Yip Cider

Yip was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, where he developed a deep appreciation for its diverse forests, majestic rivers and people of character. Leaving New Brunswick in 1933 for military college, then WWII, and a career in Toronto, he was determined to come home someday.

On a visit home in 1964, Yip bought the farm adjacent to a camp owned by his father. He would return every summer to plant apple trees, raspberry bushes and a vegetable garden, until 1972, when he was able to move back home for good.

Yip enjoyed duck hunting, boating, and most importantly, making cider. He would pick the apples, enlisting anyone he could to help, then set out to craft his cider, which he would share with his family and neighboring farms.

Yip’s son, Chas, caught the bug, changed careers, and became a full-time apple farmer in 1980. Yip left us in 1986, but Chas and his family have been carrying on the tradition of everything apples and cider to this day.

The trees Yip planted continue to produce fruit and we are open to the public as a U-pick, where people can pick apples, take pictures under apple trees, and buy craft cider.

In Yip’s day, and up until recently, apples were pressed in the basement of the barn with a man-powered vertical rack and cloth press. Starting in 2016 we pressed and fermented in Chas Mackay’s garage on Mackay Apple Orchard using a hydraulic vertical rack and cloth press. We upgraded in 2021 with a new building down the road from the orchard, where we have more room for bigger tanks, a belt press, and a beautiful taproom. All our cider is fermented, matured, filtered, and canned/bottled on site.

In the fall of 1965, Yip purchased a 1966 GMC green pickup truck to be used on the farm. This truck was passed on to Yip’s son Chas and was well loved until its retirement in 1992. In 2015, Chas’s five children surprised him with the restoration of the old green truck. Today, the green truck is back in action, cruising through beautiful New Brunswick. Keep an eye out for the green truck at Mackay Apple Orchard, the Kingston farmers’ market, and out delivering cider.