The best apple varieties for making sweet cider

Sweet cider is made by pressing apples and collecting the juice. It is a great way to use a surplus of apples, and the cider can easily be frozen to preserve it.

Home-pressed sweet cider has a freshness and flavor that you just don't get from shop-bought apple juice. You can use any apples to make it, but there are some varieties that have particularly good juice qualities.

1st Wickson Crab
Wickson crab apples have an unusually concentrated flavor and the juice contains high levels of both acid and sugars. This makes Wickson ideal for sweet (and hard) cider.

Wickson can also be eaten fresh or used for home baking, and the abundant spring blossom makes it a good pollinator for other apple trees.
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2nd Golden Russet
Golden Russet is a traditional American apple, with a reputation for excellent flavor for eating fresh. This carries over into the juice, which has a predominantly rich sweet flavor but with plenty of balancing acidity. (In fact many russet-skinned apples also have a particularly good juice quality).

The tree is easy to grow, although somewhat susceptible to fireblight.
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3rd Arkansas Black
Arkansas Black is a late-season apple variety that is almost inedible in the fall, and needs to be stored for a few months before it is ready to eat. The intense flavor of the apples carries over into a strong-flavored juice, which can also be used for hard-cider.

The one downside from the point of view of sweet cider production is that Arkansas Black is not usually a heavy-cropping variety. On the other hand it has a good reputation for disease-resistance.
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4th Bramley's Seedling
Bramley is a vigorous traditional English apple variety which produces large quantities of big apples with a particularly high acid content. When pressed the juice is beautifully sharp and acidic, making a refreshing drink or useful for blending with sweeter cider.

The apples are also perfect for English-style cookery, and they easily cook down to a rich puree.
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5th Ashmead's Kernel
Like many heirloom russeted apple varieties, Ashsmeads Kernel produces a high quality sweet cider. The rich sweet-sharp juice often has an attractive pear-like flavor.

The apples can also be eaten fresh, preferably after a few months in storage, at which point the dense complex flavors will have mellowed.
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6th Discovery
Discovery is a pretty English early-season apple known for its fresh summery flavor. The apples do not keep so juicing is a good way to preserve them. The sweet cider has a particularly well-balanced sweet/tart flavor.
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7th Court Pendu Plat
It is often the case that apples with unusual or strong flavors make the best sweet cider, and Court Pendu Plat is a good example. The solid dry flesh yields a remarkably fruity sweet cider, with a characteristic pear-drop flavor.

This ancient French apple variety flowers very late, and needs another late-flowering apple tree to pollinate it.
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8th Cripps Pink
Cripps Pink is one of the best modern apples for eating fresh. Like many apples with Golden Delcious in their parentage, Cripps Pink produces a good quality sweet cider, with a tangy but predominantly sweet flavor.

Cripps Pink needs a really long growing season, so is best suited to the southern states.
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8th Burgundy
This little-known variety produces large juicy apples which have a high-quality sweet-sharp flavor,

Burgundy is very cold-hardy and generally easy to grow, but avoid areas where fireblight or cedar rust might be an issue,
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10th Idared
The red apple from Idaho is a superb variety for sweet cider production, and is grown commercially for ths purpose. The crisp dense flesh has a rich sweet flavor.

Idared is one of the best keepers, and can be stored in a domestic fridge for six months. It is also a useful pollinator for other early-blooming apple varieties.
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