Red Rover Brewery offers New Brunswick's first craft cider

A Fredericton-based company is looking to tap into the growing interest in small breweries with New Brunswick’s first craft cider production.

Red Rover Brewing began selling its craft cider from its Fredericton store earlier this year. The small brewery opened its doors at a good time as NB Liquor has been registering growing sales from the craft brewing sector.

The idea came to the company’s founders, Adam Clawson and his partner Nicola Mason, after they moved to Canada and noticed many craft beers but no craft ciders.

"In the U.K., craft cider has been around for generations upon generations. And it's been something that's been a standard as any sort of craft beer," Clawson said.

"What we're trying to do is create that sort tradition here in New Brunswick."

The brewery is hoping to capitalize on the interest in other specialty products.

NB Liquor says in the last three quarters, beer sales have continued to slide, but in July sales of other beverages were up by 16 per cent, over their last quarter.

Red Rover is not only selling its products at its Fredericton brewery, but also at the outdoor market in Saint John.

Maureen Hooper is one of the customers who came to fill up their cider bottles, which Red Rover calls flagons.

"It was really good. My husband actually is gluten intolerant, so it's a switch-up from beer and he really likes cider," she said.

John Fitzpatrick, another customer who visited Red Rover in Saint John on the weekend, said he is glad

"I actually just came from Ireland two days ago, so I tried as many ciders as I could there and it's good to see we're doing some here now too," Fitzpatrick said.

Red Rover is also trying to differentiate their cider from other mass-produced ciders that are already on the shelves in New Brunswick.

Mason said their product stands out from mass produced ciders because of what is inside the bottles.

"We're really proud that all of our product is made from New Brunswick products and it's made here in the province," Mason said.

"And we're also really proud of the fact that our cider is 100 per cent juice."