Virginia USA: Silver Hand Meadery Wins 6 Gold Medal Awards at 2021 Governors Cup

From wydaily.com/brews-and-bites

WILLIAMSBURG — Silver Hand Meadery found state-wide success in 2021 with its fermented honey.

This year, the meadery, located at 224 Monticello Ave., took home six gold medal awards at a state-wide wine competition called The Governor’s Cup. They won gold for their meads called: “Soak up the Sun”, “All Blues”, “Strawberry Swing”, “Raspberry Passion”, “Dream By The Fire”, and “Black Velvet”.

“We just had an incredible showing this year. Six of our meads won gold which is shocking to us,” said Owner and Founder of Silver Hand Meadery Glenn Lavender in an interview with WYDaily. “Winning six golds was kind of a shocker to the whole Virginia wine industry because there was only one winery that had more golds than us. So that had a lot of people wondering about what are we doing in Williamsburg with honey.”

A picture showcasing some of Silver Hand Meadery’s selection of meads. Included in this photo are some of the meads that took home gold awards at the 2021 Governor’s Cup. Including: “Soak Up The Sun”, “All Blues”, and “Dream By The Fire”. (Courtesy Silver Hand Meadery)

Lavender says that as long as you have a sugar source and yeast, you can ferment. So when you’re making wines, the sugar typically comes from the sugars of the fruit. When you’re making beer, the sugar is extracted from the grains in the brewing process. When you’re making meads, the sugars come from honey.

“So whatever flavour you have in your initial ingredients really highly contributes to the final product. So we like specializing in varietal honey. The varietal is a monofloral [produced from the nectar of only one plant] honey,” said Lavender. “Like if you have bees collecting nectar from orange trees down in Florida you’ll get like Orange Flavour honey. It has a really distinct flavour. There’s also blueberry flavour, and there’s avocado. There are all sorts of different flavours of honey based on the nectar sources. So we like to play with those, but we also add different ingredients like fruits, herbs, and spices.”

Silver Hand Meadery has been operating in Williamsburg for about six years. Lavender feels like they are just finally starting to hit their stride. He says that winning the awards is “pretty awesome not just for Williamsburg, but for the whole mead world.”

This is because they have inspired more meaderies to enter the Governor’s Cup and share their creations with judges and others in Virginia. The competition has never awarded gold to a Meadery before. Silver Hand Meadery was the first. Just recently the competition added one or two other categories that are more in line with other mead competitions. Now there are categories like “fruit mead” and “cider mead”.

As the local business prepares for 2022 Lavendar says that they’ll “just try and keep making good products.”

For more information on Silver Hand Meadery, you can check out their Facebook page, or their website.

https://wydaily.com/brews-and-bites/2021/12/24/silver-hand-meadery-wins-6-gold-medal-awards-at-2021-governors-cup/ 

Colorado USA: Meadery’s tasting room a sweet spot in downtown Idaho Springs

From clearcreekcourant.com

Whether it’s for last-minute holiday gifts, something sweet for Christmas dinner, or something exciting to open for New Year’s, there’s something for everyone at Slaymaker Cellar’s new tasting room on Miner Street.

Co-owners Chris and Kent Slaymaker started making mead, a honey-based wine, in Idaho Springs last year. In July, they and staff members Jenn Pedersen and Jessica Guy opened the tasting room at 1535 Miner St., where they offer samples, bottles of mead, and other honey-based products.

The Slaymakers and Pedersen explained how there is a mead for everyone. There’s a variety of flavours and a spectrum of sweetness. Some can taste more like beers, while others taste more like wine. They even offer sparkling mead.

“Anything we can do with grape wine, we can do with honey wine,” Kent said.

Chris and Kent Slaymaker started making mead in spring 2020 and opened the Slaymaker Cellars tasting room at 1535 Miner St. in July. The tasting room has been a great way to build brand recognition and educate people about mead, a honey-based wine, they said.  

PHOTO BY CORINNE WESTEMAN

Slaymaker Cellars uses Colorado honey in its meads, and different honeys serve as the base for different meads. For instance, wildflower mead comes from wildflower honey, they said.

