Cider Trivia
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99 free Cider trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Cider is fermented apple juice, and the British drink more of it per head than anyone on earth, so this quiz starts in the West Country: scrumpy, wassailing the trees, the Long Ashton apple classification, Percy Bulmer's first press in a Herefordshire rectory, Strongbow's Norman knight, and the white cider that became the cheapest alcohol in the country. Then it goes abroad. Asturian sidra poured from head height, Basque cider houses and the shout of txotx, Normandy's Calvados and pommeau, Frankfurt's tart Apfelwein, Quebec's ice cider, Laird's applejack in New Jersey, Johnny Appleseed's sour seedlings and the American meaning of 'apple cider' that has nothing to do with alcohol. Perry, Babycham, snakebite and the Wurzels get their turn, along with the chemistry of tannins, keeving and racking, and the legal minimums for apple juice in Britain and the US. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on cider, its regional traditions and the brands and drinks around it, so the dates, percentages and names are solid.
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Q 01Which region has the world's highest per-capita cider consumption?
The British Isles
The British Isles: the United Kingdom has the world's highest per-capita cider consumption and is home to the largest cider-producing companies, with the West Country its historic heartland.
Q 02The word 'cider' reached English through the Greek and Latin Bibles from which language's word for strong drink?
Hebrew
Hebrew: the Greek and Latin Bibles borrowed shekar, a word for any strong drink, and only later did 'cider' narrow in English to mean the fermented juice of apples.
Q 03Which Roman's 55 BC invasion of Britain is traditionally credited as the first record of cider?
Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar led the 55 BC expedition to Britain; the traditional account has his legions finding Celts fermenting crab apples there, the story usually told as the starting point of cider history.
Q 04Under UK law, cider must contain at least what percentage of apple juice?
35%
35%: HMRC's definition for duty purposes requires cider to contain at least 35 per cent apple juice, whereas CAMRA's 'real cider' standard demands 90 per cent fresh juice.
Q 05What is the name for the dry apple pulp left after pressing, traditionally fed to farm animals?
Pomace
Pomace is the pressed-out pulp of skins, flesh and pips; steeped in water and pressed again, it gave ciderkin, a weak cider traditionally drunk by children.
Q 06What advantage does fermenting cider at a cool 4-16°C give?
Slower fermentation and less loss of aroma
Slower fermentation and less loss of aroma: a temperature too low for most fermentations suits cider, so makers have no need to keep it warm.
Q 07What is 'racking' in cider making?
Siphoning the liquor off the yeast into a clean vat
Racking means siphoning the liquor off the yeast into a clean vat, leaving the spent lees behind; the vats are then filled to the brim to keep out the acetic bacteria that would turn cider to vinegar.
Q 08Cider apples are classed by their tannin and by their level of which acid, named after the Latin for apple?
Malic
Malic: researchers at Long Ashton, near Bristol, drew up the scheme in the early 1900s, and cider makers still sort their fruit by it.
Q 09Dabinett belongs to which class of cider apples, high in tannin but low in acid?
Bittersweets
Bittersweets such as Dabinett pair a bitter tannic edge with low acid, so cider makers usually blend them with sharper apples to balance the drink.
Q 10West Country cloudy, unfiltered cider is called scrumpy, usually traced to a dialect word 'scrump' meaning what?
A small or withered apple
A small or withered apple: that is the usual derivation, and the rough cider itself was once part of a West Country farm labourer's pay, handed out as a daily allowance.
Q 11Devon colic, which plagued cider drinkers in the 17th and 18th centuries, was a form of what?
Lead poisoning
Lead poisoning: physician George Baker showed in the 1760s that the colic came from lead in cider presses and vessels, and it all but vanished from Devon once the lead was removed.
Q 12Percy Bulmer made his first cider in 1887, aged 20, using apples from the orchard of what?
His father's rectory
His father's rectory: Percy's father was rector of Credenhill, and Percy is said to have gone into drink on his mother's advice that food and drink never go out of fashion.
Q 13Bulmers is based in which English city?
Hereford
Q 21What is the drink made by fermenting pear juice rather than apple juice?
Perry
Perry comes from small, astringent pears that are too harsh to eat, hard to harvest and quick to rot, which long kept it a farmhouse drink of the English west.
Q 22Babycham, launched nationally in 1953, was the first alcoholic drink to do what?
