Mead Review Format

September 12, 2014 Allen Jones Leave a comment

To make better meads, one must adequately track the meadmaking process for later analysis. Similarly, one must develop an unbiased opinion of his or her mead, and likewise have a means for evaluating the merits of one mead versus another. In the past, my tasting notes are minimal on the meads I have made, and thus I don’t feel I have the best handle on how to improve my product. I also don’t have great notes on the meads I have tasted commercially and amongst friends. Hence, it is imperative that I agree on a mead review format.

The Formats that Already Exist

A quick search for mead reviews on google provides four options for developing valid mead reviews (admittedly, two are nearly identical). Let’s take a look at these.

The BJCP Guide. The Mead Judge Certification Program, part of the overarching Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) provides the definitive starting point for creating any mead review format. Most (maybe all?) amateur mead competitions are run using the BJCP style guidelines, and evaluate against five metrics: appearance, aroma, flavor, mouthfeel, and overall impression. In addition, all entrants to the competition must state the strength (hydromel, standard, sack), sweetness (dry, semi-sweet, sweet), and carbonation (still, petillant, sparkling) of the mead. Honey varieties and ingredients are a plus (note, for certain categories ingredients are required).

The GotMead.com Commercial Review. In response to a few unruly forum posts bashing meads in a less than scientific manner, the folks over at Gotmead.com posted a rather straightforward format for evaluating meads. This guide leans heavily on the BJCP Guide, but allows for some artistic license in evaluating. It stresses the importance of noting “the name and location of the meadery, the name and location of where you tasted it, and as much other demographic, company and venue information you can get.” These details are especially important when considering that temperature (storage and of the mead itself), light, and oxygen exposure all have significant impacts on the final taste. While this guide was specifically posted for evaluating commercial meads, it has great parallels to home evaluations as well.

The Meadist Review. If you haven’t checked out what Paul Reiss is doing over on Meadist, you should take a look. In addition to helping push the mead industry forward through both the Honey Wine Herald and as Art Director for the American Mead Maker, he has proposed his own commercial mead evaluation rubric, with a special category for branding rather than overall impression. This adds a nice finish to evaluating a commercial mead, especially considering that the branding may be what pushes you, the consumer, to choose one bottle over its competitors merely inches away. The final rating given is then a numerical average of the five underlying scores for appearance, aroma, flavor, mouthfeel, and branding.

Here at TBM, and later at MeadMakr.com (seriously, I will one day make that site active and move content over), I’d like to incorporate the branding aspect of meads as it adds another element that is significant in the overall mead drinking experience. The only pitfall is rating it equally with the other characteristics of the mead. Packaging is great when considering why one company may do better than another. But is it equal to the flavor components of the mead? I’ll have to think on it a little more.

The American Mead Maker Review. In the latest edition of the American Mead Maker, a new (and hopefully recurring) section was added titled Mead Reviews with Dak & Kyle. The two reviewers are heavily experienced in rating beverage flavor characteristics based on history at ratebeer.com, and leverage this to provide reviews for commercial meads. The reviews provide a general description of the mead in question, and suggest pairings to appreciate the mead’s better qualities. The sum up the review with a grade (presumably A+ to F) for the overall impression, but do not provide intermediate ratings.

The TBM (and later MeadMakr) Format

Here at TBM, we want to be scientific about our measurements, as well as qualitative to the finer aspects of a mead. Hence, we’re going to build on what is provided here, and add some technical aspects to our reviews.

One of the key factors in mead is the final sweetness level, however this is not often reported to the user on the bottle. It may say it is a dry, semi-sweet, or sweet mead, but the flavor impact can be greatly impacted by the acidity levels. The higher the acid level, the less sweet the mead will taste. To counteract this, I propose including actual measurements of the final gravity to understand best what the end result is (it also helps to create clone recipes!).

Similarly, I’d like to include actual alcohol content. A little known fact about the alcohol labeling requirements of the TTB is that they only require that the mead’s alcohol content is within 1.5% of the actual alcohol content on the label, yielding a full 3% range for alcohol (if it is printed as 12%, it could be anywhere between 10.5% and 13.5%). [1] Similarly, if the alcohol content is between 7% and 14%, it can merely be labeled as “Table Wine” or “Light Wine.” [2] These are drastic variations, and will greatly impact flavor when comparing two similarly labeled meads. Unfortunately, measuring alcohol content may be a pipe dream at this point, as there is not a highly reliable method available without having access to the original gravity. It will get included for now as a value to have in a formal review, but may never get populated for commercial reviews (further reading here).