The business’ flagship meads are orange-blossom, wildflower, and tart cherry, but it also features rotating seasonals and dessert meads.

As for the new tasting room, the Slaymakers and Pedersen said it’s been a great way to educate people about what mead is, build brand awareness, and visit with tourists.

Having the Miner Street Market when the tasting room first opened helped bring in more foot traffic, because most people would never notice the storefront just driving by, they commented.

Along with the tasting room, mead fans should also be on the lookout for Slaymaker products at local restaurants and retailers. 

Overall, Chris and Kent said they want to be good employers who support local producers and serve a great product.

The Slaymaker Cellars tasting room is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursdays through Mondays. For more information, visit slaymakercellars.com.

https://www.clearcreekcourant.com/stories/meaderys-tasting-room-a-sweet-spot-in-downtown-springs,386445

Honey wine, mead in New Zealand sweet spot

From gisborneherald.co.nz

Family business Mead A’mour has invested about $100,000 to rebrand and expand its existing business of making wine and mead using East Coast honey.

The company was formed by Dennis and Kerry Greeks in August last year when Alchemy Beverages, a 16-year partnership between Mr Greeks and Barry Foster, and more recently a corporate manuka business, went into voluntary liquidation.

“For us it’s a chance to make a fresh start, give a new identity to the company and offer something that is unique,” said Mr Greeks.

Operating out of the same factory in the industrial subdivision, business under the new company name has started well — with 12,000 units of beverage sold in the first nine months of this year, up from 7000 units in all of 2020, and a number of growth opportunities coming on stream.

“We worked for a couple of months on changing the labels and getting our liqueur name the same brand name, ‘1st Night’, as our mead,” he said.

The research and development to create new label designs and make them industry compliant, with new company details for their alcoholic beverages, and print them, took an investment of around $8000.

They were now focused on building their stocks.

“One of the challenges at the moment is that bottle stores have taken a hit from Covid-19. With the stores being shut down for the best part of two or three months, it made a strain not only in the cash flow but also we were losing good customers,” he said.

One of Mead A’mour’s regular customers had to stop her purchases due to a rent increase imposed by her landlord because of the pandemic.

“A customer like that would regularly take products worth more than $2000 a month — for us, that is what we can use to pay our rent,” said Mr Greeks.

Prior to the August lockdown mead was making a resurgence, with sales through supermarkets showing good growth — which has helped them keep “ticking on” during the pandemic.

Mead A’mour products are sold in about 30 bottle stores, tourist shops and all Countdown supermarkets around the country.

“We are a niche market but we are also looking to start a process to get into the other supermarket chain run by Foodstuffs.

“We have also been talking with one of our customers who is a distributor in Auckland with 400 traditional liquor outlets,” he said.

Mead A’mour also exports its products, principally to Japan, China and Hong Kong. Last year it exported about two pallets, or 1320 units of beverage. This year Mr Greeks hoped to deliver about nine pallets to overseas customers.

The company also packages its beverages to overseas customer specifications in an OEM (original equipment manufacture) process.

“OEM is basically our recipe of wine and mead but somebody else’s label on it, to suit their market,” he said.

For example, a customer in Japan may like to have mead but the packaging doesn’t make much sense to them. To avoid such a scenario, distributing companies abroad send them their artwork, preferred design and labelling standards such as a pregnancy warning to suit the needs of their consumers.

Mr Greeks said the company was also working on expanding its beverage range to carbonated (non-alcoholic) drinks.

“We have done our research on our non-alcoholic drinks and sent out samples to who we think can be our key clients . . . and the feedback has been positive,” he said.

Huka Honey Hive in Taupo was one client that was “excited” about the expansion into carbonated drinks, saying they would anticipate ordering more than three pallets a year.

“If we do that, we will be launching just with two or three collectives (in nearby regions).”

With people being more health conscious around carbonated drinks, the company would use honey and fruits as natural sweeteners — so no added artificial flavours and low-calorie.

