Temple Cider is an artisan Dorset cider maker, situated immediately to the north of Pilsdon Pen Iron Age hillfort. We are Paul and Jo and we create authentic, full-juice craft cider and perry, with the utmost attention to detail, for fine-tasting results. We harvest ripe apples from the ground by hand and press them in small batches in the cider shed on our farm.
Our award-winning, quality Dorset ciders and perries are made from only freshly pressed local apples and pears, with minimal intervention and no added sulphites. They are suitable for vegans and are gluten-free.
Award-winning Dorset cider
We are delighted to announce that we have won gold in the International Cider Challenge 2025, in the Bottle Conditioned Cider category, for our Yarlington Mill Keeved 2022.
Other proud wins are:
- three bronze awards at the International Wine & Spirit Competition 2023 tasting of 100% juice, not-from-concentrate ciders
- two bronze awards at the International Wine & Spirit Competition’s 2021 tasting of 100% juice, not-from-concentrate ciders
If you’re wanting to try some of the best Dorset cider, be sure to order online, or arrange to visit us soon!
Praise for our cider
The Observer
Our Yarlington Mill & Michelin keeved 2021 featured in the October 2023 edition of The Observer’s Food Monthly magazine. The Ciderologist, Gabe Cook, awarded it 4 stars out of 5 in a blind tasting, with these comments:
Nice mousse, nice bubbles. Gosh; spice, clove, leather on the nose – big, tannic, western counties cider. Tongue-rasping astringency – a real textural beast, just lacking a touch of softness. Great! It’s for anybody into orange wine.
★★★★
Where to buy our cider
We have an online shop where you can buy Dorset cider and perry for home delivery. We are also stocked in a few local shops. Trade enquiries are welcome and we are also on Eebria Trade.
Our small cidery, in what was the old milking parlour, is situated on our farm near Beaminster, Dorset. We are open to visitors by appointment, so if you prefer to visit to buy cider, just contact us beforehand to arrange your visit. We are about a 20-minute drive from both Bridport and Lyme Regis.
As well as bottled ciders, we have draught bag-in-box ciders available, and also live, naturally sparkling, single varietal ciders in cans. As far as we know, this can-conditioning is a first for cider.
For trade customers, as well as bag-in-box, we also supply live, keg-conditioned ciders. The kegged ciders are naturally sparkling ‘pet nat in keg’, for a fine, luxurious fizz.
How we make our artisan Dorset cider
We harvest ripe fruit by hand from the ground, from trees in traditional unsprayed orchards. Most of the fruit comes from our own orchards, but we also harvest from other small orchards close by.
The fruit has a very thorough wash, and we take care to remove any that is not in tip-top condition.
After pressing, we let the natural fermentation process perform its magic. The resulting cider is full-juice, authentic and delicious; cider as we think it is meant to be.
We make artisan Dorset perry too
In 2022, we started to harvest and press perry pears, and in 2024 we began our Dorset perry releases. First was a Hendre Huffcap & Winnal’s Longdon draught perry which quickly sold out.
Our second perry release was Gollop Orchard Perry 2022 in a 750ml bottle. This is available in cases of 6 bottles from our webshop. And our third perry release was a naturally sparkling, keg-conditioned Thorn Perry, which is available for trade buyers via Eebria Trade.
