Unpacking Common Cider Terms
Getting to Know Unpossible Mead
March 25, 2021
Cider Equipment for New & Growing Cideries
April 1, 2021
Over here at CiderScene headquarters, we got to thinking about what cider fans might want to read or learn more about. During our conversation, we thought about the common cider terms and phrases that get tossed around. Sometimes, we use them properly ourselves. Sometimes, we avoid certain terminology to avoid confusing the casual cider fan. To further educate the world of cider, ourselves included, we have tapped several cideries for their definition of these common hard cider terms. Of our respondees, we have Farnum Cider, Blue Bee Cider, Tandem Cider, Jack’s Hard Cider, and Red Clay Cider. First, we will give the bios for each cidery, then we will put each term each cideries’ separate response.
Cidery Bios
Farnum Hill Ciders:
Farnum Hill Ciders’ apples grow where Macs and Cortlands used to grow and cows used to graze. Our home orchard, Poverty Lane Orchards, used to grow traditional round red Northeastern apples for the fresh-market trade, but in the 70’s and ’80’s major forces (competition from West Coast and global imports) began to depress prices for Eastern apples and pushed Northeastern growers to sell land for houses. We wanted to resist that but we didn’t think the old Mac and Cortland market would come back.
So by the 80’s we’d started planting heirloom apples of great quality and no fame. Then we planted bittersweet and bittersharp cider apples commonly grown in Britain and Europe just for cider fermentation – not the fruitbowl, not pies! We added cider acreage in the ’90’s by planting former pastures on a nearby hill with similar soils and sites to our home orchards.
The idea was: keep growing apples and hope that American fermented ciders might become accepted and popular the way American wines had! One problem was that the meaning of the word “cider” had changed during Prohibition, so it took a long time for enough Americans to see “cider” the way the rest of the world does – as an alcoholic beverage. Of course, we had to make cider of our cider apples to show how great they are. Nowadays we still make cider but other cider-makers buy a lot of our bittersweets and bittersharps – so we’re still growing apples, not houses!
Blue Bee Cider:
Blue Bee Cider is the brainchild of Courtney Mailey. Courtney worked in economic development as a young professional, but left the corporate grind in 2010 to pursue cidermaking, drawn to cider’s oft-forgotten history as the preferred table beverage of the American colonists. She attended cider school at Cornell University, apprenticed with Albemarle CiderWorks for one year, then chose Richmond, VA, as her cidery’s home and started pressing apples in November of 2012.
Blue Bee Cider opened in the Manchester neighborhood of Richmond on April 20, 2013, as the first urban cidery in the South. That day, we had one completed cider to share and plans to make a grand total of three each year. We now produce about 30 ciders a year and have pioneered several styles in the Commonwealth, including dry-hopped, berry-infused, smoked apple, wild foraged, and vinous (grape/apple hybrid).
We are committed to creating locally-grown, balanced ciders true to their Virginia culinary and agricultural heritage. Ingredients drive us. Our ciders are made with 100% heirloom Virginia apples grown specifically for cider, prized for their tannin, acidity, and flavor. We respect – but also challenge – the traditions of the craft, as evidenced by the scope of our varied lineup… dry to semi-sweet to brandy-fortified, single varietals and infusions, stainless steel and barrel-aged, and beyond.
The business relocated to the historic Summit Stables property in the burgeoning beverage district of Scott’s Addition (Richmond) in October 2016. Our repurposed cobblestone building is home to our production facility, urban orchard, taproom, and patio oasis.
Red Clay Cider:
Red Clay Ciderworks opened in 2015 as Charlotte, North Carolina’s first cidery. Our first year covered the basics as cider styles go. We had a semi-dry, semi-sweet, fruited and hopped cider. Fast forward to today, almost 6 years later and we typically have anywhere from 12 to 16 of our own ciders on tap and many of those in package as well. They range from bone dry unfiltered, to fruited and specialty ciders and anything in between.