To wrap it all up, any and all TBM reviews shall contain the following (and are likely to change at some point as I work through these reviews):

General Description

A few sentences to paragraphs describing the mead in question, flavor notes, suggested pairings, and overall impression.

Evaluation Criteria

Appearance
Aroma
Flavor
Mouthfeel
Overall Impression (average of the first four values)
Branding (not to be included in rating, but included for evaluation nonetheless)

Characteristics of Interest

Ingredients
Alcohol content (measurement method TBD)
Residual sweetness (as measured by an hydrometer or refractometer)
Carbonation

I hope to have the first official review in the coming weeks, so check back soon for more!

Uncategorized

A Slice of Humble Pie

August 29, 2014 Allen Jones Leave a comment

Every now and again you realize how much you still have left to learn. But you know what, we only learn through experience, and in that light, nothing should taste better than a genuine slide of humble pie.

The Story

The plan for today was to bottle three mead recipes that have been aging for a while (think greater than a year), two in half gallon carboys and one in a one gallon carboy. I wanted to try something differently though. The last few times I have racked or bottled, by the end of the process I am fed up with the time it takes to get the job done. My racking tube has degraded over the years (I’m only on my second one), so I thought it would be a good idea to go pick one up.*

In the dearth of civilization that is Southern Maryland,** there is a single homebrew shop within regular commuting distance, Danny’s Homebrew. Danny is an all-around fantastic guy, and offers great prices through his quarterly truck orders, but I didn’t want to deal with waiting until the shop was open for a simple purchase like tubing. I figured Lowes would have it stocked on the shelves.

It was rather easy to find the plumbing section, and subsequently the plain clear tubing used for racking. Lowes had three sizes available, 1/4″, 3/8″ and 1/2″ clear vinyl tubing. In the back of my mind, I knew I had read discussions about ensuring the tube size you get matches your equipment, but I was in a hurry this morning to get started, and didn’t measure what I had at home before leaving. 1/4″ tubing was obviously too small, and 1/2″ was likewise obviously too large. 3/8″ tubing it was going to have to be!

So I get home after purchasing my shiny new $8, 3/8″ tube, and of course it isn’t the same size tube as I have been using. I figured I might as well try it anyway. I usually have to cut off an inch of tube after attaching to the canes in the first place because the fit is so tight I can’t get it off.

So I clean up the brewing space, wash the dishes and clear the kitchen counter, inventory everything I need for the job today, and sanitize away. After attaching everything, moving my bottles into position, and rinsing the bottle caps, I start the siphon.

At first it seems to work, but as soon as I stop pumping, the flow immediately stops. Bubbles are forming around both ends of the tube where it connects to the racking and bottling canes. This of course points to a leak in the equipment.

Not having any nice hose clamps handy (and they’d probably break the canes anyway), I tried to tape the edges as close to shut as I could. No dice. I still can’t rack properly.

So after 20 minutes of fumbling around with the tubes, I finally give up, but not until I’ve already transferred half of the carboy contents into bottles and a spare carboy I used for getting the siphon started.***

Alas, I am forced to pour everything into the new carboy, as I didn’t want to leave massive headspace in the original carboy. And the 1.5 bottles I had didn’t seem like they were worth bottling alone. Now everything is in a new 1/2 gallon carboy, with additional headspace and significant oxidation likely to occur. Oh well, here’s to hoping it takes on sherry notes, and not wet cardboard!

The Lesson

The two most common sizes for homebrew equipment are 5/16″ and 3/8″ tubing, and getting the wrong size can prove disastrous. You can’t shove a 5/16″ tube onto a 3/8″ cane, and shoving a 3/8″ tube onto a 5/16″ cane doesn’t seal properly to create a vacuum inside the tube. Make sure to know your equipment sizes the next time you head to the store to get tubing. It will save you a headache, and ensure you racking or bottling plans go smoothly.

* Over time, vinyl tubing degrades. This increases the drag inside the tubing, slowing the flow of mead through the tube.

** In all actuality, I really like Southern Maryland. But this is a rant, and during a rant, calling the state of industry in Southern Maryland a dearth of civilization seems appropriate.

