As far as I know the only real cider is made from apples. I know they sell peach cider or cherry cider, if its unfermented its just peach or cherry juice, not really cider, its just a marketing ploy to get people to buy it, cider sounds so much tastier than just plain old juice. I have seen people post about making a ginger cider that has only ginger root juice, that is not a cider, its a wine, and posts about other fruits that are not apples but mistakenly calling them cider, again more appropriate for the wine forum. As this is a cider forum maybe we can help some of these posters go over to the winemaking section where these posts belong and not continue to cloud up what cider really is? WVMJ
Defining Cider
- Thread starter WVMJ
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
I agree.
"Cider" has a meaning. There is no such thing as a pear cider- that's a perry. Other mixed berry fermented drinks are wines in my book!
"Cider" has a meaning. There is no such thing as a pear cider- that's a perry. Other mixed berry fermented drinks are wines in my book!
I'm clearly in the minority here. Look it up: Cider is crushed fruit juice. Hard Cider is fermented crushed fruit juice. That seems like it should include wine but that's such a big group its treated separately. And the great thing about hard cider is that you can replace apple juice with basically any other juice and it works. All the nice tricks are the same. Why limit yourself just to apples?
But... What about apfelwein? Wine or cider? Is it wine because of the yeast (Edworts is Montrachet, I've use ec1118, cote de blanc, and I Montrachet...) or a cider because of the apple juice. I just made a batch from all natural apple cider juices, but with champagne yeast boosting the abv over 10%. Wine? Cider?
In the end, isn't it most relevant what YOU think it is? Not to mention the process to make it? If it's a wine process and the result seems like wine to you, that would be wine. If it's a cider process and the result seems like cider to you.....
True. The net result is still something that I get to share with others. Regardless of the name or classification.
Pouring juice frome a bottle is far less "romantic" than crushing grapes with your feet to make the juice. Thus is the reason that I got into (and surely others) all grain brewing after extract. I became far more interested in brewing once I made that jump.
MoonDawg
Active Member
I haven't researched the proper definition of the word cider. BUT, as a brewer which makes Hard Cider exclusively, this is my opinion; Hard cider is the fermented juice of APPLES which is fermented to 5-10% ABV, is lightly carbonated, and is served in a 12 oz to 750 cc bottle. This is ONLY my opinion, and is worth nothing more or less.
I've made a lot of hard cider. Mostly with apples, almost exclusively kegged (why bottle when you can keg???) but the ones I've had the most FUN with are when I ditch the apples and use other juices. But since I'm making it using all my cider stuff and it seems most similar to a cider to the pallet, I call it cider. And I think Webster is with me on this one, which doesn't hurt
dallas996
Well-Known Member
It almost comes down to the process rather than a hard definition based in apple juice. It seems that a good portion of us are looking at a product that is in "beer" to "big beer" alcohol content ranges (4 - 12% abv), but using fruit to achieve a beverage with flavors we want/like. A good many of us are working in cysers, graffs, etc- which are just extensions of the cider making process. If we were to get too stringently granular on our definitions, it might make it that much harder to find the answers we are looking for and possibly limit our exposure to other variations. -Just a thought.
The Beer Judge Certification Program has a downloadable PDF with the rules they use to define and judge. I think this will answer some questions you have on what is what.
http://www.bjcp.org/stylecenter.php
http://www.bjcp.org/stylecenter.php
Yeah, I've looked through those and while they make perfect sense for judged competitions (where you need narrow categories to be able to fairly judge) they don't answer what these other styles should be considered. If you look through that list you'll see nothing for ginger based or berry based.
The US definition of cider, if I understand, differs from that used everywhere else in the world. I'm guessing it's because of some Prohibition-era marketing scheme. Cider here means unfiltered juice. Which is dumb. That's juice. Cider everywhere else means hard cider. And, I think, it usually means just apples, maybe some other fruits for accent, though I'd love to hear someone weigh in on that.
Prohibition sure f'ed up the American beverage scene for most of a century, didn't it?
Edit: Here we go http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cider#United_States
I think you are talking about wines made from spices or wines made from berries. What is the difference between a peach wine made with all peach juice and what you would call a peach cider? WVMJ
Some of the English guy get pissy if you call perry anything that is not made specifically with perry pears vs eating pears. I dont know what you would call a Bartlet juice as we have so few perry pear trees over here its almost impossible to make a true perry unless you grow your own perry pear trees. We mostly make cysers vs cider, adding some honey to the apple cider before fermenting and a little at bottling makes it very nice. WVMJ
The problem with calling these things wine is that while that seems like a good idea to cider fans, wine fans will go ape **** over it. To them, wine should only ever be made from grapes, have no bubbles, and be >10% abv.
Myself, I'm a fan of *all of the above*. Wine, beer, mead, cider, whiskey, you name it. And while I will agree that in a strict sense cider should include apples (and in a very strict sense it ONLY includes apples if you read those guidelines), in a less strict sense there's a wide group of juices that make something that for lack of a better word I will call 'cider' and which most people who like cider will also like.
Myself, I'm a fan of *all of the above*. Wine, beer, mead, cider, whiskey, you name it. And while I will agree that in a strict sense cider should include apples (and in a very strict sense it ONLY includes apples if you read those guidelines), in a less strict sense there's a wide group of juices that make something that for lack of a better word I will call 'cider' and which most people who like cider will also like.
WVMJ
