Pears Make Perry Pt 1

Pears Make Perry Pt 1

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
With today's Fruit Grower Report, I'm Bob Larson. If you love fruit and sweet drinks, but your pallet is getting bored with the dozens of delicious hard cider options on the market, there's now another option for your drinking pleasure called perry. Spelled differently, the sound may be a dead give-away that "perry" is made with pears...

EWING ... "Perry is basically cider, but made from pears. So, there is a difference between pear cider and perry. Perry is just strictly pears, usually made from perry-specific pears called perry pears, so it gets a little confusing when you start saying pear all the time. But, pear cider is more apple-derived cider with pear juice and pear flavoring added in. So, perry is just purely fermented from pear juice."

WSU Fermentation Expert, Bri Ewing says much like cider apples for cider makers, perry pears lend themselves perfectly for making perry ...

EWING ... "Perry pears are more tannic and they have those astringent and bitterness characteristics from a sensory profile perspective. But, perry is generally only made from perry pears. There are some people who do use dessert pears for perry, but you get completely different results. So, it's a little bit less flexible than cider in some ways."

Ewing, who teaches perry making classes at the WSU Mount Vernon Research and Extension Center, says perry is really catching on nationwide, but it's really big here in the Pacific Northwest where craft beers and cider are very popular.

Listen tomorrow for more on the new perry craze and the pears used to make it.

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