Where to Buy Colony Meadery Meads Near You in New Jersey and Pennsylvania

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Bring some Colony Meadery mead with you to your holiday party this year and share with friends and family what the buzz is all about.

Colony Meadery meads are located in Pennsylvania and New Jersey taverns, wine & spirit stores, retail locations, and our Allentown and Moravian Book Shop in Bethlehem locations.

Take a look at our map to find the closest location to you. The only difficult part is going to be which meads you choose to take home.

Open during Construction

Greetings friends in mead! Our construction is under way and moving along nicely. It is now starting to look like something!

Colony Meads now Available Online!

In our next step toward one day being on state liquor store shelves, we're pleased to announce that a few select varieties of Colony meads are now available online from the PLCB website.

Consumers in PA can go on and order great local mead statewide now!

For those of you interested in seeing us on shelves near you, the state has informed us that orders through the site will greatly influence our standing with product selection folks, so we hope you'll consider this a great opportunity to send your friends in Philly, Pittsburgh, or anywhere else some mead as a present! 

Hope you all have a great 2015, and as always, #getbuzzed responsibly.

Colony Meadery Wins 5 Medals, Commercial Mead Maker of the Year at Mead Free or Die

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Growing Allentown Meadery Blows Away Competition

The Colony Meadery Wins Commercial Mead Maker of the Year in National Competition

Allentown, Pennsylvania – Over the weekend, The Colony Meadery was awarded the first “Commercial Mead Marker of the Year” award at the Mead Free or Die competition held in New Hampshire.

In addition to taking the top prize, the burgeoning Allentown meadery took home five of the nine awards, including:

• 1st Place in Open Category Meads for their Favorite Child (flavored with raspberry and chipotle)
• 2nd Place in Open Category Meads for their Woofiedog (a hopped mead)
• 2nd Place in Traditional Meads for their Straight, No Chaser (made with orange blossom honey)
• 3rd Place in Traditional Meads for their Queen’s Gambit (made with wildflower honey)
• 3rd Place in Melomel Meads for their Pikwant Field (flavored with strawberry and kiwi)

Mead is one of the oldest beverages in human history, dating back to both the ancient Egyptian and Viking societies. At its base, mead is made from fermented honey. Today, producers like The Colony Meadery often begin with basic mead and then add additional flavorings like fruit, coffee, hops, and spices. The result is a wide range of tasty beverages that find appeal across many palates.

“Mead is completely different from other beverages out there,” says Mike Manning, Cofounder and Mead Maker of The Colony Meadery. “As an artisanal beverage, it finds a lot of appeal with both craft beer enthusiasts and wine drinkers.”

Setting up their operations this past October at the Bridgeworks Enterprise Center, the manufacturing business incubation program of Allentown Economic Development Corporation (AEDC), The Colony Meadery released the first of its meads to the public in January of this year.

Since its launch, The Colony Meadery has steadily expanded its presence within eastern Pennsylvania at restaurants like,Fegley’s Brew Works, Strange Brew Tavern and Hulmeville Inn. Additionally, they have recently ventured across state lines, distributing mead to New Jersey with Hunterdon Brewing.

“We’re honored that our commitment to quality mead is resonating with customers, and now validated by our peers in competition,” said Greg Heller-LaBelle, Cofounder and Chief Executive Officer of The Colony Meadery.

“Having The Colony Meadery do so well in competition is exciting to see and a great milestone for Mike and Greg,” said Anthony Durante, Program Manager for AEDC. “Results like this will certainly drive people to deliberately seek out their mead at restaurants, in stores or by visiting the meadery. It all leads to continued growth and success for the company.”

About The Colony Meadery

The Colony Meadery's mission is to produce the boldest and most innovative meads in the world. We use experimental batches, modern methodology, and precise control of fermentation to create meads that are distinct and varied. We believe in uncompromising quality, flavor and craftsmanship. We are members of both the Brewers Association and the American Mead Makers Association.

For more information, please visit their website: http://thecolonymeadery.com/

About the Allentown Economic Development Corporation

AEDC is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to a mission of identifying, encouraging, developing and managing strategic business opportunities for the benefit of Allentown, its citizens, and the Lehigh Valley. Its goal is to improve vacant and underutilized properties by assisting manufacturers, business owners and entrepreneurs in obtaining the resources and opportunities they require for success in the City of Allentown. AEDC offers access to financing and incentives, assistance with brownfield remediation, and support for growing businesses within the City.