Being in a craft beer focused market has forced us to expand beyond traditional ciders, as we have to appeal to a varied audience. It has given us opportunities to experiment and have fun in ways we might not have been able to do as a more traditional and rural winery style cider producer.
As far as personnel goes, we still have our original four partners and have added taproom and production staff to bring our total to 7. We are small, but dedicated to spreading the gospel of cider.
When we first opened we were able to exclusively use local and regional fruit, but as we have grown along with our fellow regional cider makers, that became more difficult so we currently utilize local fruit from about August through March and then pull from outside of the state during the late spring and summer months.
We see ourselves as the bridge between people whose only exposure to cider was a national brand and are ready to try something a little different, and to the drier side. We are also that bridge for craft beer drinkers that did not realize cider could be just as complex and varied as the beverages they are used to.
In addition to our own offerings we have an onsite package shop through which we sell a curated selection of ciders from across our region and beyond, including French, English and Spanish ciders. By having a little something for every taste we have been able to do a great job in educating our consumers on what cider can be. We have steadily over time helped our consumer base broaden their cider knowledge and expand their tastes beyond the misconception that cider is only sweet.
Tandem Cider:
Dan Young and Nikki Rothwell moved to Leelanau County in the early 2000’s, and found a beautiful place to grow roots on a winding country road just north of Suttons Bay. Noticing the thousands of acres of apple orchards in the area, and the dozens of wineries, they thought cider would be a perfect addition to the local scene. After years of planning, they built Tandem Ciders right next to their home on Setterbo Road. Named for their love of tandem biking together, and the shared goal of a thriving partnership, Tandem Ciders opened for business in October 2008. Though it took a lot of explaining ‘what cider was’ to patrons in the early years of operation, Tandem Ciders has grown to the shared benefit of Dan and Nikki, the apple growers, and the cider drinking community of the region.
Tandem Ciders specializes in hand crafted hard cider pressed, fermented, and packaged in-house. Our ciders reflect the character of the land where the apples are grown, the people who cultivate the local orchards, and the community of patrons who gather at our tasting room. Our aim is to establish a strong cider tradition in Leelanau County, by producing ciders that focus on the flavor profile of apples. With this focus in mind, we do not sweeten our ciders before, during, or after fermentation. Instead we rely on our ability to stop fermentation to preserve natural sugars, as they lend complexity and aroma to our finished cider. We pride ourselves on building relationships in every aspect of our business. We work closely with our neighboring farmers to provide sound apples that result in a reliable cider product, and we sell locally in the area where our apples are grown. Our tasting room is a place that stresses the importance of the region, the significance of community, and a warm and comforting atmosphere that fosters communication and camaraderie. What started as a small family business has grown into a larger regional cider family.
Jack’s Hard Cider:
In this life, the one common love we share with each other, regardless of our belief systems or geography, is our love for shared experiences with the people we value most.
How we share experiences may vary, but at the core of our gatherings, one thing remains constant: food and drink. At Atomic Dog, we come together over a pint of Jack’s Hard Cider and a common belief in loyalty: A commitment to the ones we love and the people we serve; a commitment to excellence.
Above all, we love to facilitate the gathering of loved ones and to help spark joy in the people who enjoy our products. It’s the joy we get from bringing together family – by blood, through friendship, in professional endeavors, or by random chance – which serves as the passion that inspires our daily work. The Atomic Dog family includes many people, including you. We are grateful for you to be involved in this, and we welcome you to the Atomic Dog family.
Cider Terms
Brix:
Farnum Hill Ciders:
One of several scales (Balling, Baume, Oechsle) for expressing the specific gravity of liquid, which is a measure of soluble solids in the liquid. In most fruit juices, most of those solids are fermentable sugars, so SG is a reasonably accurate predictor of the potential alcohol in unfermented juice. Of several ways to measure it, the most common are the hydrometer and the refractometer. Some growers also use SG as a tool to help determine fruit ripeness (we don’t). All the English cidermakers I know (if they measure it at all) use the SG scale; French winemakers use Brix, so US winemakers use Brix as well. Whatever. We started out using SG, and stuck with it. 14º Brix will make roughly 7.7-8% ABV cider; so will 1.057 SG, because they’re the same thing!