Be advertised on British commercial TV
Be advertised on British commercial TV: the 1957 campaign pitched Francis Showering's sparkling pear drink at women, who until then had little to order in a pub beyond port and lemon.
Q 23West Country orchard wassailing hangs cider-soaked toast in the branches for which birds?
Robins
Hereford: Bulmers has made cider in the city since the 1880s and has held a Royal Warrant since 1911, though the firm the family built is now owned by the Dutch brewer Heineken.
Q 14Strongbow, launched by Bulmers in 1960, is named after which figure?
A Norman knight, Richard de Clare
A Norman knight, Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, was nicknamed Strongbow; in 1170 he sailed to join the invasion of Ireland in defiance of a royal messenger sent to forbid it.
Q 15By 1970 Strongbow was Bulmers' second-best-selling cider behind which stablemate?
Woodpecker
Woodpecker, Bulmers' sweet flagship cider, outsold the drier Strongbow through the 1960s before Strongbow overtook it to become Britain's best-selling cider.
Q 16The Irish cider sold at home as Bulmers is sold in every other market under which name?
Magners
Magners: William Magner began making cider in Clonmel in 1935, and the export brand took his name because the Bulmers trademark belongs to H.P. Bulmer outside Ireland; serving it over ice is its marketing hallmark.
Q 17Which apple soft drink did the cider maker Bulmers launch in Ireland in 1955?
Cidona
Cidona came from the Irish cider maker Bulmers, part of C&C, and has been sold in Ireland since 1955; it moved to Britvic when C&C sold its soft drinks business in 2007.
Q 18Thatchers, a family firm making cider at Myrtle Farm in Sandford since 1904, is based in which English county?
Somerset
Somerset: William Thatcher began making cider at Myrtle Farm in 1904, at first handing it to his farm workers as part of their wages, and four generations on his family still runs the firm.
Q 19Why were Britain's strong 'white ciders' long sold at exactly 7.5% alcohol?
Higher duty above it
Higher duty above it: still cider stronger than 7.5% paid about half as much again in duty, so makers pitched white cider right on the line to stay in the cheaper band.
Q 20Ciders from which three English counties each hold a Protected Geographical Indication granted in 1996?
Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire
Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire, known as the Three Counties, won the status in 1996, so a cider may carry one of those county names only if it is made there to a traditional recipe.
Robins are seen as the good spirits of the orchard, so cider-soaked toast is hung in the boughs for them while shotguns are fired through the branches to scare the bad ones away.
Q 24On which date in the Christmas season does orchard wassailing traditionally take place?
Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night, 5 or 6 January, is the traditional date, though many West Country orchards wassail on 'Old Twelvey Night', 17 January, by the pre-1752 calendar; the aim is to wake the trees for a good crop.
Q 25The Wurzels' 1976 hit 'I Am a Cider Drinker' was a rework of which song?
Paloma Blanca
Paloma Blanca: the Wurzels rewrote the George Baker Selection's 1975 hit 'Una Paloma Blanca' as 'I Am a Cider Drinker', reaching No. 3; their No. 1 'The Combine Harvester' had likewise reworked Melanie's 'Brand New Key'.
Q 26A snakebite is a drink of cider mixed in equal parts with what?
Lager
Lager and cider in equal measures make a snakebite, a mix some British pubs decline to serve: in 2001 a Harrogate pub refused one to Bill Clinton.
Q 27Which Spanish region is by far the country's biggest cider producer?
Asturias
Asturias makes the great bulk of Spain's cider, and the drink runs so deep in local life that in 2024 Asturian cider culture joined UNESCO's list of intangible heritage.
Q 28How is Spain's sidra natural traditionally served?
Poured from a height into a wide glass
Poured from a height into a wide glass: the escanciador holds the bottle high overhead and the glass low, so the falling stream aerates the uncarbonated sidra for a fleeting sparkle, drunk at once as a culín.
Q 29In a Basque cider house, what do diners do when someone shouts 'txotx'?
Go to the barrels
Go to the barrels: the cry 'txotx' means one is being opened, and diners leave the table mid-meal to catch the thin jet of cider in their glasses.
Q 30Germany's tart Apfelwein is chiefly produced and drunk around which city?
Frankfurt
Frankfurt: Hessian Apfelwein is poured from a grey stoneware jug called a Bembel into ribbed glasses, whose diamond pattern catches the light and is said to keep the glass from slipping in the hand.