“ton” maybe not, it’s one of the rarest trees in Germany. But then again, Speierling often only uses 1% Speierling juice.
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Personally I would be happy with this split. I’d like cider split down a bit more, but I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t be able to tell apart some of the other classifications here… I don’t thinkI’d never heard of the term keeved until now, despite having drunk quite a few ciders in my time.
Well, yeah, but I saw it in most markets and a lot of bars when I was in Frankfurt & Marburg, that’s what I mean. Caught two at least on the same trip. Actually figured it was a type of production or something initially. 
Certainly not a fruit whose name one readily learns at German classes.
Pretty rare here as well, one of those fruits you know exist but most people might have tried once or twice randomly, if so, like, dunno, hackberries, mulberries, cornel, strawberry tree fruit (arbousier), cherry plum, even loquat and jujubes perhaps.
Are there a huge amount of sparking ciders? I cannot even find a sparkling cider tag (point me in the right direction if this is not the case). If there is not a sparking cider tag, it would probably be a good idea to start one. I would guess they would be more likely to go with Cider, Cider - Fruited, and Cider Hopped/Spices/Herbs (I don’t see any other styles broke up due to carbonation), but if your front is not united this will likely another overlooked thread. Even with the ratings and number of melomel and some support, including admins, it may not be a priority enough to make it as a style.
I agree that it may not necessary make sense to separate things based on carbonation. The only counter argument I can think is that in the beer world that’s not an issue anyway as most (99.9%?) beer is carbonated. There are certain styles that are traditionally not carbonated (unblended lambic for example), but they are a rare exception. I may be wrong in this, but to me it seems that in the cider world the difference between carbonated and non carbonated is more significant.
I’m not a huge fan of the name “melomel” as it is a region specific classification. For example pyments would need to be separated from them (as they are not consider melomels) and we would be back arguing over which classification of mead we should use. That’s why I proposed more neutral: “mead - fruited”
I would have no problem with using mead - fruited instead of mead - melomel if this is the more commonly used term. Please excuse my ignorance is melomel an Irish term?
As you said, Effervescence is an important thing for ciders and further more, natural effervescence vs carbonated too. Some styles of ciders can’t be effervescent
A lot of interesting info has been brought to this thread, thanks to everybody!
But I support, as others have stated, that we don’t have enough basis to introduce some of the proposed categories, and not enough to gain either.
YES:
Cider - fruited
Cider - flavoured
MAYBE
Sidra Natural
NO
Cider - fortified (I don’t think it’s spread enough to be a style, and it can just be a tag for the time being)
Cider sparkling vs still (yes, they are different, like red is different from yellow; but I can’t convince myself that they are styles; use the tag for “still” for the moment as most are sparkling anyway; we’ll revisit later)
Cider - Sour (they are all sour to some degree, this can’t be used effectively)
Keeved, first time I hear about this, it will make it impossible to actually categorize ciders outside England.
Commercial, it’s a synonym for “bad” or industrial, and we don’t have any category for that among beers either, we shouldn’t decide if a product is bad; well, somehow that’s what happens with Pale Lager vs Premium Lager, and we know that the distinction is unclear and maybe we shouldn’t have those 2 styles.
. - + - + - + - + - +
MEAD
It may be time to introduce
- Mead
- Mead - Cyser
- Mead - Braggot
- Mead - fruited
- Mead - spiced
and maybe Mead - Polish (since they use fruit anyway; and don’t forget that French Chouchenn also uses apple juice, but we don’t want to call it cyser)
I don’t think that we should differentiate any level of strength or sweetness.
Yes, I totally disagree with the BJCP categories (Marko mentioned the dumb usage of hydromel).
Read the wiki on mead, there are tons of ridiculous names for mead with maple syrup, with peppers and so on; we can use tags for those categories, and we can make it become a style only if the category becomes dominant, like Cyser or Braggot; for the moment I would also leave Pyment lumped under the “fruit” style.
Real tej is almost impossible to come across, instead there are regular mead called tej for marketing purpose; this should be a tag.
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I would be very happy with this, with the addition that Apfelwein/Most also belongs to the Natural category.
Fine with that as well, though I am not completely convinced Polish Mead is a valuable addition to the other 5 categories.
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Going with @SinH4: I agree on this easy split but yeah Apfelwein/Most/Viez from Germany, Austria, Switzerland is different in production proccess to french Cidre and English Cider so please split up.
Agree completely. Sidra Natural/Apfelwein/Most are a completely different experience from “regular” Cider.
Maybe we should at least introduce Light Cider vs Strong Cider? There’s a big difference between a 17% Fortified Cider and and a 3% crackling cider…
I generally disagree with a still vs. sparkling differentiation. It will present practical problems for admins. So many ciders and meads are so close to that sparkling / still line, where do you put them? Many times there is no “intent” to discern from the packaging or marketing. And, carbonation levels in bottles can change over time or by how its served.
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I don’t know elsewhere, but here in Canada, it must either be label as Still or Effervescent. If the effervescence isn’t natural, it must be labeled as carbonated as well… I would say that locally, it’s around 30% still cider and 70% effervescent so it’s a big deal. Still is plain flat, no effervescence at all. If it as a very small effervescence, the it’s labeled as Crackling (pétillant) and if its obviously effervescent, it’s Sparkling (Mousseux)
Wow. Yeah, definitely not the case in the U.S.
Well, in Quebec, laws are heavy and cumbersome for alcohol (for example, brewers couldn’t sale Growlers until last year here…) but at the same time, it helps making a clear distinction between different products.
can someone explain to me why Fortified Cider is rateable?
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Surely, but why would that automatically mean it should be a style on its own?
Why do IPA and Imperial IPA are 2 different styles then? They could just be Beer - Bitter taste…
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I think ab InBev should pay for us to go on offsite meeting and we can hash it out over some meads and cider. That being said I think we are close to having a good suggestion.
