The McKeever family at Long Meadow have produced quality apples in County Armagh for generations. After harvest, the apples are stored in state-of-the-art refrigerated storage facilities and supplied to the market as required.

Our first impression when we visited the McKeever Farm was the warm family welcome and their individual input to this business. We met with Catherine and Patrick McKeever and their son Peter.

When you arrive at Long Meadow Cider you enter a working yard with farm buildings on one side and the orchard plantation on the other side.

Every element of the production of the Long Meadow range is managed on-site by the McKeevers, you can be assured of a quality offering that is fully traceable with very few food miles.

What goes around comes around. The farm buildings include the cider and cider vinegar fermentation facility and the oak cask maturing facilities. Back decades ago, the custom and practice were to store the apples in oak casks, the use of casks was discarded with the introduction of state-of-the-art refrigerated storing facilities. The redundant oak barrels were then sold off to a well-known distillery to mature whiskey.

In recent years when Long Meadow Cider moved into producing oak-aged cider, they purchased second-hand surplus barrels and to their surprise, the original McKeever branded apple barrels came back home to Long Meadow.