Is it a beer or is it a cider?

I have tried tons of times, what make a beer a so called beer? If I use let's say 6 lbs 2-row and get 2.5 gals of wort and add 2.5 gals of let's say apple juice at the same gravity boil it for 90 mins and add hops as you would to any beer would it be a beer or a cider? I would like help on this. I have beer looking it up for around a month with out any avail.

I believe what you're describing is called Graf. I think it would be classified as a beer, but I'm not 100% on it.

You are changing the original recipe though. Graff is a cider with malty hoppy characteristics with a lower (1:4) ratio of beer to cider. As you balance the amounts of malt and perhaps hops, you will be approaching beer.

An alternative to what you are doing, in my opinion, would be to make a snakebite, or half beer and half cider. No reason to brew them together unless that is what you want x # of gallons of on hand.

I'm a brewer and I just really wanted to know what to call it for the state report if it falls within beer it's cheep if not its out the ass for the tax