Michael Fairbrother joins me this week to discuss the business of beer, mead, cider and opening a restaurant.
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Topics in This Week’s Episode (43:38)
- This week I welcome back Michael Fairbrother. Michael is the founder and head mead maker at Moonlight Meadery and also launched the Over the Moon Farmstead a few years back making cider and craft beer. Michael has won numerous Mazer cup awards for his meads.
- We discuss how Michael started home brewing and then rapidly expanded into mead making which turned out to be his passion.
- Michael expanded his mead distribution nationwide as well as to Australia and Canada. We discuss some of the challenges with large distribution chains.
- He shares some of the things he learned expanding rapidly and distributing through wholesalers.
- Michael tells us about his decision to open the Over the Moon Farmstead as a destination location.
- We talk about his craft brewery and some of the styles he is focused on now, as well as his brewmaster.
- Chris shares his experience launching a restaurant and how it has evolved over time.
- We talk about the breadth of experiences he has had spanning mead, cider, beer and a restaurant.
- Michael shares his thoughts on the craft beer markets which is facing its own challenges.
- We discuss his website, location and Michael shares his closing thoughts.
Sponsors
- Thank you to our sponsor Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine for sponsoring this episode. I encourage you to subscribe to their great magazine!
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Great story. He’s a pretty humble guy. Can’t sing or play an instrument but he can create great flavors so I would say he’s artistic. His closing advice, “never give up”. There’s a great song by For King & Country called Never Give Up.