*** I have made a modification to my racking process to avoid auto-siphon as I find these usually require two people. I’ll note this as another blog post topic for later.

Mead Industry Analysis

Best Practices for Crowdfunding your Meadery

August 15, 2014 Allen Jones Leave a comment

The last few months I have analyzed the successful meadery Kickstarter projects, posting separate entries on each of the companies who have successfully secured backing (first post here). The series to me has opened up my eyes on the possibilities to make mead professionally, as the biggest barrier to entry in the market is the up front funding required. Below I have encapsulated some of the best practices that were identified during this initial analysis, specifically focusing on the items most likely to be funded on Kickstarter. Actually managing and running a Kickstarter project is a whole other topic (or series) on its own, and I may tackle this topic later with some updates to the initial guide. And if you haven’t seen it, the entire article series was published in the latest American Mead Maker Journal. Pretty cool!

Best Practices

Comparing the seven successful meadery Kickstarter projects has its limitations, so making direct analyses is difficult. Some of the success may be owed to popularity of the meadery owners, professionalism of the Kickstarter project, or sheer dumb luck at the time of founding. However, there are some important conclusions that can be drawn when looking at the individual projects.

Tickets, tours, and tastings.

The popularity of Algomah Acres’ ticket invitation is similar to that of Bos Meadery’s tour and tasting, where both of these funding tiers received the most support for their respective projects.

Knickknacks pave the way.

The Leaky Roof Meadery and Golden Coast Mead projects showed the popularity of stickers, t-shirts, glassware, and honey. Melovino’s project suggests that glassware is more valuable than t-shirts to backers, as many more backers purchased these items. However the small sample size available cannot definitively say that glassware is more popular. (Anecdotally, I like to collect craft brewing pint glasses. I personally would not make a major push to collect logo-embossed wine glasses. Similarly, most of my beergeek friends collect pint glasses. Thus, for those making low alcohol meads, glassware should be in your Kickstarter project, as I expect the trend to follow for session meads.)

Avoid all inclusive funding levels to spread support.

The Leaky Roof Meadery and Melovino Meadery mix and match options (funding tiers were not inclusive of prior levels, but instead specific items were offered) may be worth considering for future projects, as it spread support across a wide range of funding levels and provides improved options for a backer to purchase exactly what he or she wants.

Consider mead club membership options.

Bee Well Meadery’s concept of an exclusive membership option was unique to their project. It is important to note this idea received the greatest number of backers and most funding in Bee Well Meadery’s project. If a meadery is considering having a wine club in its future, providing an enhanced membership option to crowdfunding supporters may be a great idea.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

The Vanaheim Gold projects show that even if a project is unsuccessful in its first go around, that does not mean it cannot find supporters in a subsequent project. A willingness to test the market seek crowd-sourced funding builds a sense of community from the project’s backers, and can only help with early promotion of the meadery.

Design your project with tiers for all funding levels.

When designing a Kickstarter project, the range of funding options should be considered. Although some of these projects benefited from large donors purchasing the most expensive items, a large amount of support comes from low priced items. In addition, those who purchase low priced items might be the ones who shared the project with the donors purchasing the higher priced options. Therefore it is important to remember that providing funding options that all potential backers may be necessary to garner extensive support. Also note that according to the successful project owners, funding tiers less than $50 may not cover the distribution costs, but are fantastic for raising awareness and building a community to advertise your product for you.

Conclusion

The seven meaderies showcased in this article series present the only successful crowdfunded meadery project data points currently available. Further analysis of the unsuccessful projects may shed additional light on what items truly are most popular among backers, but are not included in this analysis for brevity. Additional research in winery, brewery, and distillery projects may also yield important trends between the beverage markets. Nonetheless, the crowdfunding concepts presented here may not guarantee success for a new crowdfunding project. However, they are worth considering if a small amount of funds are needed to bring your new product to market.

Mead Industry Analysis

Crowdfunding your Meadery, Part 8: Bos Meadery

August 5, 2014 Allen Jones Leave a comment

This is a continuation of our Crowdfunding your Meadery series, examining the funding tiers of successful mead Kickstarter projects to identify commonality between funding levels and determine what items are most likely to be purchased by a project’s backers. For a list of articles in this series, see the first article here. In this article, we will examine the Bos Meadery Kickstarter project, which can be found here.

