Amere de Berthencourt is a traditional French bittersweet cider apple. The apples are mostly pale yellow, and quite small, with a very bitter flavour - they cannot be eaten.
Amere de Berthencourt produces a high quality juice which can be used to create a single varietal cider or blended with other cider varieties.
Amere de Berthencourt flowers much earlier than most French cider varieties, but is readily pollinated by other early-blooming apple varieties.
The main problem is likely to be over-cropping, leading to biennial bearing is another issue - but this can be avoided by careful thinning of the fruitlets in early summer.
Amere de Berthencourt comes from the traditional cider growing area around the town of Berthencourt in Normandy. In English its name means "the bitter apple from Berthencourt".