Angry Orchard is a

hard cider Cider ( ) is an alcoholic beverage made from the fermented juice of apples. Cider is widely available in the United Kingdom (particularly in the West Country) and Ireland. The United Kingdom has the world's highest per capita consumption, as w ...

company located near

Walden, New York Walden is the largest of three Administrative divisions of New York#Village, villages of the town of Montgomery, New York, Montgomery in Orange County, New York, United States. The population was 6,818 at the 2020 census. It has the ZIP Code 125 ...

, United States, owned by the

Boston Beer Company The Boston Beer Company is an American brewery founded in 1984 by Jim Koch, James "Jim" Koch and Rhonda Kallman. Boston Beer Company's first brand of beer was named Samuel Adams (beer), Samuel Adams after Founding Fathers of the United States, Fo ...

. It makes hard cider using apples from its own 60-acre orchard located in

Hudson Valley The Hudson Valley or Hudson River Valley comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. The region stretches from the Capital District (New York), Capital District includi ...

, New York. The company is credited for making cider a widely-distributed drink in restaurants and retail chains in the US, paving the way for the development of the regional ciders market.

History

The "

orchard An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit tree, fruit- or nut (fruit), nut-producing trees that are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also so ...

" in the name Angry Orchard refers to a 60-acre

in the middle of the Hudson Valley-based cidery. "Angry" is an allusion to cider apples often being ugly in comparison to hand apples, and their acidic and tannic taste. In its first year, the cider was only available in

New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...

, Colorado, Maryland, and New York. In 2012, it was introduced nationwide (with its three flagship flavors, Crisp Apple, Traditional Dry, and Apple Ginger). By June 2013, Angry Orchard overtook

Woodchuck The groundhog (''Marmota monax''), also known as the woodchuck, is a rodent of the family Sciuridae, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as marmots. A lowland creature of North America, it is found through much of the Easte ...

as most-sold cider in the US. It quickly captured 40% of the United States hard cider market, rising to 50% by 2014 and comprising 20% of the Boston Brewing Company's output. In 2016, Angry Orchard teamed with treehouse builder

Pete Nelson Pete Nelson (born June 4, 1962) is an American master treehouse builder,Gardener, Cheney"Build a Better Treehouse Without Hurting Yourself, Your Pride, or a Tree; A master treehouse builder (yes, that's his real job title) on the numbers, physics ...

to create a treehouse tasting room on

Animal Planet Animal Planet (stylized in all lowercase since 2018) is an American multinational pay television channel focusing on the animal kingdom owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks unit of Warner Bros. Discovery. First established on June 1 ...

's ''

Treehouse Masters ''Treehouse Masters'' is an American reality television series that aired on Animal Planet and starred Pete Nelson, a master treehouse builder and owner of Nelson Treehouse and Supply. Each episode, Nelson and his team design and build custom tre ...

''. In March 2019, Angry Orchard launched their Cider+Food App, a first-of-its-kind

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR), also known as mixed reality (MR), is a technology that overlays real-time 3D computer graphics, 3D-rendered computer graphics onto a portion of the real world through a display, such as a handheld device or head-mounted ...

experience that brings cider and food pairings to life. Users of the app can scan their phones over Angry Orchard's bottles of their core styles—Crisp Apple, Rosé, Easy Apple and Pear, with the digital experience guided by head cidermaker Ryan Burk. In 2020, Angry Orchard was the top-selling cider brand in the United States, with sales of $222.4 million that year and held a 50% share on the US cider market in 2021 (down from 60% in 2016).

Recall

On August 4, 2015, Angry Orchard had a voluntary recall of select cases of its hard cider due to concerns of refermentation in the bottles. This decision was made after consumer inquiries about bottles that were broken or overflowing when opened, as well as several follow-up quality tests.

References

External links

*{{official website, http://angryorchard.com American ciders Companies based in Orange County, New York