Colleen Bos, a medieval historian and homebrewer for more than 9 years, started Bos meadery in an effort to provide the meads she likes to drink to the local Madison, WI market. Madison is a hotbed for local food and beverages, including at least 11 breweries, many local bars and eateries, and the Old Sugar Distillery. Madison is even well known for the largest producer’s only farmers’ market in the US, the Dane County Farmer’s market.

Bos started her meadery close to downtown Madison to ensure foot traffic when they are able to build out their tasting room. Prior to the Kickstarter project, Bos had already secured the space and equipment necessary for the meadery, and needed the last bit of funding to purchase the materials to bring Bos Meadery to market. This included honey, yeast, fruit juices, bottles, corks, etc., with any remaining funds going to help furnish a tasting room.

The Bos Meadery Kickstarter project sought $11,000 and offered 15 funding tier options. The funding options started at $15 for a tour and tasting, up to $3,000 for the opportunity to consult with Colleen on creating a mead recipe, being a VIP at the Bos Meadery Launch Party, and lots of swag that included a t-shirt, drinking horn, wine glass, and travel corkscrew.

The Bos Meadery Kickstarter project was available for 32 days. During this time, 166 backers provided $15,767, beating the funding goal by 43%. Details concerning the funding tiers, number of backers who supported the funding tiers, and the total amount of funding per funding tier can be found in the figures below.

Raw data of Bos Meadery’s Kickstarter project.

Analysis of the backers and total funding received per funding tier for Bos Meadery’s Kickstarter project.

Bos Meadery received backers for 12 of the 15 funding tiers available. The most popular item by far was the $15 option to receive a tour and tasting with 48 backers. The second most popular item was a funding tier for $45 that included a Bos Meadery wine glass and a personal tour and tasting, with 19 backers. The third most chosen option received 16 backers, and added to the second most popular item, with the backer’s name listed as a founding supporter on a plaque at the meadery, a t-shirt, and a travel corkscrew for $200.

Even though the first tier item received the most number of backers, it only accounted for 5% of the total funding received. Rather, the two tiers contributing the most funding to the project were tier 11 receiving 23% of the total funding and tier 9 (the third most popular described above) receiving 21%. Tier 11 included everything in funding tier 9, with the additional of a quality drinking horn.

And that covers the last successfully funded meadery Kickstarter project. Check back with us next week as we wrap it all together and provide some recommendations for your next Kickstarter project, specifically focusing on the items that are most likely to be purchased if you start a beverage related crowdfunding project.

Mead Industry Analysis

Crowdfunding Your Meadery, Part 7: Melovino Meadery

July 29, 2014 Allen Jones Leave a comment

This is a continuation of our Crowdfunding your Meadery series, examining the funding tiers of successful mead Kickstarter projects to identify commonality between funding levels and determine what items are most likely to be purchased by a project’s backers. For a list of articles in this series, see the first article here. In this article, we will examine the Melovino Meadery Kickstarter project, which can be found here.

Sergio Moutela, founder and meadmaker at Melovino Meadery, created New Jersey’s first official meadery with the help of Kickstarter. Moutela grew up helping his grandfather produce homemade wines, and per his Kickstarter funding video, “earned [his] purple foot from a very young age.” As an adult, Moutela began exploring with home winemaking and brewing. After submitting Moutela’s homemade concoctions to many competitions, he realized his mead came away with many more medals than his beers. As such, he decided to take the plunge and begin the journey of creating Melovino Meadery.

When Moutela started his Kickstarter project, he had already secured a Federal winery license, was working on receiving a state license, and had purchased much of the necessary equipment to run the winery. However, Moutela needed just a bit more money purchase the ingredients for his first mead production runs.

Melovino sought $15,000 through Kickstarter, offering 16 funding tiers starting at a $10 Melovino Supporter sticker up to $2,000 to assist Moutela with the development of a new production mead recipe. During the 36 day project, Moutela raised exactly $15,000 from 59 backers. Details concerning the funding tiers, number of backers who supported the funding tiers, and the total amount of funding per funding tier can be found in the figures below.

Raw data of Melovino Meadery’s Kickstarter project.

Analysis of the backers and total funding received per funding tier for Melovino Meadery’s Kickstarter project.

