National Trust Award for Northern Irish Cider

Mac Ivors Cider, the Northern Irish cider maker, has won a coveted National Trust Fine Farm Produce Award.

The company, based at Ardress, Armagh, is the first from Northern Ireland to gain an award in the competition that is supported by Freedom Foods. The awards, now in their eighth year, celebrate the quality of produce, grown, reared or made on places owned or managed by the National Trust, including orchards, gardens and tenant farms.

Greg MacNeice, manager of the family-run cider business, says: "Having grown up and been surrounded by apples, making cider was a natural choice for me. However, it was not until I tasted the fragrant and aromatic 'cidres' of northern France that I was inspired to use our own delicious apples to create our own distinctively traditional Irish craft cider."

Mac Ivors Cider was launched in 2011 and has sold over 150,000 bottles in the past year to customers in both parts of Ireland as well as Great Britain, Sweden, Finland and Germany.

"Over the next five years, my goal is for Mac Ivors to define what is essentially a new drinks category - Irish craft cider. We are immensely proud to receive such a prestigious award from the highly influential National Trust.

"We have an amazingly close relationship with the National Trust, sharing the same values and ethos and, above all, sharing a love of the land."

The company, part of the Mac Neice family apple growing and processing business, markets two ciders developed by Mr MacNeice. Mac Ivors Traditional Dry is a 5.6% ABV variety and Mac Ivors Medium is a 4.5% ABV cider.

Both are made using 100 per cent fresh pressed apples and have been developed by Mr MacNeice, an experienced cider maker, to offer a richly flavoured and aromatic alternative to drinkers of commercial beers and ciders. Both feature eye-catching branding and point of sale materials.

He developed the new ciders after four years of market research in the UK, France and the US. His family has been growing apples for over 150 years in Armagh, managing more than 100 acres of orchards.

The company has also won an International Brewing Award for its cider in the world's oldest international beer competition.