Urban Forage taproom fulfills dream owner didn’t think would be realized

Locally foraged fruits and other items provide unique, chemical-free wines and ciders not found anywhere else

By TESHA M. CHRISTENSEN
Just as he forages for the ingredients to make cider and wine, so Jeff Zeitler foraged for building materials to set apart the recently opened Urban Forage Winery and Cider House taproom (3016 E. Lake St.).
Above the bar hangs a collection of salvaged doors, while a decorative screen that graced the space in years past is on a wall. A long list of building materials came from the nearby Habitat for Humanity ReUse Store.
Photo right: Drop by the recently opened Urban Forage Winery and Cider House to try one of four beverages on tap. The taproom is open Thursdays and Fridays from 4-10pm, and Saturdays from noon to 10pm. It is the city’s first winery since Prohibition. (Photo by Tesha M. Christensen)
Jeff was particularly delighted to open up a wall and find an old shelf made out of a packing crate, evidence from the past of another making something new out of what they had.
“We have a good product we believe in,” said Jeff’s wife, Gita Zeitler. “It’s local. We have no plans to be big, but we want to stay small and local and chemical free. We want to stay as unique as we are now.”
Unexpected surprises
Jeff made his first batch of hard cider while he was a college student at the University of Minnesota over 20 years ago. “I started out making wine when I was 19 to make alcohol, but I stayed with it because I like wine without sulfites,” Jeff remarked.
He had long dreamed of opening his own cider house, but it didn’t feel real until they purchased a foreclosed building along E. Lake St. five years ago. By renting out the main level, Jeff and Gita could help offset costs and make wine and cider in the basement. Soon after buying the building, Jeff was laid off from his job as a landscape architect for the first time, which left more time to devote to his dream job.
When he arrived at the building one day in January 2016 and discovered his tenants had abruptly moved out, and he was recently laid off again, Jeff realized it was time to go for it. He began the massive undertaking of remodeling the building to transform it into a taproom.
“I was basically unemployed and working at a non-profit for two years,” he said, adding that nothing would have been possible without his wife keeping them afloat financially.
While Jeff hired out the electrical, plumbing, heating and the elevator work, he did the rest himself, beginning with the demolition. Jeff adjusted the entire front of the building, adding large windows and a door for the elevator and removing the awning to make the building “pop.”
Photo left: The fermenting and bottling operation takes up the basement of Urban Forage’s 100-year-old building at 3016 E. Lake St. Owner Jeff Zeitler makes wine throughout the year, although the harvesting is done spring through fall. (Photo by Tesha M. Christensen)
“Before, there was nothing that really stood out on our block,” remarked Jeff. “You notice us now.”
When they first purchased the building, Jeff and Gita spend days tearing up the linoleum to reveal the maple hardwood underneath. In one spot was a large grease stain from when the space was used as a machine shop. Jeff sanded and sanded the messy area, and today he considers it the best spot on the floor.
“That’s what makes renovation fun to me—the unexpected surprises like that,” Jeff stated.
He does advise other new business owners to be patient and fearless. “Everything takes longer than you think it will take,” he observed. And it costs more, too. At one time, the Zeitlers found themselves unable to pay their workers on time as they waited for financing to kick in. “It’s very stressful,” said Jeff, “but now that it’s up and running it feels worth it.”
Would he want to do it again? “No way!” he answered.
They had been stymied for a time, thinking they needed a law change to operate an urban winery. But after hiring an attorney, they discovered there was still an old law from 1934 on the books that they could operate under.
When they opened the taproom in November, they became the city’s first winery since Prohibition.
They’re also the only cider house that makes real cider versus apple juice that has been mixed with a malt beverage.
Sophisticated tastes
In the transitional time between starting Urban Forage and opening the taproom, Jeff focused on figuring out what beverages people like best. When offered some gin botanicals (the spices that give gin its distinctive flavor) from Lawless Distillery, he created Gin Botanical on a lark, not sure whether it would be good or not. “That became a best seller,” remarked Jeff. “People love the Gin Botanical.”
The botanicals include juniper berries, coriander, black pepper and lavender along with other herbs. The unique beverage mixes gin and apple flavors to make something different, a spin on the classic gin and tonic.
Photo right: In November, Minneapolis Mayor-elect Jacob Frey (far right) helped cut the ribbon during the grand opening celebration at Urban Forage. Also pictured, owners Gita and Jeff Zeitler with children Jaya and Akhil. (Photo submitted)
Given the nature of foraged fruit and natural yeasts, Jeff is never quite sure what flavors will come out of his stainless steel fermenters. One might be sour, while another is dull, and the third high in tannins. To achieve a good and consistent flavor, Jeff blends different batches.
“People say Minnesotans all want sweet wine. I don’t think that’s true—at least not in the Longfellow neighborhood,” observed Jeff.
“You have people with sophisticated tastes in Minneapolis.”
Jeff experiments with the foraged items he’s offered, including lilacs, dandelions, apricots, hops, mulberries, cherries, pears, apples and more—which allows him to create flavors you can’t find anywhere else.
For the first time this year, the Zeitlers didn’t have to go out and pick all the fruit they used, but instead, people brought them apples.
“We take the excess of the city and turn it into wine and cider,” Jeff stated.
Being sustainable is important to the Zeitlers. “I don’t want to leave the world worse than I found it,” explained Jeff. “We all have a responsibility to leave a light footprint.” Rather than purchase carbon offsets or ride a bicycle everywhere, Jeff focuses on something he can easily do.
“There a lot of fruit just going to waste on the ground. I want to use what’s all around us that no one is paying attention to,” he said.
Wild yeasts give distinct flavors
Jeff begins each batch by letting the wild yeasts ferment and start the process, which gives it the distinct flavor English and French ciders are known for. Then he adds a robust commercial yeast as needed to finish it off. He pasteurizes products to make them shelf-stable instead of dosing them with chemical additives. He avoids adding anything unless he needs to, using the Integrated Pest Management strategy of only adding sulfite if needed. He never uses potassium sorbate because he finds the taste disgusting.
Urban Forage can’t realistically obtain an organic designation because of the many places they get fruit from, but 98 percent of what they use hasn’t been fertilized, Jeff said. They’re just neighborhood trees that owners have been ignoring benignly.
That said, if he were given access to organic apples, he’d be happy to make a small batch of cider from just those apples and get an organic label for it.
Grateful for neighborhood
Jeff is grateful for the neighborhood’s support and noted that many of their customers come from Longfellow. “Thank you for supporting your local businesses,” said Jeff.
“We hope you come out and drink and make us improve all the time.”
He and a few other distillery owners are brainstorming ways to promote themselves and bring in more people to the neighborhood businesses, especially considering that they’re not located far from the light rail line.
The taproom is open on Thursdays and Fridays 4-10pm, and Saturdays noon to 10pm. Food trucks are frequently parked outside on the weekends. Dry cider and semisweet will always be on tap, and two other varieties will rotate in and out.
On the third Thursday of the month, drop by for Writer’s Open Mic night. On Mondays, Sara Milner holds Yoga classes; show up and pay $10 at the door for the one-hour class.
Up until March is the art show, “Fire and the Flame: Honoring 35 Years of Zorongo Flamenco,” by local artist and The League of Longfellow Artists (LoLa) founder Anita White.
Urban Forage products are also for sale at over 40 liquor stores in the Twin Cities area.
“This is the realization of a dream I didn’t think I’d ever actually realize,” said Jeff.

