We recently connected with Matt Ackerman and have shared our conversation below.

Matt, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today One of the toughest things about entrepreneurship is that there is almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?

We started MeadKrieger Meadery in 2020 with an idea and a dream. We wanted to make the best mead and bring it to the masses. We started by beginning the daunting task of filling out the necessary paperwork to get licensed and follow through on all the regulatory requirements. It was no small feat. Next came the issue of converting a personal garage into a manufacturing location so we could make our mead commercially. Once we accomplished that, it soon became clear that we would need to expand into a tasting room/sales location to really begin to make our dream a reality. After getting an investor, we purchased a location in Downtown Loveland, Colorado. As the building remodel began the Covid shut downs were becoming a bigger and bigger issue in dealing with construction material and labor. What we thought was going to take us 6-9 months ended up taking us a year and a half.
We preserved and held tight to the vision of what we knew we could ultimately create. As the building began to take shape, the community became interested in what we were doing. We couldn’t be more proud to be in Downtown Loveland. Our customers, our community are amazing and continue to help us build a place where everyone feels welcome.

Matt, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a business owner and mead maker. Along with my business partner, Eric Davis, we are on a mission to create the best crafted mead in the industry. We started out playing in a band together and our mutual interest in Norse Culture and mead making led us to start MeadKrieger. As we have grown the business, we are getting to create different varietals of mead. We currently make our traditional mead, oak barrel aged mead, our melomels (or fruit meads), including raspberry, cherry, blueberry and peach. Our latest mead is a spiced mead, also known as a metheglin, that is perfect for the Holidays. Our customers are interested in the resurgence of mead and all of its flavor nuances. There are plenty of beer or wine choices but mead offers something new and different. Many who have never tried mead are becoming familiar with the oldest alcoholic beverage and loving it. From bringing communities together to simply celebrate life or an occasion to share a meal or an event, mead is an exquisite addition to all of it.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

We are building our reputation slowly – one customer at a time. We have the best customers hands down! We try to engage and educate each person who walks in our door and try to ensure they have a wonderful experience. Our reviews are full of the ways we serve our customer – from those who are mead aficionados to those who have never tried it. We actually get a lot of people who have never tried mead or tried really bad, super sweet mead. After walking them through the basics of mead, we introduce samples of different meads and encourage them to try a flight to expand on the options.
We even had a customer spend 75 hours (!) creating a piece of art from our logo and gifting it to us because he was so moved by our space and how we operate. Like him, many customers comment on what a special place our meadery is. Some have called it a treasure, a gem, and a place they feel welcome. We are not a bar or party spot, we truly are a place for community.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

We are a start-up trying to figure out how to grow our customers and hire awesome people. Somehow we have managed to get an amazing staff. Word of mouth, through family and friends have helped us start. As we move through our first year, it is helpful to find people that want to grow with the business or get experience. We realize that this will be on ongoing learning curve, but getting employees who understand our vision and what we are trying to build is the key that works for us currently. We can’t offer much, but we can offer the opportunity to be part of something new and exciting.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.meadkrieger.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meadkrieger/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MeadKrieger
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/meadkrieger-old-norse-mead-loveland

Image Credits
Katie Corley Sean Gavlick Leah Ackerman