Pine Hill Orchard

248 Greenfield Rd, Colrain, MA
413-624-3325
3 miles North of Rt. 2 West, North to Route 91, West to Rt. 2, turn at Colrain-Shelburne Rd, orchard 3 miles away.
Open Sept. 2 - Oct. 15, depending on apple crop. Sat & Sun, 10-4pm.
Blueberries PYO daily during store hours.

2012 prices:

Bought 31 gallons this year, 10 for Todd and Sarah. Arrived around 10am and they were busy but had plenty. I still wouldn't recommend arriving much later. More expensive this year, at $5.50/gallon for 1-10 gallons, $5/gallon at 11-50, and $4.74/gallong at 51+. Kind of drag that prices are increasing but the selection was good. I heard this year was generally bad for orchards but the guys at Pine Hill said that the harvest was pretty good for cider apples. There were four tanks this year instead of the customary three.

The tanks contained:

800 Gal Down Stairs

• 38% Pippin
• 20% Reinede Pomme
• 20% Snow Apple
• 10% Mutsu
• 6% Suncrisp
• 6% Gala

800 Gal Up Stairs

• 45% Reine de Pomme
• 33% Redfield
• 12% Pippin
• 10% Macoun

600 Gal

• 18% Jonathan
• 16% Golden Delicious
• 14% Reine de Pomme
• 14% Pippin
• 14% Empire
• 8% Golden Russet
• 8% Northern Spy
• 8% Macoun

300 Gal (What I got)

• 45% Esopus Spitzenburg
• 23% Orleans Reinette
• 17% Black Oxford
• 15% Golden Russet

2009 prices:

$3.75/gallon for 5 gallons. Didn't buy any supplemental this year. Arrived at 10am and they had plenty...said they didn't do very well last year.

2007 prices:

About $3.86/gallon, filling two 5-gal carboys and buying one gallon jug. Good blends this year though...perhaps why the price is a little higher. Arrived about 9:30am and they had plenty of cider in all three tanks.

2006 prices:

we think...$3/gal if you bring your own, maybe a quarter more in their plastic jug. We filled three 5-gal carboys to near the top (not full, more than 4 gal though) and grabbed an extra gallon in a milk-jug for a bit less than $40.

NOTE: One of the blends (43% redfield, of which we got two carboys worth) in a 350 gallon tank was half gone when we arrived Saturday morning at 10am...and they started pouring at 8am. Go there first thing.

2005 prices:

$2.75/gal in pastic jug
$2.50/gal if you bring your own
less than that if you get more than 50 gallons

Notes:

They had three blends, only available during Ciderday, available in very large metal containers. Unpasteurized. Drive down back to buy cider and pick it up. Two of the blends were more interesting and likely better for cider but by 3pm Saturday were running low...get there early. They let you taste each blend before you buy.