Melovino received support for 12 of the 16 available funding tier options, and secured two backers at the highest funding tier (to consult on the creation of a new production mead recipe). With the large variance in backer purchasing decisions, the three funding tiers providing the most amount of funding from the backers were: funding tier 16 received $4,000 from two backers to consult on creating a new production mead recipe; funding tier 11 received $1,600 from eight backers that included a wine glass, t-shirt, deluxe personal tour of the meadery, the backer’s name on the MVP (MeloVino Pledgers) plaque; and funding tier 10 received $1,000, and included everything in the tier 11 option except only a personal tour (not deluxe).

Given how broadly the Melovino backers spread their support, it is difficult to draw many conclusions from this project. One interesting item is worth noting, however. Tiers 5 and 6 included options to purchase wine glasses, and received six and four backers respectively. Tier 7 included a t-shirt and sticker, and received no backers. This may suggest that wine glasses are a more popular item than t-shirts when given the option to purchase both. These three tiers are within $15 of eachother, so it is unlikely the difference in popularity is solely due to price.

Follow us next week as we cover the only remaining successful mead Kickstarter project, from Bos Meadery, Madison, WI’s first meadery.

Mead Industry Analysis

Crowdfunding Your Meadery, Part 6: Leaky Roof Meadery

July 23, 2014 Allen Jones Leave a comment

This is a continuation of our Crowdfunding your Meadery series, examining the funding tiers of successful mead Kickstarter projects to identify commonality between funding levels and determine what items are most likely to be purchased by a project’s backers. For a list of articles in this series, see the first article here. In this article, we will examine the Leaky Roof Meadery Kickstarter project, which can be found here.

Leaky Roof Meadery produces a line of 6.5% alcohol carbonated meads. Leaky Roof’s three founders met working at a small production meadery in Rogersville, MO. However, the business fell through before ever opening its doors, leaving Todd Rock, Jhett Collins, and Andrew Steiger to set off on their own. After searching for a suitable spot for a meadery, the three decided to build in Buffalo, MO.

The Leaky Roof Meadery takes its name from the Kansas City, Clinton and Springfield (KCC&S) Railroad, nicknamed the Leaky Roof Railroad. In the 1870s, plans were drawn up and work was started to run a branch off this railroad up to Buffalo, MO. However, the railroad went bankrupt prior to completion, leaving Buffalo, MO as one of the largest ‘landlocked’ communities to never benefit from the presence of a railroad.

In the initial planning stages, the Leaky Roof Meadery realized demand for their product outstripped their production capability. Thus, they went to Kickstarter to seek the funds necessary to build an expanded canning line that would help them meet market demand.

The Leaky Roof Meadery sought $25,000 to build their new canning line, and offered funding tiers from a $1 “build your own” option, up to $5,000 to name the new canning line. Over the 60 day funding period, the Leaky Roof Meadery raised $25,050 from 160 backers, just barely beating their funding goal. Details concerning the funding tiers, number of backers who supported the funding tiers, and the total amount of funding per funding tier can be found in the figures below.

Raw data of Leaky Roof Meadery’s Kickstarter project.

Analysis of the backers and total funding received per funding tier for Leaky Roof Meadery’s Kickstarter project.

The Leaky Roof Meadery project is unique in that they offered most of their items stand-alone, with packages combining the items vs having every subsequent tier including the options from the tiers above them. They further drove this home by providing a “build your own” tier at the $1 level, and listing individual prices for each of the items available. This resulted in six of the sixteen funding tier options receiving at least 13 backers, with the most backers supporting tier 7 and tier 10 with 23 backers each.

The items offered by the Leaky Roof Meadery included coasters, stickers, koozies, pint glasses, tickets to the LRM Grand Opening, a blue “Bringing the Railroad” t-shirt, a Kickstarter only “Track Crew” t-shirt, a Kickstarter edition Growler, founder’s plaques, catered tours, and the option to name the production fermenters and canning line.

The most popular items included a t-shirt, founder’s plaque displayed in the taproom, a ticket to the Grand Opening, and a specialty pint glass. The most funding was received from the canning line sponsor, netting $5,000. The next greatest amount of funding came from the tier 10 level, receiving $2,300, followed closely by tier 14 with $2,000.

The Leaky Roof Meadery’s decision to offer multiple tier options and a build your own plan was met with great success by their backers. This provided the flexibility to purchase exactly what the backer wanted, without throwing money away on the items summed up in the funding tier with the item the backer was most interested in.

But is flexibility the key to financing your meadery through Kickstarter? While inherently this gives backers the option to purchase what they want, they might only purchase a single item vice spending more on multiple items bundled in a single tier.