Blue Bee Cider:
Brix is the measure of sugar levels in our apple juice, before fermentation. Blessed with Southern terroir and sunshine, we have high brix levels that translate to high alcohol by volume in the finished product – typically 8.5% and above. We never chapitalize (adding sugar before fermentation to spike alcohol levels) and water is never a part of any of our recipes. Essentially, we make white wine using apples instead of grapes.
Red Clay Cider:
This can be used in both pre and post fermentation to describe sugar content. Pre-fermentation this tells us how much alcohol potential the fruit is going to provide. Post-fermentation this tells us the residual sugar content, whether left over from fermentation or after any form of back sweetening.
Tandem Cider:
In our cider making process, brix values sometimes represent a label alteration coming our way. The foundation of our process is that we avoid adding sugars to our cider (with the notable exception of our cyser) at any point during production. Because of this, the sugar level of our fresh juice will vary depending on the weather before harvest, resting time of apples, and even the temperature on pressing days. With many of our ciders, we have a goal residual sugar level in the finished product. So when we filter, carbonate, and package a cider at 4% residual sugar, the alcohol content is often the changing variable due to differences in brix of our starting juice.
Jack’s Hard Cider:
Measurement in degree brix–> AMT of soluble solids in liquid–> content in the apple juice or left in final product for sweetness
Tannin:
Farnum Hill Ciders:
Huge subject! It should be plural, at least in cider and wine. Tannins all belong to a group of complex compounds (polyphenols) that can add structure, bitterness, and astringency to cider or wine. They occur in varying concentrations in different varieties of cider apples and wine grapes (also in tea, alum, acorns, citrus peels…). We grow a number of tannic cider varieties. They’re essential to the structure of our ciders. Sometimes we hear that, for an orchard that makes such a fuss about tannic cider apples, our ciders aren’t ‘tannic enough.’ Well they could be more tannic, we could blend for more dominant bitterness and rougher astringency, but we want to make complex, structured, delicious cider. Tannins are essential, but so is balance.
The tannic characteristics in different apples can be profoundly different from each other. Some varieties offer hard, rough, leathery bitterness and astringency (think ‘acorn’ or ‘aspirin’; others provide a soft, round, fruity variation on the theme (think ‘kumquat peel’ or ‘quinine’). So when researchers and cider people talk about ‘percent tannin,’ we don’t feel informed.
Blue Bee Cider:
Tannin is one of our coveted characteristics in juice and cider. I think of that slight “dry mouth” feeling one gets from chewing on an apple peel. We’re working with some orange wildling crab apples now that are the most tannic we’ve ever tasted.
Red Clay Cider:
One of the key elements in traditional cider making. Tannins can provide mouthfeel (body), but also contribute to the phenolics found in more traditional ciders such as those from the UK and France. Unfortunately, we do not have access to a lot of high tannin apples here in the US so it is truly a treat when you can get your hands on them.
Tandem Cider:
In speaking to tannins and acidity: Terms that represent the slowly changing landscape of apple cultivation in our region. We started our cidery knowing that we wanted to buy local at all times, and the apples in our area are most often table apples with low levels of tannin. Some of our most popular ciders are made from single varietal eating apples, such as McIntosh and Rhode Island Greening. We think it is important to note that you can make a delicious cider from apples not ‘traditionally’ known as cider apples. That being said, in order to produce local ciders with higher levels of tannin and acidity, we’ve gotten creative over the years, picking pollinating crab apples from orchard rows and the side of the road. These unnamed, previously unused varieties would often be the bittersharp apples we add to a batch of cider to increase Tannin and Acidity. In more recent years, local orchardists like Kevin VerSnyder of Lake Leelanau have made the investment and effort in putting more traditional cider apples in the ground. We are starting to see the rewards of their labor, for example with our “Earnest” cider. Any apple we could find that had a sharp or bitter profile we included in this cider, which is fermented dry, resulting in high perceived tannin and complexity.
