by Vicky Rowe | Oct 23, 2015 | Commercial Mead, New Meaderies |
There is an uncanny serendipity to the story of Cellarmen’s that begs to be shared. At one point, all four of the guys were working at B. Nektar Meadery in Ferndale, with Radogost-Givens and Petrocik on mead making duty. Between the two of them, you probably can’t find two mead makers with more collective international medals, scooping up awards from highly-respected juried competitions like the Mazer Cup, the Michigan Mead Cup, and the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition, in addition to receiving national recognition from the likes of Esquire, Thrillist, and RateBeer.com.
by Vicky Rowe | Oct 23, 2015 | Mead Recipes |
See the forum thread: https://www.gotmead.com/forum/showthread.php/24838-Bryan-s-Banana-Chocolate-Bochet Cooked honey for about 30 minutes til it was a dark reddish brown, cooked oatmeal at about 140°F for 25 minutes in the homebrew water then added the banana and...
by Vicky Rowe | Oct 23, 2015 | Mead Recipes |
See the recipe in the forum here: https://www.gotmead.com/forum/showthread.php/25048-JD-s-Pumkin-Project-as-heard-on-GotMead-Live Follow the recipe progress on his blog here: https://www.gotmead.com/forum/entry.php/133-Pumpkin-Progress JDs Pumpkin Spice Mead JD started...
by Vicky Rowe | Oct 23, 2015 | Articles |
Mead is a beverage as old as the hills and as new as a shiny penny. Archeological digs have turned up mead-like beverages in burial chambers such as the Midas (yes, that King Midas), and as long as 8000 years ago. Because, hey, you want to take this with you! And...
by Vicky Rowe | Oct 20, 2015 | GotMead Live |
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:13:34 — 91.9MB)
Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | | More
On GotMead Live tonight, we have Bryan DeGraw, owner of 810 Meadworks in Medina, NY, a new meadery that opened in November 2014. Bryan is one of many new meaderies that have opened in the last year here in the US. Come join us, and get your questions about their meadery, and their journey to start up.
by Vicky Rowe | Oct 15, 2015 | Articles, Commercial Mead, Mead Making as a Business, Meadery Owners Speak, Meadery Stories, Starting a Meadery |
What I’ve learned in one year since opening a meadery… and just a heads up, this might just be the last of this series I’ve been posting up here.
One important thing I’ve learned is, you can’t “homebrew” your way in creating a successful meadery. What I mean by that is, just because you never filtered or sulfited your meads at home, doesn’t mean that is going to be the best practice once going commercial. When a good batch goes wrong in the bottle and starts fermenting again, not only will it get you pretty distraught, but the consumer relations process of rectifying the situation is enough to make you pony up the few grand for a sterile filtration and stabilization solution. Trust me, even though it was only 2 out of 30+ batches I’ve produced, it was enough of a lessoned learned, even though all of our customers were still totally cool with it and understanding. Since then, I had vowed to never let that happen again. (Additionally to original post: this is another reason why I am glad I haven’t began distribution yet. Gave me a chance to better “re-learn” my craft on a commercial scale)
by Vicky Rowe | Oct 15, 2015 | Articles, Commercial Mead, Mead Making as a Business, Meadery Owners Speak, Meadery Stories, Starting a Meadery |
by Sergio Moutela (from a series of posts made in the AMMA Facebook group) What I’ve learned in 10-months since opening my meadery: I am actually writing this bi-monthly “installment” two weeks earlier than my actual 10-month mark due to an upcoming...
by Vicky Rowe | Oct 14, 2015 | Mead Recipes |
This is arguably the most pervasive mead recipe on the internet. When Joe Mattioli created this on GotMead, lo these many years ago, he had no idea how it would go viral. It’s been copied all over the internet, and millions of batches have been made, and...