Mr Greeks said they had already done the R&D for the carbonated beverages “product formulation wise”, and could be looking to invest an additional $7000 on labels and packaging when the timing is right.

Another bonus with non-alcoholic beverages was that they did not need to pay excise tax.

“In a way it’s a chance for us to start small,” said Mr Greeks.

“If we were to do 10 pallets a year of the non-alcoholics, it would bring us another $10,000 worth of profitable turnover and that pays nearly half the rent for the year.”

Mr Greeks said this career started for him more than 20 years ago as a cider maker for Brian Shanks at Bulmer Harvest.

He later purchased the mead section of the business from Mr Shanks, partnering with honey supplier Barry Foster, who owned a honey factory. They incorporated Alchemy Beverages in 2005.

Mead A’mour co-founder Kerry Greeks is unable to work for the business due to injury.

“Kerry is passionate about the products and is great to bounce ideas off. She keeps me grounded, playing devil’s advocate with any business progression ideas.”

Mr Greeks now hopes to further expand his business by promoting Mead A’mour products for cocktails in bars, as well as reaching into more households as a delectable item.

“The next phase for us will be the upcoming launch of our new website www.meadamour.com as the platform to connect with our consumers and offer unique, great-tasting beverages and recipes for all to enjoy. The website will give everyone the opportunity to purchase our products throughout NZ, whether that’s by guiding consumers to their nearest stockist or via our online shop.”

https://www.gisborneherald.co.nz/business/20211207/honey-wine-mead-in-sweet-spot/ 

Second Chicago Meadery Opens Albany Park Tasting Room After Years Of Planning

From blockclubchicago.org

Second City Meadery is Chicago's second meadery tasting room and only meadery on the North Side. The alcoholic beverage is made from fermented honey. 

ALBANY PARK — The North Side’s only meadery is officially open for business.

Second City Meadery co-founders Peter Schultz and Brian Davids moved into 4465 N. Elston Ave. in 2019 with plans to convert the old auto mechanic’s shop into a production facility and tasting room. It opened last week, and is the city’s second meadery tasting room and only meadery on the North Side.

                                    Credit: Provided    Second City Meadery's new tasting room

Schultz was inspired to start making mead, an alcoholic beverage made from fermented honey, at home in 2014 because his wife loved the sweet flavour — but buying it off the shelf was “a little pricey,” he said.

The first few batches were terrible, Schultz said. But after experimenting and researching for a few years, he entered his meads in home brew competitions and started winning medals, he said.

Schultz’s wife was so impressed with his passion for brewing mead she encouraged him to quit his day job as an accountant and pursue brewing full-time.

Schultz teamed up with his friend, Davids, who had brewed beer at home for almost a decade, and the idea for Second City Meadery was born. They started by testing small batches of mead, giving it away for free in 2017.

The tasting room features a bar with eight stools, three standing tables and two longer tables with barstools at them. It has board games and is pet- and family-friendly.

“We also allow people to bring in food. There’s tons of great local restaurants, so they have a lot to choose from,” Schultz said. 

Since opening the tasting room last week, Schultz has had neighbours unfamiliar with mead drop by the check out the space, he said.

“We want this to be an inclusive space where anyone can come by and enjoy mead, which I know a lot of people aren’t still that familiar with,” Schultz said. “Part of the experience for a lot of the people that came in this past weekend was education.”

The tasting room only has one mead on tap and is still waiting for the full keg system Schultz ordered in October to arrive. Once that system is in place, more tasting room exclusives will circulate on the Second City’s taps. 

                      Credit: Provided. Some of the meads available at Second City Meadery

             

“We have a carbonated mead right now that’s 4 percent alcohol. It’s closer to maybe a hard seltzer or a sour beer than anything else we serve,” Schultz said. “It was a pretty big hit over the weekend.”

The meadery is open open 6-11 p.m. Fridays and 1-11 p.m. Saturdays. For updates on Second City Meadery, visit its website or follow its Facebook page.

https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/12/01/after-years-of-planning-second-city-meaderys-tasting-room-is-now-op/