Hard cider is not considered beer, although it can usually be found on a beer list. The only quality that the two drinks have in common is that they are both fermented. Beer is defined as a fermented alcoholic beverage that is made from malt and flavored with hops. It's certainly possible that there hasn't been shady business here, but it's easy to see why cider makers and small breweries would raise an eyebrow.
Because it's fermented fruit juice, cider is considered a wine for tax purposes, and the production process shares much more with wine than beer. Extending the time that cider remains in contact with yeast lees increased the concentrations of most of the minor volatile compounds present, especially fatty acids, ethyl esters and alcohols. Traditional Asturian cider is a still cider with a concentration of 4— 8%, although there are other varieties. Abel Cider of Nelson is another producer who makes vintage cider with 100% freshly harvested apples and pears.
I have no illusions that all brewers and cider makers will be best friends forever and will always support each other or anything. Spontaneous fermentation initiated by native yeasts and terminated by Saccharomyces cerevisiae can produce ciders with similar concentrations of important non-volatile acids (see non-volatile acid), including lactic acid, succinic acid and acetic acid, while concentrations of volatile compounds such as methanol and 1-butanol, were present in different concentrations, depending on the apple cultivar. Ciders are made in many parts of Europe and the United States, and each country has different representations of cider with different flavor compounds. In addition, the yeast strains used in making hard cider (often referred to simply as “cider yeast”) are commonly strains of wine or champagne yeast, so it could be successfully argued that hard cider is actually more like an “apple wine” or, rather, it would be correct to call it that.
In addition to carrying out the primary fermentation of cider, yeast can also play other roles in cider production. Vermonter is a dry gin botanical cider that is made by slowly fermenting apples and adding juniper berries. And to further widen the gap between beer and hard cider, many popular mass-produced hard ciders also contain sugar, malic acid (for increased acidity), sulfites to preserve freshness (such as wine), and natural and artificial colors and flavors. The composition of cider is defined in the Australian and New Zealand Food Standards Code and means fruit wine prepared from the juice or must of apples and not more than 25% of the juice or must of pears.
Inoculation with different strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and other yeast strains with strong fermentative metabolism characteristics, including strains of Saccharomyces bayanus and Torulaspora delbrueckii, has been shown to produce little difference in phenolic compounds in cider, except in concentrations of phloretin (see Phloretin) in samples that underwent malolactic fermentation.
