Wisconsin gets its first cider bar and it's in Mount Horeb | Local news

MOUNT HOREB – Ken Ruppert and Karin Condon have a new appreciation for their apples.

For decades, apple trees scattered on pastures and woodlands on their 208-acre beef cattle ranch between Dodgeville and Mineral Point have been largely ignored.

The couple selected a few each year, but their wild trees, which numbered hundreds, were never pruned, processed or commercially harvested.

But this month, the Ruppert and Condon harvests took a fermented liquid form in what is touted as the state's first cider bar. Located two blocks south of Mount Horeb's main street and right next to the new Duluth Trading Co. headquarters, Brix cider has apples from 18 farms in southern Wisconsin.

The company, housed in a former cheese warehouse, also highlights other local food producers and gives those who are unfamiliar with agriculture an overview of the state's rapidly changing agricultural sector, where small family dairy farms disappear quickly.

"We welcomed it because we thought that someone might just as well use it," said Condon about their neglected apple crop, while she was in the pub recently on Friday night. .

"They asked us if they could pick the apples and we said 'yes, go ahead' because they ate only cows," added Ruppert, 61, born and raised on the property of the farmer. County of Iowa, established as follows: a dairy operation by his grandparents. "I do not think we ever thought these apples had any value. They were only wild trees.

Brix Cider is the creation of Matt and Marie Raboin, who live south of Barneveld on two acres with their two young children, Teddy, 3, and Vera, 1. It's here that in 2014, the couple started to plant many apple trees. Today, their orchard has more than 1,000 trees that start producing 110 varieties of apples.

The Rabins have fired about 250 liters of juice from their own apples, but 85 to 90% of the juice of their 11 ciders is made from apples from other producers.

Some are commercial farms or self-selected orchards that let the couple come in and pick the less attractive fruits at the end of the season, which in turn creates an additional income stream for the orchards. Others are like Ruppert and Condon, who do not hesitate to give their wild apples as they were going to ruin anyway.

The goal is to produce approximately 1,000 gallons of cider per year at a production facility adjacent to the tasting room. However, about 50% of sales at Brix Cider are designed to come from local products.

This distinguishes Brix from other cider farms, such as Door County's Ellison Bay Island County Orchard cider, Milwaukee's Lost Valley cider and South Holland's cider farm, which is currently building a tasting room in the city. next to the cellar of Brennan's Cellar located in southwestern Madison.

Just like apples, the food at Brix comes largely from local farms and other local food producers.

"I think the local thing will resonate," said Matt Raboin. "I hope it will go well. We are betting on it. "

The Rabin $ 300,000 project, which has a second mortgage on their home, includes a kitchen filled with carrots from Taproot Farm & Fruit in Ridgeway; Honey Honey Breeze Honey in Mount Horeb and onions at Cross Roads Community Farm, just south of Pine Bluff. The flour comes from Meadowlark Organics near Ridgeway, the Cress Spring Bakery located north of Blue Mounds provides bread and biscuits, and some of the sausage is prepared at Hoesly Meats in New Glarus.

A product is even curly. The pressed apples remaining from the cider process are donated to the pigs at Dorothy's Range, near Blanchardville. The farm's pigs, owned by Brix employee April Prusia, are then used to make Brix sausages and are served on rolls prepared at Schubert's Diner & Bakery in downtown Mount Horeb.

It's a way for Rabins and other farm-to-table restaurants to try to help the state's agricultural economy move from traditional dairy farming to a diverse network of agro-industries . Low milk prices and, more recently, tariffs have highlighted the state's dairy industry, which in 2018 had lost 691 farms. There are about 8,100 dairy farms, compared with about 15,900 in 2004.

But some shutter operations are being reused. They may include organic beef, farm chickens, mushrooms and garlic, small grain production, organic vegetables, sheep's and goat's milk used for the award-winning artisbad cheese industry and aquaponic facilities. where fish and green leafy vegetables grow.

"We need to bring back the regional food systems," said Marie Raboin, who has a long career in agriculture and works for Dane County Land Conservation, where she helps farmers improve their grazing practices. "Everything has become too monopolistic and bulky and we are shipping far too many things. The more diverse you are, the more resilient you are.

Marie, 35, grew up in Wauwatosa, studied soil sciences at UW-Stevens Point, and spent nearly eight years working on wetlands with the US Department of Agriculture in Madison. Among her experiences, she spent two years in Malawi, a landlocked country in southeastern Africa, director of agroecology at the Institute of Agriculture and Forestry. Ecology of Kusamala.

Matt, 39, is from Fond du Lac. He graduated in fine arts at UW-La Crosse, worked in Madison restaurants, spent two summers in Alaska and worked for a while at Tipi Produce, near Evansville. He spent two years with the Peace Corps as a natural resource extension officer in Tanzania and spent five years researching, educating and training farmers at the UW-Madison Center for Human Resources. integrated farming systems.

The two men met while they were still graduates and they were studying agroecology, an educational system that the couple describes as a meeting place between sociology, agronomy and ecology. Their education is reflected in their 5,780 square foot cider bar where guests bring their young children to eat grilled cheese sandwiches and play with a train. The pub and bar tables are made from walnut trees harvested on the Rabin property, 16 km southwest of Mount Horeb.

"I think our teachers would be proud," Matt said.

Some of the ciders contain only one type of apple from a specific orchard, such as Appleberry Farm in the west of Madison, Munchkey Apples between Daleyville and Blanchardville and Karberg Orchard near Cambridge. Others are a mix of varieties from different orchards, while others are mixed with ingredients like raspberries, strawberries and hops. Some are aged in barrels of bourbon and rye whiskey, and another is mixed to taste an Old Fashioned.

The opening of the company comes after a difficult journey, with multiple disappointments over two years. The Raboins thought they had a building at Blue Mounds but it had been sold to someone else. Then came a plan to be part of the Mount Horeb Food Emporium, a collection of food producers in the building they now call home.

However, the emporium plan, a project of the Southwestern Wisconsin Community Action in Mineral Point, never materialized and collapsed in 2017 after the signing of a lease by the Rabin. Matt quit his job and started renting a freezer warehouse for his 4,500 liters of pressed juice. for an opening planned spring 2018.

The Rabid, livid and frustrated, began to explore other options, including other buildings, food trucks, warehouses, restaurants, old empty buildings, and bespoke options. This led to approaching the owners of the Riley Tavern, a popular stop for cyclists located in a rural area north-west of Verona. Even though the property was not for sale, the owner agreed, but in the end, the Rabin were unable to secure funding for the project, which would have been dubbed Riley Cider. But for various reasons, six banks refused to provide funding.

"Our ship was sinking again," Rabin wrote on their blog.

Enter Steve Schlecht, Executive Chairman of Duluth Trading Co., who has invested in several projects in downtown Mount Horeb. Schlecht bought the building for the Food Emporium and called the Rabins to offer them the front half of the building for their cider bar. They were scheduled to open on January 30, but would be a day late because of the polar vortex, a blip that barely records for the Rabbins in relation to their other challenges.

"It was a little bigger investment than originally planned, but we managed to tinker with it and we're there," said Matt.

"With Mount Horeb, we knew it was growing and we were going to enjoy it," said Marie. "And it's a nice 15 km ride for us, which is nothing."