Winery and cider house to open soon on E. Lake St.

Urban Forage Winery & Cider House part of E. Lake St. renaissance

by Tesha M. Christensen

  

Someday, Jeff and Gita Zietler will run a winery/cidery/meadery on E. Lake St.

They will gather fruit from urban apple trees and raspberry bushes, pick dandelions and lilacs, and intercept useable but not saleable fruit from food co-ops and natural food stores that would otherwise go to waste and ferment it into something delicious.

Someday, they will make tasty beverages that fall in the range between grape wine and beer that rarely ever make it to store shelves. This includes honey mead, dandelion wine, sparkling apple cider and pear champagne. They’ll put them on the shelves and make sure they get the attention they deserve.

Right now, they’re putting in the sweat and tears to make that dream a reality.

STARTING WITH A FORECLOSURE

Last year, the Zietlers bought a foreclosed building at 3016 E. Lake. Gita had seen the building on Lake Street up for sale for almost two years before they took the time to look at it.

Jeff admits he was hesitant to look at a property on E. Lake St. “I lived in Seward in the late 90s and early 00s and at that time hadn't had a very positive impression of E. Lake Street,” he observed.

But now he feels like Lake Street is a really good fit for their business. “Initially it was mostly about the price, but now we feel like a part of something larger -- a renaissance that seems to be taking place on E. Lake between Hiawatha and the river,” said Jeff. “Since we bought it, so many new, innovative businesses have opened in this corridor, and that really confirms that this is the right place to be.  My initial skepticism that this was the right place to build a business is gone.”

When they looked at the structure, the water was shut off and the roof leaked, but overall, the bones of the building were good, and the price was in a range that they could afford. “If it had been selling at the pre-recession price, we might not have even looked at it -- especially given that the street was less vibrant back then than it is now,” said Jeff.

They didn’t expect to have so much in common with their neighbors. “Our business neighbors are a mix of immigrants and long-time Minnesotans, running small businesses similar in scale to what we are planning,” remarked Jeff. “We're a mixed family, so it felt like a comfortable fit in many ways. This is one of the things we love about E. Lake St.: it's pretty unassuming, but there's a lot going on below the surface, good things.”