Check back with us next week as we continue our Crowdfunding your Meadery Series. Next up, Melovino Meadery from New Jersey, whose Kickstarter project can be found here.

Mead Industry Analysis

Crowdfunding your Meadery, Part 5: Golden Coast Mead

June 5, 2014 Allen Jones Leave a comment

This is a continuation of our Crowdfunding your Meadery series, examining the funding tiers of successful mead Kickstarter projects to identify commonality between funding levels and determine what items are most likely to be purchased by a project’s backers. For a list of articles in this series, see the first article here. In this article, we will examine the Golden Coast Mead Kickstarter project, which can be found here.

Golden Coast Mead, started by three young entrepreneurs, Frank Golbeck, Joe Colangelo, and Praveen Ramineni, began in 2010 by leasing equipment and borrowing space to create 70 gallon batches one at a time. Their ingredients are locally sourced using orange blossom honey and water from Palomar Mountain Spring in San Diego. In May of 2012, they had realized the demand for their mead was greater than they could meet through their production space, and the three began their Kickstarter project.

Golden Coast sought $19,906 to purchase the necessary meadery equipment to move into their own brewing space. This included one bond for a winemaking license, two 150 gallon fermenting tanks, three 300 gallon flex tanks, one 300 gallon bright tank, eight hoses, one pump, one compressor, and a used forklift. The funding tier options included 11 separate funding tiers, starting at $1 for a mention on twitter to their 6,000-plus followers, up to $5,000 to have a bottled named and label designed in the backers honor.

During the course of the 60 day project, Golden Coast Mead received $20,471 from 172 backers, beating the funding goal by 3%. Details concerning the funding tiers, number of backers who supported the funding tiers, and the total amount of funding per funding tier can be found in the figures below.

Raw data of Golden Coast Mead’s Kickstarter project.

Analysis of the backers and total funding received per funding tier for Golden Coast Mead’s Kickstarter project.

Three of the Golden Coast funding tiers garnered support from more than 30 backers each (tiers 4 through 6). These funding levels, inclusive of the funding tiers less expensive than them, included a founder sticker and t-shirt for $25, founder pint glass for $50, and a 12 ounce jar of Golden Coast’s honey for $100. However, despite constituting the most popular items, combined these three options only accounted for 33% of the total funding received from the project.

Funding tier 7, priced at $500 for a permanent founder’s plaque, an invitation to the launch party, and a free tour and mead tasting, provided the most funding to the completed project, totaling $6,000 of support from 12 backers. Funding tier 8, including the backer’s name on a cask to be opened at a local gastropub received $4,000 from 4 backers. Funding tier 9, which included the backer’s name and portrait on one of the six production tanks financed through the Kickstarter project, received $2,700 from 2 backers.

Golden Coast Mead’s Kickstarter project provides valuable insight concerning the most popular funding items (stickers, t-shirts, pint glasses and honey), but they still received the largest amount of funding from a smaller number of backers willing to provide a larger sum of money for a more exclusive reward.

Have we identified a trend here? Does a successful project result in large numbers of backers purchasing low priced items, spreading the word about the project to the catch the eye of the high rolling backers who are mostly interested in the exclusive, high priced items? Check back later in the week to find out as we continue our Crowdfunding your Meadery series, examining Leaky Roof Meadery’s Kickstarter project, which can be found here.

Mead Industry Analysis

Crowdfunding your Meadery, Part 4: Algomah Acres

May 31, 2014 Allen Jones Leave a comment

This is a continuation of our Crowdfunding your Meadery series, examining the funding tiers of successful mead Kickstarter projects to identify commonality between funding levels and determine what items are most likely to be purchased by a project’s backers. For a list of articles in this series, see the first article here. In this article, we will examine the Algomah Acres Honey House Meadery Kickstarter project, which can be found here.

Algomah Acres Honey House Meadery started as a passion and a lifestyle for Melissa Hronkin and John Hersman. Seeking to support sustainable farming and artisanal products, they combined their love of beekeeping with arguably the most sustainable form of alcohol available, mead. Made from only honey, traditional meads require no irrigation, fertilizer, or toxic pesticides, and are still labor intensive as the process to raise bees can not be mechanized like the processing of fruit orchards and vineyards.