by Vicky Rowe | Oct 13, 2015 | GotMead Live |
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:10:28 — 89.8MB)
Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | | More
Tonight we talk with Ben Alexander of Maine Meadworks in Portland, Maine. In collaboration with South African scholar Dr. Garth Cambray, Maine Mead Works developed a state-of-the-art continuous fermentation system, which allows them to get an excellent mead to market very quickly.
by Vicky Rowe | Oct 12, 2015 | Articles, Commercial Mead, Mead Making as a Business, Meadery Owners Speak, Meadery Stories, Starting a Meadery |
8 months since opening for business
Things couldn’t be going any better. Well, they could (and will) be going a lot better as we move forward. Solely based on our business activity at the moment revolved only around tours & tastings with no distribution, we are kicking more ass than Van Damme.
Melovino has released 10 different meads thus far, with another 10 new ones coming out within the next 3 weeks, and a lot more after that. It has been a great experience producing and having customers come in and tasting all of these recipes, for the main reason of which being that we have been caught off guard as to some of the big favorites. In my opinion, if we only produced and stuck with 3-4 meads, we would have never have had the information we needed in knowing what other meads would really set sales over the top more than others. The great part about it all right now is that once we actually DO begin distributing our products, we will have all the data we need in making the decision on which 3-4 meads we send out our doors. The rest of the recipes will just stay on premise for direct to consumer sales in the tasting room and online. Will give customers the option of picking up some of our staples at their local liquor store, as well as purchase those off the wall limited releases direct from us. This also generates more sales from the same clientele.
by Vicky Rowe | Oct 8, 2015 | Commercial Mead |
OSSIPEE — Sap House Meadery in Center Ossipee has finished an eight-month renovation project and has opened New Hampshire’s first Mead Pub. Ash Fischbein and Matt Trahan, co-owners, are serving the world’s oldest fermented beverage either by the glass or in a...
by Vicky Rowe | Oct 8, 2015 | Articles, Commercial Mead, Mead Making as a Business, Meadery Owners Speak, Meadery Stories, Starting a Meadery |
by Sergio Moutela (from posts made in the AMMA Facebook page) What I’ve learned 6-months since opening my meadery. It seems I’ve been writing a post like this every two months or so with good reception, so I thought I’d keep it up. At the 6-month...
by Vicky Rowe | Oct 7, 2015 | GotMead Live |
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:34:35 — 106.3MB)
Subscribe: Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | | More
Tonight’s guest is Mike Faul, owner of Rabbits Foot Meadery in Sunnyvale, CA. Mike has been making mead for a long time, and Rabbits Foot has been out there for nearly 20 years, making award winning mead.
by Vicky Rowe | Oct 2, 2015 | Articles, Commercial Mead, Mead Making as a Business, Meadery Owners Speak, Meadery Stories, Starting a Meadery |
These articles were posted in the AMMA Facebook group over the space of the first year of operation of Melovino Meadery in Vauxhall, NJ. With persmission from Sergio, I am reposting them here for your enjoyment. — Vicky by Sergio Moutela What I have...
by Vicky Rowe | Sep 29, 2015 | Articles, Commercial Mead, Mead Making as a Business, Meadery Owners Speak, Meadery Stories, Starting a Meadery |
What I’ve learned in 2.5 months after opening my meadery.
We had around 125 visitors come in for a tour and tasting in October (our first full month of business). In November, we have had over 320 so far with still one more week to go. Final number for November projected to be over 375.
My plan for success was simply: make sure I offered something for everyone with a range of uniquely flavored meads of various sweetness levels. I also was a bit conservative with my starting lineup of meads as I knew that a majority of the people that would walk through my door would be mead “newbies”.
My starting lineup of five meads has proven to be the way to go at least in the starting up phase of Melovino. Wanted to make sure everyone saw what kind of range mead is capable of, that it is not all sweet just because it has honey, and to exemplify how different honey varietals can significantly impact what the final product of a mead will be, especially since most people think “honey is just honey”.
