We’d like to take the time with this post so that you get to know us a little bit, and to tell you a story about the winding route we took to get here. We think stories are important, we're big literary geeks in that way.
Well this story is about what happened when two competent, nerdy people got bored during the pandemic. You see, after about 12 months of not being able to go out to brunch and drink bottomless mimosas, and only being able to play Dungeons & Dragons over computer screen, and generally being shut in and not able to express themselves creatively (like a lot of you probably found yourselves) these two decided to work on their apocalypse skills. If you are the type of person I think you probably are, I shouldn’t have to explain the concept of ‘apocalypse skills’ and why they are important.
Our two main characters already had particular sets of skills. One of these, Fish, is a professional creative and long time marketing guy. He's the one who does the writing of this blog. He also has spent decades dabbling with homebrewing - from beer to wine to mead to sake. Don't ask about the sake - it came out a completely horrendous abomination against Japanese culture. I respect the hell out of people who can master that tradition. Our other character is Stevie, who is an avocational kitchen witch, and has been a culinary professional with all of the talent and skills to make your favorite meal better than your favorite restaurant. No really, you should come over sometime for brunch and charcuterie - it will blow your mind. Stevie also has the knowledge and palate to be an armchair expert on gin and working on being a real accredited expert on wine.
So you have these two people - yet again foodies who have been locked out of restaurants for many moons, and they get the wild hair that they need to learn how to make cheese.
Yes we can make a decent cheese. Starting with enzymes and raw milk straight from a farmer, and aging until it is something that you would actually enjoy eating.
There were also some pickling classes. All of those jars in the fridge of various pickled vegetables are homemade - along with the kimchi.
And then one week they got about 20 pounds of honey from a friend who has bees (because of course these are the type of people who have friends who raise bees - and you should always get your honey from a local apiarist.) Which leads us to the fateful day where fish drew upon his decades of playing around with honey, yeast, water and fruit to teach Stevie how to make mead.
And then there was a lot of waiting, because when you do it the old fashioned way it takes a long time for honey to ferment, because it doesn't have all of the nutrients the yeast like in order to do a fast ferment (like with a beer or a cider.)
So one month passed and -- it wasn’t ready to drink. But then you have to do some stuff to the fermenting mix which did remind Stevie that there was actually something potentially interesting a-bubblin’ away in her closet.
And then another month went by and – it was not quite ready to drink. And certain people got a little bit impatient, but that's just how long it takes sometimes when you’re waiting for a good thing. We did put it in bottles to age though.
Finally, after an almost interminable 3 months had gone by and everyone had pretty much forgotten why they even started the project - Fish declared ‘This is probably ready to drink.’
‘Crap, this is really good.’ was the response. (Moving in to the second bottle)
‘Yeah. I know. That's why I like to make mead. It’s better than the stuff at Faire’
‘No but this is really really good! people might actually want to try this.’
‘Yes, I’ve looked into it, but that takes a lot of work.’
After that there was about a month of drinking Mead and arguing back and forth about whether or not this could actually be a real project. We don't really remember who was pushing for the company to move forward and who was saying this might not work (as related to above there was a great deal of drinking involved in this process.)
There happened to be a Dungeons & Dragons game happening at the time, in which Fish was playing a warlock who was overly fond of ravens, and suddenly our little Brewery had a name. A conversation about some of the most brutal and bloody bits of Norse mythology and suddenly we had a theme for our brands.
And Stevie, being the more charming of two antisocial nerds, realized that she had a lot of oddball, nerdy, viking friends (and some beings that fit all three of these categories) who would probably very much enjoy trying our mead. After a couple of quick Facebook messages came back with a lot of very good feedback and encouragement, Stevie and Fish thought that they might have a viable market.
That's how in June of 2021 we found ourselves doubling down and buying another 60 lb of honey, and buckets, and brewing equipment, and finding ourselves a nice big kitchen in which we could create the first official batches of Raven Queen Mead.
Now you're actually reading this story on our website. Hopefully if you’re in the neighborhood you can come over for brunch or a tasting sometime. We would love to show you some nerdy hospitality.
As for the rest of this mad journey, stay tuned.
- the saga continues…