Jack’s Hard Cider:
Organic compound found in trees and fruits–> astringency feeling–> drying sensation–> balancing properties for sweeter products
Wassail:
Farnum Hill Ciders:
We haven’t properly researched this. We think it’s a very old word for various sorts of drink (and greeting), and became some sort of solstice-season revel in the cider country in the west of England. It sometimes involved hanging cider-soaked toast in the trees, and then letting off shotguns (fowling pieces) into their branches. Exactly how that was supposed to cheer the trees up, we have no idea. It was generally associated with 12th Night (very early January), but, as an apple/cider celebration, it’s not so old (17th-18th century). Could be wrong!
Blue Bee Cider:
Wassail is a traditional mulled cider, often raised as a toast to the next harvest. We create our own version called glühwein, inspired by a German mulled wine recipe. It features our Rocky Ridge Reserve oak-aged cider, warmed with spices and herbs, fruit, and honey.
Red Clay Cider:
A traditional warm mulled cider and not always alcoholic. This was drank during the traditional Wassailing festivals held to ensure a good apple harvest in the coming year. As far as our cidery goes we serve a wonderful version of it with our own cider and it is one of our staples during the winter months. Our cider association has loose plans to start holding a traditional wassail event in some of our member orchards, so we are looking forward to introducing this tradition to a wider audience.
Tandem Cider:
The most important night of our year! Tandem has wassailed since our first year in business, the inaugural Wassail being January of 2009. Wassailing is an important tradition that bonds our cider community. We love our summer crowd at Tandem, but when the locals come out on a bitterly cold night in January, they provide just the right amount of ruckus to rid the orchards of evil spirits. In the early years, our wassail celebration was an intimate dinner put on as a ‘thank-you’ to our regulars. While the celebration has grown, and there’s no longer a lot of room to sit down with your dinner plate, we try our best to keep that thankful spirit alive and well. One of the great losses of our pandemic year was canceling the gathering. Instead, we sent out cider, glasses, and pieces of toast to our customers so they could spread the hope for a great year to all corners of the country.
Jack’s Hard Cider:
Mulled Cider Beverage that’s origins date back to a Pagen harvest medieval drinking ritual–> Costumed harvest celebration
Cyser:
Farnum Hill Ciders:
We love honey, and love cider, but wouldn’t know how to ferment them together. rather keep them separate. It’s a cool-looking word, though.
Blue Bee Cider:
Cyser is a delicious hybrid of cider and mead, with apple juice and honey fermented together. We are often accused of making up this word when we describe our cyser, Wild Honey! This tends to be our best-selling product when it’s in season. We back-sweeten ours with a touch of honey for a long finish and smooth mouthfeel.
Red Clay Cider:
A traditional blend of fermented honey and apples. We have done several collaborations on these as well as Grafs and people are always intrigued. I think it is a natural thing for our industry to make as they are traditional and we can help keep them alive.
Tandem Cider:
We make one cyser, and we call it the Bee’s Dream. In Michigan, we have some world-class Meaderies, and many of them make excellent cysers. Most of these cysers are draft meads, with the addition of apples being secondary; our cyser is definitely the reverse. Bee’s Dream is unmistakably produced from a cider-makers perspective, with just 200 or so lbs. of honey added to a 1500 gallon batch of cider during fermentation. The result is a cider-forward blend, with hints of mead and bursts of honey to please your palate. We are able to source honey from farms just up the road from our tasting room, giving us the full range of local flavor in the mix.
Jack’s Hard Cider:
Honey and Apple juice fermented together.
Body:
Farnum Hill Ciders:
This has to do with weight/viscosity. We think about structure, aroma, taste, feel, and finish. Within the “feel” we try to rate viscosity, or “body.” More is good.
