Four Fires Meadery

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Hey Steve:

Great question; we are trying to be a “people’s meadery” fielding suggestions and recommendations from our fans and members. We are working on our production facilities and first 4 meads currently but we have of lot of big plans currently for our first year people! When we sold 175 memberships in 59 mins, we realized that we owe our fans a huge debt of gratitude. And we intend to pay dividends.
 
Is a requirement of your membership to post unfavorable reviews of Garagiste meads on Untappd? Please advise.

This hobby account is living up to it's username.

Lol, yes it is. That said, this is definitely why we do AMAs here. They’re actually most useful to cut through controversy and get these kinda things out in the open.

Unlike elsewhere, talkbeer won’t delete these questions or call them trolling. Although, I will ban this account if it is a hobby account lol. If it is: Have the backbone to ask that (legitimate) question on your primary account.
 
testosterownd awesome that you are starting up in Toledo (Maumee). What are you noticing as the biggest issue with starting up in this area?

Of the 175 memberships how many are in Toledo? More or less than 75%?

Actually; a bit more. I would say 80-85% are local and the rest being around the US. The biggest challenge for us is to build out our facility currently. The contractors are in but we are facing a few zoning issues right now. Should be past it in the next few weeks but we are still on track for a early 2018 opening.
 
Is a requirement of your membership to post unfavorable reviews of Garagiste meads on Untappd? Please advise.

Okay; time to face the music. Yes; to be completely honest; I did post an unfavorable review on untappd about his Goober series. However at that time; it was given to me at the end of a very long mead tasting and the owner of the bottle poured out of a magnum that was left open and oxidizing on his countertop for a 2 and a half weeks. Thats a story I can back up. At that time; since I was tagging in everything and was very active on Untappd, I decided to give some unnecessary and unwarranted advice on the mead. I have tried it again since and I take back what I said on that post. The original post was deleted and I did make an official apology to the owner and meadmaker for it because I do know that it was a unprofessional thing to do. However its up to him to accept the apology or not; which I dont believe he has.

As far as the reviewers on his page, I don't really know how that came about but it seems that the owner thought we were behind that since they were from Toledo and one of them was a friend on facebook. After the initial issue; we had a meeting internally and we agreed that we would stop all communication to Garagiste as well as any interactions on Meadbook (including our giveaways). We have stuck firm to that belief and we have not reached out to him after that. However I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt; we had nothing to do with those people posting negative reviews. I have maybe interacted with one of those 2 guys once in my life and he decided to friend me on facebook afterward. Im friends with almost 150 of our members but I cannot say I am responsible for what they post on facebook or any other forum.

On a personal note; I work from 7:00am-6:00pm dedicating my lunchtime and anytime after work for Four Fires Meadery while working on my current rotation in Austin TX. I think people vastly underestimate how much free time I actually have to focus on anyone else. We would love to rebuild that bridge with Garagiste and I will apologize again to Mr. Wiltz if necessary; but thats honestly all I have to offer. I hope this clears up any doubt with anyone who wanted to know the story and please feel free to reach out with any other questions.
 
How does one go about getting any of your meads?

Currently our capacity only caters to our 175 Yearly members and our 31 Founding members. Labeled the "Four Fires Family". We will ofcourse be producing more than the 206 bottles that will eventually go up for public release however; Toledo OH will be the first place to get kegs of our product as well. We have identified a few local bars that have supported us from day one as our key accounts and will be self distributing all our product. We are hoping to have 10-15 releases a year with fun BA stuff coming later next year. You can probably also find us at Mead festivals, Beer Festivals and other events showcasing our meads.
 
Hey did you guys sort out the timelines for your barrel series? That whole lying to the consumer thing probably wont fly once.. oh wait.

Hello Wesley:

Thanks for bringing this up actually. Lets address this. When we first brought up the idea of starting a meadery; we knew absolutely nothing about running a small business. We were just homebrewers from Toledo who made beers and then dabbled in mead after space became a big constraint. The rest was history after we realized meadmaking is a lot more fun. 99.99% of our information was taught to us by industry professionals and meadmaking seminars in the coming year. Add on top of that there were 4 of us, each with individual ideas acting as 4 separate voices when we should have been unified in our message. Did we make smart moves? No. Did we learn from our mistake? Absolutely. Whats the point of making mistakes if you cant learn from them?

So what did we do about that? Once we realized what we were doing wasn't productive we overhauled our processes and ensured that the message we are sending out is vetted by all four of us in a singular voice, a majority vote is established in any decision making and accountability is in place for all of our decisions moving forward. We applied a lot of the same principles that I learned from my real job to the meadery and it seems to be paying off dividends. We have gotten our facility, federal licences, equipment, construction and taproom schematics done in 1/2 the time we predicted. Overall; we have come a long way since we started and are on our way to open shortly. We will have a decently sized barrel program focusing on mainly our "still" meads. To ensure success, we have sat down with a lot of large mead makers for several hours and learned how to run a tight production schedule.

I hope this answers your question and we hope you can come in and try our new meads in the coming year.
 
To ensure success, we have sat down with a lot of large mead makers for several hours and learned how to run a tight production schedule.

This is the funniest thing anyone has ever posted on tb.

Moral of the story, consumers who prepay for goods from a 'business' with no track record deserve to get shafted.
 
Hello Wesley:

Thanks for bringing this up actually. Lets address this. When we first brought up the idea of starting a meadery; we knew absolutely nothing about running a small business. We were just homebrewers from Toledo who made beers and then dabbled in mead after space became a big constraint. The rest was history after we realized meadmaking is a lot more fun. 99.99% of our information was taught to us by industry professionals and meadmaking seminars in the coming year. Add on top of that there were 4 of us, each with individual ideas acting as 4 separate voices when we should have been unified in our message. Did we make smart moves? No. Did we learn from our mistake? Absolutely. Whats the point of making mistakes if you cant learn from them?

So what did we do about that? Once we realized what we were doing wasn't productive we overhauled our processes and ensured that the message we are sending out is vetted by all four of us in a singular voice, a majority vote is established in any decision making and accountability is in place for all of our decisions moving forward. We applied a lot of the same principles that I learned from my real job to the meadery and it seems to be paying off dividends. We have gotten our facility, federal licences, equipment, construction and taproom schematics done in 1/2 the time we predicted. Overall; we have come a long way since we started and are on our way to open shortly. We will have a decently sized barrel program focusing on mainly our "still" meads. To ensure success, we have sat down with a lot of large mead makers for several hours and learned how to run a tight production schedule.

I hope this answers your question and we hope you can come in and try our new meads in the coming year.

Since you took the time to write an essay, you could have at least waited until 4:20 to post it, scumbag.
 
Hey did you guys sort out the timelines for your barrel series? That whole lying to the consumer thing probably wont fly once.. oh wait.

i think four fires should wait three-ish years to deliver the goods, and make them the most bland lackluster garbage products possible, all the while releasing really good meads in bottles, to friends, and at events. because everyone should get wakefielded once.
 
i think four fires should wait three-ish years to deliver the goods, and make them the most bland lackluster garbage products possible, all the while releasing really good meads in bottles, to friends, and at events. because everyone should get wakefielded once.

Jesus...what did this guy do to you guys?...
 
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