In the basement of their building is 1,200 square feet with 9-foot ceilings, glass block windows and an antique jail cell. “Not exactly the picture of a winery, but a unique space, large enough to accommodate all of the equipment for a small winery and a nice cool year-round temperature,” said Jeff Zietler. (Photo by Tesha M. Christensen)

Jeff and Gita Zietler are proud of the work they’ve done to rehab this foreclosured building at 3016 E. Lake St., which included tearing up carpet and linoleum and then redoing the hardwood floors beneath. The building was formerly a hair salon, pawn shop and jewelry store named Diamond Jim’s, among other things. (Photo by Tesha M. Christensen)

INVESTMENT AND SWEAT EQUITY

A landscape architect from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Jeff has done as much of the work on their building as he can.

First was the clean-up. He removed layers of old flooring and refinished the original wood floors, painted and fixed up a myriad of little things. They hired contractors to fix the roof, reconnect the water and fix damage that was the result of the pipes freezing. They discovered that the air conditioning unit didn't work and that the furnace was on its last leg, so they hired a contractor to replace both.

“There was a lot of investment that went into it that partially offset the initial low purchase price, but we still felt like we got a great deal,” said Jeff.

They have rented out the street level as an office for a company that places personal care assistants in people's homes, and the lower level is vacant.  They're in the process of applying for a conditional use permit and parking variance with the city in order to be able to run a business on the lower level. 

Downstairs, they have 1,200 square feet of space waiting for them to fix up. 

Their first piece of professional-grade equipment – a 300 liter Italian-made stainless steel fermenter – arrived in June. The test run was 14 gallons of dandelion and lilac wine. “We don’t have the building finished yet, or the licenses to sell, but I’m ramping up my home winemaking in preparation for going professional,” wrote Jeff in their blog.

HOMEBREWER SINCE COLLEGE

Jeff made his first batch of hard cider while he was a college student at the University of Minnesota 20 years ago. “It wasn't very good, but I kept making batches and over the years started making wines and ciders that people really seemed to enjoy,” stated Jeff. “Gita and I are both pretty avid gardeners and foragers, and I'd make wine from whatever was seasonally available in the area.” 

If their garden had a good year for growing carrots, he would mash them up and make a batch of carrot wine. In the spring he makes dandelion wine. When he notices fruit on the wild mulberry trees that grow almost everywhere, he collects enough to make a batch of mulberry wine. 

“It's all about using what's at hand, and the results are usually surprisingly good,” observed Jeff.

He isn’t trying to outdo California or France or Chile in making a great Cabernet or Sauvignon Blanc.  “Rhubarb and sour cherries and dandelions and carrots and apples grow like weeds in our climate, and make wonderful beverages of their own – and most of them are not commercially available, so I want to be the one to introduce them to the market,” he stated. 

Jeff added, “Foraging is how I've always made wine and cider, and scaling up to production on a commercial scale could be challenging. My vision is that we will be able to work with a number of partners who will pick organic fruit from their own trees or gardens or surplus fruit from consenting landowners, and give it to us in exchange for finished product or a modest payment.” He also hopes to intercept non-saleable fruit and vegetables from local markets that is too aesthetically unappealing to sell at a market, but is still perfectly suitable for juice extraction and fermentation.

HEARTBREAK OVER LAWS

The Zietlers, who live in the Merriam Park neighborhood of St. Paul, have been frustrated by the laws governing wineries. Rural wineries (located on agricultural land of three acres or more) pay 1/10 of the licensing fee of an urban winery, can also produce hard liquor, sell their products on site, and sell samples and drinks by the glass. In contrast, urban wineries pay a much higher licensing fee, but cannot have a taproom or even sell bottles on site.

 “The laws that have loosened up fees and regulations for brewery taprooms and microdistilleries have not yet made it to wineries,” Jeff observed.

Earlier this year, the Zietlers recruited the help of Representative Jim Davnie and Senator Patricia Torres Ray in order to pass new legislation to change that discrepancy. “But the farm wineries came out strong against it, and the bill died in committee,” stated Jeff. “I was kind of heartbroken after that happened.”

But he hasn’t given up. Instead he’s working to gather support from others. “When I try again, I think I'll have the public support that I was lacking last time,” Jeff observed.

KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN TO LAUNCH

The Zietlers plan to launch a Kickstarter campaign in September to raise $20,000 to buy equipment and fermenters. If their permits are approved and the Kickstarter campaign is successful, Urban Forage Winery and Cider House will begin making wine and cider in the winter or spring of 2015. 

Follow their progress at http://urbanforagewinery.com/