Blue Bee Cider:
Body ties it all together, thanks largely to tannin and acidity. A perfect sip of cider should be a sensory experience involving the entire palate, where the first brush on the tip of the tongue evolves through the mouth, the inner cheek, and into a lingering finish. That finale is key; it’s where a mighty cider apple such as Hewe’s Crab or Harrison continues to shine and converse, whereas a dessert apple such as Granny Smith stops short. It can be difficult to describe or put into words, but we often use the phrase “fruit-forward” to define the way a full-bodied cider can arrest and captivate the senses, persisting even after the glass is empty.
Red Clay Cider:
This is the foundation of a good cider. It doesn’t just mean sweetness or high alcohol. Good body comes with a balance between sweetness, tannin, acidity, alcohol and sometimes carbonation. A cider with good body and balance should hit your tongue and the flavors should wash over the different sensory parts of your tongue. There should be a lasting finish without clinging too long like some sweet ciders not in balance can do.
Tandem Cider:
Our filtration process, and our reliance on the natural flavors of the apples we use has led to a cider with a full body. As previously mentioned, our high tannin ciders get a bit of a boost to their body and mouth-feel, but our production process is paramount to making the most of this characteristic. We use a centrifuge to filter, often when our cider has natural sugar remaining, which strips less color, feel, and aroma from our ciders than our pre-centrifuge days.
Jack’s Hard Cider:
“Weight” of taste in beverage. Also viscosity-> More viscous heavier body difference between skim and whole milk–> or Classic Coke Bottle Shape
Acidity:
Farnum Hill Ciders:
We love acid, in balance. Acidity balances bitterness and sweetness, brightens other flavors, and gives a clean, pleasing finish. Most acid in apples is malic, so (unlike tannins) it’s all the same molecule, but is sensed differently in different apple varieties. We have favorite acidic apple varieties, and always ferment low-acid bittersweet juices together with one or more high-acid juices. Also we ferment single-variety batches of these beautiful ‘acid bombs’ for post-fermentation blending.
Red Clay Cider:
Besides tannin, acidity is one of the most important things that contribute to body, flavor and mouthfeel. It occurs both naturally from the fermented fruit, but can also be adjusted through additions of malic acid, carbonation, or other fruits high in acid. It is the primary component that can balance against sweetness.
Blue Bee Cider:
Acidity brings the sass. It balances the natural sweetness of quality fruit in a cider, and delivers that satisfying tickle in the jaw. We crave and treasure acidity, and it’s a cornerstone of Virginia cider. One of our signature creations, the tavern-style throwback Charred Ordinary, is often lovingly nicknamed “Sour Patch Cider” or “Tearjerker Cider” or “Warhead Cider.”
Jack’s Hard Cider:
TA and pH adjust-Sharp/sour taste-balances sweetness
Apple Variety Blends:
Farnum Hill Ciders:
Most of the cider apple varieties we grow are valued for how they combine with other cider apple varieties, to make much better cider than any one apple could make. “Bittersweet” varieties offer strong tannins and high sugar, but the crucial acid has to come from “sharp” varieties. “Bittersharps” need blending with “sweets.” Rarely, one cider apple variety packs the whole trifecta – high acid, high sugar, high tannins. Probably the most famous of those is Kingston Black, which can make stunningly complex and satisfying cider all by itself. But unlike wine grape varieties, which often can make fully satisfying wines without blending, ciders have traditionally been blended across varieties, often many varieties, because generally that’s how the best ciders happen.
Perception:
Red Clay Cider:
Perception is how the cider tastes to you in regards to sweetness, acidity, tannin, etc. I have been fortunate to sit in on several studies conducted during CiderCon by Charles McGonegal in which we tasted the same base ciders that the had additions of acid, sugar or tannin, to demonstrate the effect those components have one your perception of the cider. In other words you can take a cider that by the numbers is semi-sweet and with the addition of tannin or acid you can offset the sweetness and the taster will perceive the cider to be drier than it really is. These studies were done in a controlled blind tasting format with industry professionals and then the data was collected to aid in the effort of defining cider styles, terminology and categories. I think it will be a key component in educating the consumer on cider.
