Unit 1, Windmill Way West, Ramparts Business Park, Berwick-upon-Tweed, TD15 1UN

Craft cider that's off the beaten track

We seek out apples with character. Then we teach them to dance...

Phil learned how to craft cider in Zummerset. Oo-arr. But he’s come a long way since then. All the way to Berwick-upon-Tweed, in fact, where Northumberland meets Scotland. Tucked away on farms and estates around the Borders he found orchards producing ...

Where it all began: HMS Monkey

Phil is Head Keeper at the Monkey House. His 30 years’ experience in brewing and distilling include launching what’s now one of Scotland’s premier cider houses. But it all began on a farm near Yeovilton, Somerset, where Phil was stationed with the Fleet ...

...and did we mention the beer?

We're a cider house. But Phil’s also a master brewer. Couldn’t we do one or two specials, he said? No, we said. Stay focused. Then we tried his Golden Macaque Citra and his Black Macaque stout. Actually, not such a bad idea, we said. Pull us another ...

News

Monkey House wins three world medals

Monkey House Cider has won bronze in three categories of the International Cider Challenge 2021. The competition attracted entries from 18 countries on four continents. Its blind-tasting panel of 30 judges announced their decision on 16 July.

“We’re over the moon to get this kind of recognition so soon,” says our cider-maker Phil Elliott. “In our first year of production we thought it was a bit early to be taking on the world. But we sent some samples to a cider expert – just to get his advice, really – and he wrote straight back to say we’d be mad not to give it a go.”

The medal-winning ciders were See No Evil, Speak No Evil and Pineapple & Passionfruit. A fourth entry won praise from the judges but didn’t quite make the medals.

The awards came as no surprise to Gemma Cook, licensee of Berwick’s Curfew micropub – a regular winner of CAMRA’s Best Cider Pub in Northumberland award. “We’ve been stocking a range of Monkey House ciders from the outset,” she says. “They’re outstanding products, and they’ve been very popular with our customers.”

16 July 2021

Top cider house picks Monkey House for reopening

Berwick’s multi-award winning micropub The Curfew chose three of our craft ciders for its reopening on 12 April 2021. It’s offering Mad Monkey, See No Evil and Hear No Evil on tap, and has also ordered our fearsome 10% abv Russian Imperial stout, The Black Macaque.

The Curfew has unrivalled cider expertise: it’s repeatedly won CAMRA’s Best Cider Pub in Northumberland award, most recently last year – as well as being named North Northumberland Pub of the Year annually since it opened in 2014.

Licensee Gemma Cook says: “We’re delighted to be showcasing three excellent ciders from a local producer. Monkey House is a new company, but Phil Elliott is a very experienced cider maker and it shows. These are outstanding products – and the stout also wowed our tasting panel.”

4 November 2020

Gallery

4 photos

Monkey House Cider Ltd