Wisconsin Maple Syrup Producers tour planned for region Oct. 13-14
The Wisconsin Maple Syrup Producer’s Association (WMSPA) will be hosting their Annual Fall Tour October 13 and 14. The WMSPA is dedicated to improving the ability of its members to produce & market the finest pure maple syrup in North America.
The Annual Fall Tour is open to everyone, regardless of membership. The weekend will begin with an optional Friday evening tour of Leinenkugel’s Brewery, Chippewa Falls, WI at 5:30 p.m.
On Saturday October 14, registration is from 7:30 – 8:00 a.m. at Roth Sugar Bush in Cadott, WI. Buses will depart from Roth’s Sugar Bush and travel to a variety of tours stop which will include Marieke Gouda, Black River Orchard, Wells Farm Learning Center, Owen-Withee FFA School Forest, Engel’s Sugar Bush, and Curvin & Arlene Brubaker’s Sugar Bush. Lunch will be served at the Wells Farm Learning Center. The Fall Tour is open to all ages.
You may register for one day or both days at www.wismaple. org or or contact Theresa Baroun at 920-680-9320.
Tour stops are as follows:
Leinenkugel’s Brewery - Chippewa Falls
In 1867, the Leinenkugel family brewery was founded in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin by Jacob Leinenkugel. He was a family man driven by an iron work ethic, and he knew that his German family heritage would play an integral part of his brewery’s success. Today, sixth generation family members are involved in the company, helping to bring the same family-inspired recipes that Jacob poured his heart and soul into to consumers across the country.
Over the years, the family has grown and so has the brewery, but the history and heritage remain at the forefront.
Marieke Gouda - Thorp
Marieke Penterman was born and raised on her parents’ sixty cow dairy farm in the Netherlands. This is where her passion for dairy cows and dairy farming began. She and her husband Rolf Penterman emigrated to Thorp, WI to start a 350-cow dairy in May 2002. Once in the United States, she missed the cheese from back home and began researching how to start her own business. Marieke decided to get her Wisconsin Cheesemaking License.
Just months after crafting her first batch of Gouda, she captured a gold award at the US Champion Cheese Contest in 2007. Dozens of awards followed including her biggest win thus far, the United States Grand Champion in 2013. In 2015, Marieke won the WI Outstanding Young Farmer Award, the first female to win.
In late 2013, the Penterman family opened a brandnew, state-of-the-art facility along Highway 29 in Thorp. It includes a store and viewing windows to see the farm and cheesemaking from up close. This is where they can share their passion for modern family farming and handcrafting the best Marieke Gouda in an open and educational environment. You are always welcome to visit!
Black River Orchard - Withee
For Barb & Gordy Finkelson, their Black River Orchard is an apple hobby gone wild. With about 950 apple trees growing in their 10-acre orchard, the word “hobby” might be a stretch considering how much time and energy goes into it. They hand-pick every piece of fruit, sort it, bag it, process some of it into cider, and sell the rest, but still enjoy all of it.
The Finkelson’s were dairy farmers for 30 years, but with family moving into other pursuits, they sold the farm and built a new home along the east side of the Black River, just south of Highway 29 west of Withee. With a long driveway, Barb thought in the late 1990s that a few apple trees would be an attractive addition.
Black River Orchard officially put its roots down in 2001 and has grown over the years from a handful of trees to rows upon rows of a variety of apple trees, including Zestar, Honey Crisp, Connell Red, Cortland, McIntosh, Snow White, and Kinder Crisp to name a few. They also have their own beehives for apple pollination and to extract honey to sell.
Black River Orchard opens its season annually as host to the Owen-Withee FFA Alumni’s Breakfast at the Orchard event, the Saturday after Labor Day, and is typically open on weekends throughout the fall months.
Wells Farm Learning Center - Owen
The Wells Farm Learning Center welcomes students and community members to gather and learn in a direct real-world experience of farm operations and animal husbandry.
Dee and Jerry Wells purchased the farm in early 2021 to add the acreage to their existing cash crop operation in the Owen-Withee area. The farmstead included a multiroom house, garage, two-story barn, and grain bin – all of which had seen years of abandonment and lack of upkeep.
There were a lot of repairs and cleaning to turn the buildings into a show farm. The Farm Learning Center is in the center of town, conveniently located across the road from Owen- Withee Schools. The barn has been refurbished to comfortably house a variety of livestock, some of which are permanent residents and other animals on loan from other local farms.
The grain bin has been converted into a family friendly picnic area, and the FFA chapter turns the nearby corn field into a corn maze for people to enjoy. FFA members work at the Farm Learning Center, caring for animals and the farmstead in exchange for educational credits and farmhand experience.
River Country Cooperative and the Owen-Withee FFA Alumni support the Wells Farm Learning Center. Upcoming events include the corn maze opening in August, Family Fun Day on Sunday, October 15, and the FFA’s Farm Spooktacular on Halloween. The farm is open to the public daily from 9:00am until dusk.
Owen-Withee FFA Sugar Bush
Work, Earn, Learn - that is the slogan of Owen-Withee FFA’s school forest, an 80-acre plot north of Owen. The school forest has trails, wetlands, water features, and maple trees – lots of them. Encouraged by the Board of Education, and with the help of the FFA Alumni and maple industry representatives, the FFA installed a maple sap collection system in the fall of 2017 on approx. thirty acres to collect maple sap.
The operation features over ten miles of tubing connecting approximately 1,900 trees. It is the largest FFAoperated maple system in Wisconsin. In the interest of educational value, we utilize several technologies in our operation to maximize our production capabilities, including SpinSealTM tubing connectors, Precision TapperTM drills, and the CDL IntelligenceTM Monitoring System.
These technologies, plus a wet line-dry line tubing configuration with a high vacuum pump allows FFA members to collect real-time data to monitor vacuum level, temperature, and sap flow to quickly identify issues with the tubing and maximize overall production.
The FFA chapter works with nearby state-inspected maple syrup producers to have our sap processed, cooked, and bottled for bulk and retail sales. As the forest continues to mature, that amount will only increase each spring. The FFA and its partners welcome all during the season for guests to visit our operation and learn maple.
Engel’s Sugar Bush - Owen
Since 1983, the Engel family has celebrated the coming of spring by collecting and processing maple sap from over 4,700 trees on ninety acres of woodland one mile south of Highway 29 between Owen and Curtiss.
In the early years, the Engel family collected sap in buckets and spent many hours cooking syrup with a simple wood-fired evaporator pan. Since then, they upgraded to tubing systems with small vacuum pumps, but maple technology has advanced in recent years, and we upgraded again in 2018.
The state-of-the-art operation consists of miles of tubing that collects sap from each tree, a high- capacity vacuum pump to draw sap even on the coldest of spring days, and stainless-steel holding tanks to ensure sap quality. Sap is processed through reverse-osmosis, removing much of the water that would otherwise have to be boiled away. The oil-fueled evaporator efficiently cooks our syrup.
Engel’s Pure Maple Syrup can be purchased in retail sizes at local stores, the Dane County Farmer’s Market, the Warrens Cranberry Festival, and right from the farm, as well as by the bulk barrel.
Brubaker Sugar Bush - Thorp
In 2009, Curvin and Arlene Brubaker and their family started their maple business just east of Thorp, WI. Over the years they have expanded and improved their operation. Today they process from 1000 of their own taps and buy sap from their neighbors for a total of 6,000-taps.