To support this dream, Melissa and John started a Kickstarter project in July 2011, and ran the project for 60 days. Their initial funding goal was $9,300, and 170 backers provided a total of $9,676 to beat their goal by 4%. These funds would support the initial licensing fees and equipment purchases necessary to get bring the Sweetness and the Light to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

The Algomah project included nine funding tiers from $1 up to $2,500, with options from thank you cards and beeswax lip balm at the low end, up to a gourmet meal for 2 that included all other items available. Details concerning the funding tiers, number of backers who supported the funding tiers, and the total amount of funding per funding tier can be found in the figures below.

Raw data of Bee Well Meadery’s Kickstarter project. — Raw data of Algomah Acres Honey House Meadery’s Kickstarter project.

Analysis of the backers and total funding received per funding tier for Algomah Acres’ Kickstarter project.

The most purchased tier included a thank you card, lip balm, 4 oz jar of honey, and an invitation to the Harvest Party at the Algomah Acres Honey House a month after the conclusion of the project in October, with 69 total backers (almost 50% of the accounted for backers in the funding tier table above). However, this funding tier only accounted for 24% of the total funding received. The tiers that included a t-shirt and gift box, and a custom painted bee hive in addition to the other funding tier projects, brought in 24% and 21% of the total funding, despite only having 7 and 3 backers respectively. The two most expensive tiers, which included the option to help craft a production mead recipe and the option for a special dinner for two prepared by the head meadmaker, did not receive any backers.

While Algomah didn’t include a mead club membership option in their funding tiers, their project shows that unique ticket based options can drive backer purchases. Unfortunately, this tier’s success cannot fully be attributed to the Harvest Party invitation, as it included 4 oz of honey from the Algomah Acres. However, $25 for 4 oz of honey is an extremely steep price, so it is assumed that the majority of the interest in this funding tier was related to the Harvest Party ticket (if not only due to the this being a relatively cost friendly tier with the lower tier at $5 and the next most expensive tier at $50).

Check back with us next week as we continue our Crowdfunding your Meadery series, determining the most popular products amongst the successfully funded meadery Kickstarter projects. Next up, Golden Coast Mead, whose Kickstarter project can be found here.

Mead Industry Analysis

Crowdfunding your Meadery, Part 3: Bee Well Meadery

May 30, 2014 Allen Jones Leave a comment

This is a continuation of our Crowdfunding your Meadery series, examining the funding tiers of successful mead Kickstarter projects to identify commonality between funding levels and determine what items are most likely to be purchased by a project’s backers. For a list of articles in this series, see the first article here. In this article, we will examine Bee Well Meadery‘s Kickstarter project, which can be found here.

Chris and Jeremy VanSice started their Kickstarter campgaign out of necessity to meet building code requirements. They had put five years of work into building out their facility, and were running out of funding just toward the end of their meadery build out. Like many enterprising entrepreneurs, they sought crowdfunding for the final push to install a new well and septic system.

Bee Well Meadery is located in a picturesque region of Northern Michigan. The VanSice brothers’ roots in the town of Bellaire span six generations. Their location nestled on a peninsula between Clam Lake, Lake Bellaire, and Torch Lake, guarantees that their bees only forage the local fruit orchards and wild thistle of the peninsula, resulting in a truly unique product that can only be found at Bee Well Meadery.

The Bee Well Meadery Kickstarter project had a funding goal of $9,000 to support the construction of a new well, septic system, and heating and cooling odds and ends. The VanSice brothers offered six funding tiers, starting at $1 for recognition on their future website, up to a $750 tier to create a custom mead recipe they would produce and sell through the meadery.

Over the 30 day project, Bee Well Meadery raised $14,348 from 218 backers, beating the funding goal by 59%. Details concerning the funding tiers, number of backers who supported the funding tiers, and the total amount of funding per funding tier can be found in the figures below.

Analysis of the backers and total funding received per funding tier for Bee Well Meadery’s Kickstarter project.

Bee Well Meadery’s Kickstarter project included stickers, honey from the Bee Well Meadery Farm, t-shirts, an exclusive founding club membership (to receive advance access to new products before they hit the shelves), and the unique opportunity to create the backer’s own mead recipe. Interestingly, every funding tier received backers, and the opportunity to create a mead recipe reached its limit of two backers.