For more information, please visit their website: http://allentownedc.com/

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Press Release: The Colony Meadery Expands Distribution to New Jersey

June 13, 2014

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Greg Heller-LaBelle

greg@thecolonymeadery.com

855.632.3669

The Colony Meadery Expands Distribution to New Jersey

ALLENTOWN, PA— Residents of New Jersey will now be able to taste for themselves what the mead world has been buzzing about. The Colony Meadery is pleased to announce that, as of this week, its four flagship meads will be a part of the Hunterdon Brewing portfolio.

“From day one, we knew New Jersey was going to be an early and major market for us,” said CEO and Co-founder Greg Heller-LaBelle. “Hunterdon was absolutely the right partner. We are incredibly proud to be the local mead in such a strong portfolio with some great other products.”

The first shipments of mead are hitting retailer shelves this week.

"Hunterdon is excited to be able to bring The Colony Meadery to consumers in NJ," said Hunterdon Distributors Spirits & Mead Manager Jeremiah Goldovitz. "Having a nearby meadery making such excellent, high quality product is a welcome addition to the local craft market, and a great fit within our portfolio of amazing meads."

The four bottled meads currently available are: Mo-Me-Doh (mint and lime mead); Straight, No Chaser (traditional orange blossom mead); Pikwant Field (dry strawberry-kiwi mead); and WOOFIEDOG (light mead dry-hopped with Cascade and other APA hops). Limited releases and sixtel kegs will follow in the coming months.

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About the Colony Meadery: The Colony Meadery's mission is to produce the boldest and most innovative meads in the world. We use experimental batches, modern methodology, and precise control of fermentation to create meads that are distinct and varied. We believe in uncompromising quality, flavor and craftsmanship. We are members of both the Brewers Association and the American Mead Makers Association. For more information: http://www.thecolonymeadery.com

About Hunterdon Brewing Company: Founded in 1996, Hunterdon has raised the bar for craft beverage availability and selection in the state by providing the most diverse and sought-after portfolio the market has to offer. The company currently represents over seventy domestic craft brands, hundreds of imports and a unique line of micro-distilled spirits, sakes, ciders and meads. Hunterdon continues to focus on bringing quality products to the New Jersey consumer.

A note on tour reservations

So one of the most confusing things we've had to deal with is an online reservation system that meets our needs. Our needs aren't actually that massive; we just need something that collected reservations for tours. We tried a bunch of options, including Eventbrite, and we think we've settled on a new one that will work for us. All of this is just to make sure that we know when you're coming so we can give you the best experience possible.

If you placed a reservation using a system that we've moved away from, please don't worry; we still have a record of it! 

Thanks as always for your patience and understanding as we figure out these fun little logistical challenges that make starting a business such a wondrous experience.

We'll go back to fermenting honey now.

Get Your First Taste of the Colony Meadery!

Hey everyone!

We're very pleased to announce our first commercial product will be available this Saturday at the Fegley's Craft Beer Festival in Allentown. We'll be pouring Mo-Me-Doh, The Earle, and a variant WOOFIEDOG, with some special offerings for the VIP session. Also available for sale will be some shiny new Colony Meadery merchandise and bottles, so come on by and do some holiday shopping!

Check out our Events page or click here for tickets:

http://thebrewworks.ticketleap.com/craft-beer-festival/#/

Starting a Meadery... Problem solving 101

Starting a meadery - like many DIY technical projects - is mostly an exercise in learning how not to do things. You spend hours trying to think of everything, and then 10 minutes in, find something for which you did not prepare.  Consequently, the rule of thumb is to expect a Pareto distribution (aka the 80-20 rule): You'll spend x amount of time on the first run-through of something, and then the same amount of time doing the rest of the same task. First PID: 1 hour. Other six PIDs: 1 hour total. You get the idea.

So you might, for example, be installing fittings into fermenters, and then realize that there's no obvious way to get the other end of the fitting five feet up into a 100-gallon fermenter.

Nonetheless, things are coming along nicely. The glycol system is completely rigged up. 

We've even begun naming our fermenters. The primaries start at the beginning of the alphabet and go down; the secondaries will start at Z and work up. Our two 100-gallon tanks are Agnes and Bertha, followed by Cleveland, Donald and Edgar. The only secondary named so far is Willy. Suggestions are, of course, welcome.

Lots to do and things to ship

So the fermenters arrived. Tomorrow we start to assemble this business. 

Also, the final pieces of merchandise arrived, so we're ready to start sending out the final rewards to our Rockethub backers.