones with circular troughs, or by a cider mill. Cider mills were traditionally driven by the hand, water-mill, or horse-power. In modern times they are likely to be powered by electricity. The pulp is then transferred to the cider "press", where the pommage is pressed and formed by pressure into a kind of cake, which is called the "cheese".

Traditionally the method for squeezing the juice from the cheese involves placing clear, sweet straw or hair cloths between the layers of pomace. This will usually alternate with slatted ash-wood racks, until there is a pile of ten or twelve layers. It is important to minimise the time that the pomace is exposed to air in order to keep oxidation to a minimum. The cheese needs to be constructed evenly, or the whole pile slithers onto the floor.

This pile is then subjected to different degrees of pressure in succession, until all the 'must' or juice is squeezed from the pomage. This juice, after being strained in a coarse hair-sieve, is then put into either open vats or closed casks. The pressed pulp is given to farm animals as winter feed, composted or discarded, or used to make liqueurs .

Fermentation

Fermentation is best effected at a temperature of 4 to 16 °C (40 to 60 °F). This is low for most kinds of fermentation, but works for cider as it leads to slower fermentation with less loss of delicate aromas.

Shortly before the fermentation consumes all the sugar, the liquor is "racked" into new vats. This leaves dead yeast cells and other undesirable material at the bottom of the old vat. At this point it becomes important to exclude airborne acetic bacteria, so care is taken to fill the vat completely, and the fermenting of the remaining available sugar generates a small amount of carbon dioxide that helps to prevent air seeping in. This also creates a certain amount of sparkle, and sometimes extra sugar is added at this stage for this purpose and also to raise the alcohol level. Racking is sometimes repeated if the liquor remains too cloudy.

The cider is ready to drink at this point, though more often it is matured in the vats for up to two or three years.

Blending and bottling

For larger-scale cider production, ciders from vats produced from different varieties of apple may be blended to accord with market taste. If the cider is to be bottled, usually some extra sugar is added for sparkle. Higher quality ciders can be made using the champagne method, but this is expensive in time and money and requires special corks, bottles, and other equipment.

Health

Conventional apple cider has a relatively high concentration of phenolics, antioxidants which may be helpful for preventing heart disease, cancer, and other ailments. This is, in part, because apples themselves have a decent concentration of phenolics in them to begin with.

Cider festivals

A Cider Festival is a large event promoting cider (and usually perry, a similar drink made from pears). A variety of ciders and perries will be available for tasting and buying. A limited selection of other drinks, such as beer and soft drinks, is often available too. Some festivals are put on by cider-promoting private organizations , others by pubs, and still others by cider producers themselves; many are held in conjunction with or as part of beer festivals, as in both the United States and United Kingdom organizations which promote beer also promote cider. At many festivals, prizes are awarded to producers; the BJCP's purview covers cider as well as beer.

Related drinks

A distilled spirit, apple brandy, is made from cider. Its best known forms are Calvados and applejack. Applejack is a strong alcoholic beverage made in North America by concentrating cider, either by the traditional method of "freeze distillation", or by true evaporative distillation. In traditional freeze distillation, a barrel of cider is left outside during the winter. When the temperature is low enough, the water in the cider starts to freeze. If the ice is removed, the (now more concentrated) alcoholic solution is left behind in the barrel. If the process is repeated often enough, and the temperature is low enough, the alcohol concentration is raised to 30–40% alcohol by volume. In freeze distillation, hazardous concentrations of methanol and fusel oil may develop. These toxins can be separated when regular, heat distillation is performed. Home production of applejack is illegal in most countries.

A popular aperitif in Normandy is pommeau—a drink produced by blending unfermented cider and apple brandy in the barrel (the high alcoholic content of the spirit stops the fermentation process of the cider and the blend takes on the character of the aged barrel).

Cocktails may include cider. Besides kir and snakebite, an example is Black Velvet in a version of which cider may replace champagne, usually referred to as a "Poor Man's Black Velvet".

Other fruits can be used to make cider-like drinks. The most popular is perry, known in France as poiré and produced mostly in Normandy, which is made from fermented pear-juice. A branded sweet perry known as Babycham, marketed principally as a women's drink and sold in miniature Champagne-style bottles, was once popular but has now become unfashionable. Another related drink is cyser (cider fermented with honey).

A few producers in Quebec have developed cidre de glace (literally "ice cider", sometimes called "apple ice wine"), inspired from ice wines, where the apples are naturally frozen either before or after harvest. The alcohol concentration of cidre de glace is 9–13%.

Although not widely made in modern times, drinks similar to cider and perry can be made from other pome fruits. Apicius, in Book II of De Re Coquinaria, includes a recipe calling for quince cider.

Fermented peach juice can be made into "peachy".

Cider by country

Before the development of rapid long-distance transportation, regions of cider consumption generally coincided with regions of cider production: that is, areas with apple orchards. For example, R.A. Fletcher notes that in the Liber Sancti Jacobi, cider was said to be more common than wine in 12th-century Galicia.

See List of ciders by country

List brands of cider

References

1. http://www.cideruk.com/
2. "Bulmers to take on Magners in a cider decider". The Guardian. 2006-06-26. Retrieved 2006-06-20.
3. "Hard Cider and Apple Wine" (Template:PDFlink). Cornell University. 2000-06. Retrieved 2006-06-20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |aurthor= ignored (help)
4. "Somerset Cider". Somerset County Council. Retrieved 2006-06-20. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |aurthor= ignored (help), Orcharding year, Somerset cider producers
5. "History of cider". W3commerce. 2000. Retrieved 2006-06-20.
6. "About Cider". Campaign for Real Ale. Retrieved 2006-06-20.

• Household Cyclopedia, 1881
• Farmhouse Cider & Scrumpy, Bob Bunker 1999
• Richard A. Fletcher, 1984. Saint James' Catapault: The Life and Times of Diego Gelmírez of Santiago de Compostela (Oxford University Press)

External links

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• Etymology of "cider"
• The Hereford Cider Museum
• The National Collection of Cider and Perry, East Sussex, England
• The Straight Dope: What's the difference between apple juice and apple cider?
• CAMRA Cider & Perry Division
• UKCider Wiki
• A flickr set documenting how to brew your own Cider
• Welsh Perry & Cider Society
• Cider and Perry
• Cider news page - Alcohol and Drugs History Society
• Apples, Cider and Calvados in Pays d'Auge, Normandy

• Cider
• English Protected designation of origin