Our guest this week on Let’s Meet For A Beer is the CEO of Alberta’s Fallentimber Meadery, Dan Molyneux. Dan fills us in on the story of how a hobby apiary grew over two generations to become one of Alberta’s most innovative beverage producers.
The story of Fallentimber Meadery begins two generations ago with Dan’s grandfather starting a small hobby farm for beekeeping. The farm would later be passed on to Dan’s uncle who would expand honey production that of a small scale commercial apiary, which was able to support a single person. When the time came for succession planning the family was faced with the same challenge as with many family farms, how to get the next generation on board with taking it on. The problem of only producing enough honey to support the income of a single person made this especially challenging, which was compounded by Dan’s cousin and business partner Nathan’s ironic allergy to bees and made expanding honey production an unlikely road forward.
At the time Nathan was going to Mount Royal for tourism and submitted a business plan for a meadery as part of one of his business classes. The model was simple let unique, they would add value to the honey he already had in an approach similar to an estate winery: when you are growing the best grapes you can make the best wine, and they already had this great honey just waiting to be fermented into mead.
Today Fallentimber supports many members of their family including Dan’s brother managing sales, his uncle as head beekeeper, his Aunt in HR and another cousin in admin. Around the province they’ve garnered massive praise for innovative products like their Hopped Mead, Honeybuck, Mr Pink, and the legendary Meadjito. Mark and Dan recall the story of 40 year Sierra Nevada brewer Steve Dressler sampling the Meadjito at an prior Jasper Beer Festival and having his mind blown. Steve told Mark that in 40 years in the industry he’d thought he’d tried everything, and made sure Dan and Nathan knew they had the most innovative product at that festival by a landslide.
Let’s Meet For A Beer!
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