Owners of historic Wichita orchard about to launch their own brewery and tap room

A new brewery and tap room is about to open at an historic peach orchard owned by a fifth-generation Wichita farm family.

Jeff and Jessica Blood plan a soft opening for their Blood Orchard Brewing Co. next weekend, when they’ll let customers sample their first two offerings: a honey wheat ale and an apple hard seltzer. Then, in February, they’ll open their tap room, which for now will operate out of a yellow storefront building at the family’s Blood Orchard, 6346 S. Broadway.

The brewery, which is the latest business venture by the Bloods, will produce beer and hard seltzer made with produce grown at the orchards — peaches, apples, cherries and sand plums. The couple plans to can their beers and seltzers and also will serve them at their tap room. Though they’ll start with just two offerings, the number of beers and seltzers for sale will expand over time, Jessica Blood said this week.

“It was Jeff’s idea,” Jessica said about launching the brewery. “But I said the key thing will be that we’re brewing things off of the things we grow.”

Modern Wichitans know Blood Orchards not only for the plump peaches it sells from mid-July until early September each year but also for the monthly markets Jessica Blood started six years ago in the yellow storefront, which she calls the reBorn Boutique. The markets have been happening on the first Saturday of every month since January of 2017. They always feature 20 or more vendors selling their wares inside the storefront, and during warm-weather months, even more vendors set up outside. The markets also are always attended by a number of food trucks.

But Blood Orchard has been a fixture in Wichita for more than 100 years. In fact, the original family homestead — a little white house — is at Old Cowtown Museum.

Jeff Blood’s great-great grandfather, Gillman Blood, moved from Illinois in 1871 and settled 160 acres of land along what is now South Broadway. He raised apples, blackberries and raspberries on the land and planted his first trees the following year.

In 1929, Gillman’s grandson, Emmett, took over and planted 30 acres of peach and apple trees on the property. The farm eventually grew into a popular you-pick business, and older Wichitans still have memories of picking peaches at the farm. Gerald Blood, father of current owner Jeff Blood, died in 2021, but after he took over the orchard in the 1960s, it reached a peak of 14,000 trees on 500 to 600 acres.

But saltwater contamination from nearby oil wells began to kill the trees in the 1970s, and in 1979, Gerald Blood ended the peach orchard business, selling off the equipment but keeping the land.

By 2015, the saltwater contamination had corrected itself, and Jeff Blood began planting trees in the orchard again. It’s now back up to more than 750 trees, and last March, Jeff and Jessica planted another 500 trees. They plan to plant 500 more this year and hope to have a you-pick business back up and running by the summer of 2025.

In the meantime, they’ll be concentrating on the brewery and the markets.

Jessica said that she and her husband had never brewed before, but they purchased a self-contained two-tank system from a North Carolina company called EZBrew. The company sends brewers ingredients, recipes and directions to follow, but the company is working with the Bloods and altering the recipes so they can infuse their beers and seltzers with their own produce, Jessica said.

The couple was able to sample their first two brews on New Year’s Eve, and they were impressed with the results. The beer was made using honey produced by bees who feed off the orchard’s plants, and juice from the orchard’s apples went into the seltzer.

“It’s pretty good. The beer gets better by the day, and the seltzer — it’s pretty hard,” Jessica said with a laugh.

Though the tap room will operate for now out of the yellow storefront building on the property, the couple’s goal is to eventually move the brewing system and the tap room to the red building next door.

In the meantime, they’re making room for it to operate out of the yellow storefront building, which is why Jessica — who collects furniture and other vintage “odds and ends” from estate sales and barn sales that she can fix up and resell — is putting on a big sale this weekend.

It’ll be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Jan. 18-20, and people who visit will be able to sample the Blood Orchard Brewing Co. beer and seltzer.

The next monthly vintage market will be from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Feb. 3, and that’s when the couple hopes to officially open the brewery and tap room.

They plan to add regular brewery hours after that — possibly Thursdays through Sundays — but they’re still working out the details. They’ll share more information soon on an about-to-launch brewery Facebook page.