We are beekeepers in the pristine and beautiful Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and we operate our licensed honey house out of a historical church in Greenland, MI. Beekeeping strikes the perfect balance between John’s culinary experience and my art background and it allows us to combine our environmental passion with our interest in artisanal food products and gardening. It is a natural extension of our passions for us to branch out into mead making, and to use the skills we have developed in home brewing to open a meadery in our historical church.
We would start out as a dine-in taste-in facility, and would like to branch out into bottling and retailing the mead. This would make us the first Meadery in the Western Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We would categorize ourselves as a “micro-meadery”, producing small batches of artisanal meads, and other mead related beverages such as pyments (mead that is fermented with grape juice) and cysers (mead fermented with apples).
We learned about the website Kickstarter when we backed several other creative projects for music albums, film productions, and most recently for Brickside Brewery in Copper Harbor, MI. The Brickside project inspired us to propose our own for a micro-meadery. Michigan and especially the UP is struggling economically, but that does not mean that we are all giving up our creative hopes and dreams! In fact, this is the perfect time to just “go for it” and pursue our wildest passions.
Meaderies have been becoming more prevailant across the nation with the increased awareness about the decline and importance of honey bees. Bardic Wells Meadery in Montague was the first in Michigan, followed by B-Nectar Meadery near Detroit. Most recently, St. Ambrose Cellars opened in Beulah, MI at Sleeping Bear Honey Farms. Acoustic Mead is another small scale meadery out of the Traverse City area. Mead ranges from sweet wines to crisp carbonated beer alternatives.
Mead is the most sustainable alcoholic beverage and perhaps the first one enjoyed by humans. Wine has been part of human culture for 6,000 years, but the history of mead dates back much farther, to 20,000 to 40,000 years ago, and has its origins on the African continent. Vineyards have had to mechanize to survive, but apiaries require lots of hand labor. And apiaries do not need irrigation, fertilizers or toxic pesticides.
The money that we raise via Kickstarter will be used for start-up licensing fees and equipment to make the magic happen! Beekeeping and its process allows for creativity. It is both a passion and a lifestyle that we plan to continue by means of sustainable methods. We keep between 50 and 100 hives.
Please visit our kickstarter webpage, watch the video, and consider kicking in to our project!! Please feel free to e-mail or ask questions if you have any!!
What is Kickstarter?
They’re the largest funding platform for creative projects in the world.
Every month, tens of thousands of amazing people pledge millions of dollars to projects from the worlds of music, film, art, technology, design, food, publishing and other creative fields.
A new form of commerce and patronage. This is not about investment or lending. Project creators keep 100% ownership and control over their work. Instead, they offer products and experiences that are unique to each project.
All or nothing funding. On Kickstarter, a project must reach its funding goal before time runs out or no money changes hands. Why? It protects everyone involved. Creators aren’t expected to develop their project without necessary funds, and it allows anyone to test concepts without risk.
Kickstarter uses Amazon Payments, so it is very easy to become a backer through a safe and trusted website.
