Blog

Beer without ye booze, and a (secret) wine sale

By Jeff Zeitler on Thursday, March 14th, 2024

    And here I thought Urban Forage couldn’t make beer. We can’t, but we found a way to make something that sorta tastes like beer, and is gluten free and is actually pretty good. If you like a good Boddington’s bitter ale or another such ESB-style beer. Very hoppy and a nice, slightly creamy […]


3:30 on a Saturday afternoon

By Jeff Zeitler on Saturday, February 17th, 2024

3:30 on a Saturday afternoon. I’m a gardener and thinking about planting my vegetable garden this spring today. Ordering seeds, deciding what to plant where. While looking out over this sunny and pleasant but also completely empty taproom. And while sitting here it occurred to me that customers are to a venue what water is […]


It really is a wonderful life.

By Jeff Zeitler on Friday, December 22nd, 2023

This is from our most recent newsletter that goes out to 1600 subscribers. If you’d like to subscribe, click here. It’s not always a wonderful life And then.  Sometimes it is. We were going to make a chicken pot pie.  Kid #1 said we never make anything new for dinner- we just recycle the same […]


Trivia tickets available at the door!

By Jeff Zeitler on Thursday, December 7th, 2023

Hey!  We have trivia this Thursday, as we do all Thursdays.  Tickets will be for sale at the door.  We’re putting up fewer tickets on the tix sales site, as they’re starting to charge (even more!) fees for larger events.  So we’ll post 25 online and sell the rest at the door.  See you tonight!


Check out our Winter music lineup!

By Jeff Zeitler on Friday, November 10th, 2023

We keep booking talented local singer/songwriters and bands!  This winter we have a great lineup!  Any Friday night you stop in, you’ll find a new band playing at 7 PM.  We have a Saturday music night or two scheduled as well.  Don’t get stuck indoors this long winter.  There’s no cover charge and the cider […]


Closing early Sunday October 22nd

By Jeff Zeitler on Saturday, October 14th, 2023

Hey all- we’re closing at 4 PM on Sunday the 22nd as we prepare to host a wedding reception!  The couple needs a bit of extra time to set up before the guests arrive, so we’ll do last call at 3:30 and tables clear by 4:00.  It’ll be a beautiful reception- so thank you for […]


Closed Sept 2&3 for the Labor Day holiday

By Jeff Zeitler on Friday, September 1st, 2023

Hey! We’re closing the taproom on Saturday and Sunday, so we all can have some fun over the last weekend of summer. Gita and I and our staff will be out camping, barbecuing, patio sipping and state fair going to our hearts content. Sorry we won’t be open for your cider drinking pleasure, but we’ll […]


New summer hours

By Jeff Zeitler on Thursday, June 15th, 2023

Well, we’re changing our hours again- this time it’s: Wednesday 4-9 Thursday 4-9 Friday 4-9 Saturday 1-9 Sunday 1-5.   We’ve moved our trivia nights to Wednesdays and will continue to have local artists performing original music each Friday at 7 PM.  Hope to see you soon!


Thanks to WCCO for highlighting our dandelion wine

By Jeff Zeitler on Monday, May 22nd, 2023

If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look at the wonderful piece on our dandelion wine that recently ran on WCCO news! here Many thanks to the producer Kirsten, who filmed and produced the entire piece by herself!  We appreciate the attention, and also appreciated the hard work of the volunteers who showed up […]


It’s dandelion season!

By Jeff Zeitler on Thursday, May 11th, 2023

  Yes!  Finally there are dandelions on lawns everywhere in Minnesota.  We hope you’re as excited about them as we are, because the emergence of dandelions means the beginning of foraging season.  We go out and pick almost every day in mid-May to make sure we have enough to make a year’s batch of dandelion […]


Going California sober? We have the thing for you.

By Jeff Zeitler on Sunday, February 26th, 2023

Lots of us are California dreamin’ at the moment.   I am.  You probably are too. I was walking to the mailbox, through the almost knee-high snow last week when I ran into a neighbor and was had a good talk about our new THC seltzer.  She mentioned that she knew an increasing number of people […]


Help choose a name for our new product!

By Jeff Zeitler on Wednesday, January 18th, 2023

OK! We have tabulated the names submitted and created a poll– this is a new one- created in Mid-February that combines some of your favorite suggestions with a few added by Chat GPT.  Will you choose the names created by humans or by AI?  Take the survey now and find out! https://us12.list-manage.com/survey?u=c132149891f77d29226b01be2&id=bbc544f1fc&e


Clearance sale this week

By Jeff Zeitler on Thursday, January 12th, 2023

  Our January clearance sale is back! If you’ve been watching our website for a while you know that each January we take stock of what we have too much of, then sell it off in a sort of Dutch auction- getting cheaper each day until it’s gone. This year is no exception! Today (Thursday) […]


Closed Wednesdays, open for your event~

By Jeff Zeitler on Tuesday, December 6th, 2022

Well, we tried opening some extra days about 6 months ago- Mondays and Wednesdays to be exact.  And what we’ve learned is that not many people go out on Wednesdays, but they do tend to book special events on Wednesdays if that’s an option. So if you’re one of the few lonely folks who prefer […]


Buy two bottles, get one free this week!

By Jeff Zeitler on Sunday, November 27th, 2022

As always, the deal is: buy two and get one *of equal or lesser value* for free.  November 28th- December 4th.  A great way to stock up for the holidays!


Looking for a place to host your event?

By Jeff Zeitler on Friday, November 11th, 2022

We can help you with that. We rent out the entire taproom for $400 and you get 20 free drinks. Try to get that kind of deal at Olive Garden! We’re more than glad to host your event here this holiday season and beyond. Holiday feasts, birthday parties, bridal showers, employee appreciation or team building- […]


Buy 2 get one free, until November 2.

By Jeff Zeitler on Wednesday, October 26th, 2022

Starting today- buy 2 bottles and get a third of equal or lesser value for free.  Until November 2nd. Stock up for all the upcoming events of fall and winter!  Everything is in stock and anything goes!


Afternoons are best spent in a sunbeam

By Jeff Zeitler on Friday, October 21st, 2022

These fall afternoons are gorgeous, aren’t they?  A bit chilly at times, yes, this is Minnesota, but still gorgeous. One of the nicest things, in our opinion, about our taproom is the windows.  We have big, south-facing windows at the front of the room, and operable windows on the west side, so the afternoon sun […]


Visitor information in German!

By Jeff Zeitler on Friday, October 14th, 2022

A new site, Momondo is creating a guide to Minneapolis in German, and our location can now be found there.  See: https://www.momondo.de/city-guides/discover-minneapolis.13127.guide.ksp Prost!


Last chance to drop off your apples

By Jeff Zeitler on Monday, October 10th, 2022

Yes, we pick apples, but sometimes the tree is too far away, or there just aren’t enough to justify the trip to the yard to pick.  Yes, we have to make money- we’re a for-profit business, though we don’t make a profit all that often.  So, we pick where the pickings are best. But, you […]