Wilson’s Orchard adding event center, hard cider house

IOWA CITY — Officials with Wilson's Orchard plan to add to their already popular local destination by building an event center and cider brewing component to brew and serve some of their apple crop as hard cider.

Paul Rasch, co-owner of Fox Ridge Farm Inc., the corporation that owns the 88-acre Wilson's Orchard, said he plans to have the cider house, to be built in the orchard near Rapid Creek, finished by August 2016.

'We feel like the orchard is such a beautiful setting, we thought it would be natural to offer our hard cider products in this setting,' he said. 'This is kind of a logical extension of what we've already been doing.'

A conditional use permit — submitted in May and approved by the Johnson County Board of Adjustment June 17 — details plans for the event center/winery operation.

A two-floor, roughly 5,000-square-foot reconstructed barn will be built on the western side of the orchard to operate as a cider house and will include room for storage, food preparation, a tasting room and dining area as well as outdoor seating.

The space also will serve as a location to host weddings, anniversaries or other events and will provide a space for live music or entertainment.

Rick Dvorak, Johnson County Planning and Zoning administrator, said Rasch's plans adhere to the county's Unified Development Ordinance for agricultural property, as long as the project includes dust control on the nearby gravel road, additional parking and a valid building permit for the structure, which will be reviewed by staff.

Wilson' Orchard has been operating at 4823 Dingleberry Road — off Highway 1 northeast of Iowa City — since 1985 and already boasts a bakery, cider mill and 40 acres of apples, pumpkins and other fruits and vegetables.

Rasch said he has been dabbling in making ciders at their Solon location on Poplar Road, with the first batch brewed this April and becoming available just a few weeks ago at local bars and retailers. Rasch said he currently has brewed about 40,000 gallons of cider this year.

'We've been messing around with hard cider recipes and processes for about 6 years and this year we finally decided to go for it and started to produce our own hard cider product for sale,' Rasch said.

Ciders from Wilson's Orchard's Rapid Creek Cidery, as well as some regional beers and wines, will be sold by the bottle or glass.

Rasch said he hopes to create specialty ciders using the orchard's many different apples, while also creating traditional French or English ciders.

The leftover apple pulp from pressing apples for cider — about 8,000 pounds a week — will not go to waste, but rather will be used as feed for livestock such as pigs, lamb and cattle, which will in turn become a part of the cider mill's local and seasonal menu items, Rasch said.

'It's just a way of kind of closing this loop and making the whole operation sustainable and reasonable,' he said.

With the addition of the cider mill, the orchard, which currently employees four full time and more than 30 seasonal employees, will look to add four more full time and 15 part time positions.