Barry Masterson

Hailing from Dublin, Ireland, Barry is owner, orchardist, and maker at Kertelreiter Cider & Perry in the small village of Schefflenz, southern Germany.

Having been a homebrewer since 2006, and active in the Irish craft brewing scene, Barry started making cider, almost by accident, in 2012, some 4 years after moving to Germany. A hobby that soon grew out of control.

By 2019 Barry had been producing enough volume of cider and perry to warrant selling the excess that his neighbors couldn’t drink, and so Kertelreiter Cider & Perry was born. By this time, he and his wife owned 1.5 acres of mature orchard, as well as access to dozens of majestic old perry pear trees dotting the landscape around Schefflenz.

Over the intervening years, Barry’s interest (obsession) in perry pears and the lost perry making cultures of Europe grew, to the extent that he started the International Perry Pear Project. The aim of this project is to plant new meadow orchards dedicated to rare, endangered or culturally significant perry pear varieties from across Europe. Having started grafting such varieties in 2019, the first such orchard was planted in spring 2024.

Barry is the house historian, “European correspondent” and currently fills the role of editor of Cider Review. He has contributed articles to Malus Zine and to the journal of the German Pomologist Society, of which he is a member. By day he works in GIS.