Setting the first funding goal at $1 lured 14 backers into supporting the project, and likely much more from sharing the projects with their friends. Each successive funding tier included all of the rewards of the previous tiers. Interestingly, the honey and exclusive membership options were nearly identical in the number of backers, 65 and 73 respectively, but the funding received from the exclusive membership accounted for more than 50% of the total funding received.

Is Bee Well Meadery onto something here with the exclusive membership option to receive backers? Check us out later in the week (possibly next week) to find out if this trend continues as we continue our Crowdfunding your Meadery analysis series. Next up, Algomah Acres Honey House Meadery, whose Kickstarter project can be found here.

Mead Industry Analysis

Crowdfunding your Meadery, Part 2: Vanaheim Gold

May 22, 2014 Allen Jones Leave a comment

This is a continuation of our Crowdfunding your Meadery series, examining the funding tiers of successful mead Kickstarter projects to identify commonality between funding levels and determine what items are most likely to be purchased by a project’s backers. For a list of articles in this series, see the first article here. In this article, we will examine Vanaheim Gold’s Kickstarter projects, which can be found here: successful project and unsuccessful project.

Torvald Adolphson, owner and vintner at Wide-in-Wisdom Winery in Bastrop, Texas, didn’t take no for an answer when his first Kickstarter project failed in early 2012. The Wide-in-Wisdom Winery creates its meads under the brand name Vanaheim Gold (website, facebook). According to Adolphson, the Vanaheim Gold name pays homage to the realm of the World Tree where the gods of farming and fertility lived.

Adolphson’s first project funding goal was $10,000, and consisted of six funding tiers, from $25 to $5,000 (project link). During the 30 days of this project, Vanaheim Gold secured $1,121 from 17 backers. A further explanation of the funding tiers used for this unsuccessful project, the number of backers per tier, and a comparison pie chart of how much money was received per tier are shown in the figures below.

Raw data of Vanaheim Gold’s unsuccessful Kickstarter project.

Analysis of the backers and total funding received per funding tier for Vanaheim Gold’s unsuccessful Kickstarter project.

Following his unsuccessful project’s conclusion, Adolphson was undeterred. Just 48 days after the first project, Adolphson sought funding for Vanaheim Gold again, but this time with updated goals, funding tiers, and project duration (project link). The funding goal of the new project was $3,950, and 40 days were allowed for collecting the necessary funds. Adolphson simplified the funding tiers to four levels, starting at $25 and going to $100. By the end of the project, the Kickstarter project had collected $4,502 from 47 backers, beating his funding goal by 14%. Additional details concerning the funding tiers, number of backers who supported the funding tiers, and total amount of funding per funding tier are shown in the figures below.

Vanaheim Gold's Successful Data — Raw data of Vanaheim Gold’s successful Kickstarter project.

Analysis of the backers and total funding received per funding tier for Vanaheim Gold’s successful Kickstarter project.

Comparing the two projects, some interesting trends appear. For the unsuccessful project, there were many high ticket items that did not receive any backers. These expensive options included a framed poster of the Vanaheim Gold logo, additional t-shirts to those provided at the lower funding levels, a set of six etched wine glasses, and a personal tasting for the backer and friends. When creating the second project, Adolphson removed these options from his project and simplified the set of items that could be purchased.

The successful project included four funding tiers, of which the first, a $10 option for a certificate of thanks bearing the official Vanaheim Gold logo, did not receive any backers. However, each of the remaining three funding tiers received backers: twenty-two backers for tier 2 at $25 each, seven for tier 3 at $50, and eleven for tier 3 at $100. These funding levels included a 4″ sticker of the Vanaheim Gold logo, grey t-shirts bearing the Vanaheim Gold and Wide-in-Wisdom Winery logos, and according to the Kickstarter project updates (but not in the table above), an undisclosed number of bottles from the first mead production run if the $100 or more was given. Kickstarter regulations forbid the giving of alcohol as one of the funding tiers, and thus it was left of the tier definitions for the project (and subsequently not included in the table data above).

A quick and dirty analysis of the data would suggest that certificates of thanks, meadery logo posters, and large funding levels for private tastings are not as popular as branded t-shirts, stickers, and (dare we say it) bottles of mead. But this is only analysis for Vanaheim Gold and its backers. A single data point is anecdotal.

Check back with us later in the week as we examine the other successfully funded meadery projects on Kickstarter. Up next, Bee Well Meadery from Northern Michigan. Their Kickstarter project can be found here.