Michigan mead-makers looking for a way to change laws With business growing, honey wine makers still need to learn how to organize and lobby to get laws changed

Todd Spangler | Detroit Free Press

WASHINGTON — In the world of craft beer and beverages, Michigan’s mead makers can only hope to someday have the sway in Congress that hard cider makers do.

As Congress left the nation's capital for the year, it passed a spending bill that, tucked inside it, rewrote the rules on cider, allowing it to have more carbonation and higher alcohol without increasing its per-gallon tax.

It was no easy feat, but the cider makers are organized, with key legislative supporters and Heineken, the world’s largest cider maker, as well as other companies, on board. They even presented their argument to Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation to make sure it passed muster.

Members of Michigan’s growing mead, or honey wine, industry would love to see similar changes — more carbonation in their product, relief from tax rules that make them submit recipes whenever they want to try something new — but say in what’s a relatively new industry, it’s hard to know where to start.

“For a guy who got into this by home-brewing in his basement, it’s a bit overwhelming,” said Brad Dahlhofer, cofounder of Ferndale’s B. Nektar, which seven years after opening in a 1,200-square-foot warehouse now employs 25 people and produces more than 125,000 gallons of mead a year.

Dahlhofer’s trying to figure it out, however. His is one of the largest meaderies anywhere and has been rated by Ratebeer.com as one of the top 100 breweries in the world. And with Michigan a hot bed for honey wine — Schramm’s Mead in Ferndale also is among the best known and respected; and there are believed to be more commercial mead makers in Michigan than in any other state — Dahlhofer is trying to sort out how to make business somewhat easier for the budding industry.

Even though it’s been on the upswing, mead is far less of a commercially available product than craft beer, wine or cider, so its makers are looking for ways to expand their reach. Classified as an “agricultural wine,” however, there are strict rules on its production.

And while the industry would be helped if the Craft Beverage Modernization Act, still up for debate in Congress, and its reduction in taxes on smaller wine producers were passed, Dahlhofer says even more help is needed.

Like getting rid of rules that the IRS has to sign off on — a process that can take months — anytime a mead maker wants to introduce a new product. Or a “bubble tax” that sees the rate on a gallon of wine go from $1.07 a gallon to $3.40 a gallon if it’s got what's considered too much carbonation in it.

“Customers expect these products to have bubbles,” said Dahlhofer, noting that cider, in the change just enacted, will no longer face the same bubble tax. “The carbonation tax alone would cost us at least $100,000 if we were carbonating to the level we want … We can’t afford to carbonate now.”

This fall, Dahlhofer started trying to make inroads into how to get those changes made part of the law. But without an active trade organization — the American Mead Makers Association is still in its relative infancy — he acknowledged that it’s difficult to know where to turn and where to find the time since he’s also busy running a business.

“Part of the problem with being new is we’re not as organized as we ought to be,” he said.

That could change, though, if local breweries in other lines serve as examples. Several Michigan brewers, after all, are actively pushing the craft modernization bill. And Mike Beck, with Uncle John’s Hard Cider in St. Johns, north of Lansing, is president of the U.S. Association of Cider Makers that got the new definition of hard cider tucked into the omnibus spending bill.

“We’re pretty well organized,” said Beck.

U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s office, meanwhile, said it hasn’t heard from Dahlhofer or other meaderies about their concerns, but that the senator remains supportive of the legislation and is “happy to work with any meaderies to try to address their concerns.”

Ken Schramm, who runs Schramm’s Mead in Ferndale and is author of the "The Compleat Meadmaker,” which helped jump-start the industry, says changes to the law would help business continue to grow. Mead makers who now see their products in grocery stores and other commercial outlets could build a larger following.

The most ridiculous statute of all, he said, is one which prohibits calling something “mead” that has anything more than honey, water and hops in the formula, even though historically speaking, mead makers used all kinds of spices and fruits. And the making of mead, or something like it, dates as far back as seven centuries before the birth of Christ.

“Somebody passed a law and that’s what was in it,” he said. “The law bears no resemblance to the true history of mead.”

“We will survive with or without (the changes),” said Schramm, who began making mead in 1988 and this summer, at age 56, finally left his job as director of video production services for Wayne County Schools to run his business full time with his daughter and son-in-law. “But it would be really helpful in terms of whether we prosper."

“We’re all — Brad and all of us in the mead industry — small-business people striving to find a way for ourselves.”

Contact Todd Spangler: 703-854-8947 or tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @tsspangler.

Some facts about mead

Mead is what you get from fermenting water and honey.

Some of the world's best varieties are made in Michigan, often with the addition of fruits grown here.

It's known as the oldest of alcoholic beverages, and it's one of the most versatile.

"It's alcohol that you can do pretty much anything with," mead maker Ian Radogost-Givens with Cellarmen's in Hazel Park told the Free Press in a previous interview. "In its history, it's touched bases with cider, beer, wine. You can really take it any direction you want to go."

It can be bittered with hops, sweetened with fruit and also aged in bourbon barrels, among the varieties readily found here.

Cellarmen's offers its Raspberry Melomel, with bright flavors made with fresh raspberries — fermented using the fruit's flesh, skins and seeds — resulting in a deliciously sweet and tart product that smells like flowers.

Schramm's, a Ferndale-based meadery, makes four of the world's top 10 meads, according to RateBeer.com. Schramm's Heart of Darkness ranks No. 1 and includes cherries, raspberries and black currants.

For something more oaky, Superior Lakes meadery in Harrison Township makes a Barrel Aged Mead that has flavors of cream and vanilla.

"This mead is perfect for the whiskey and craft-style beer lover or for anyone who loves an oaky Chardonnay," according to its description on Untappd, a social network.

Mead can be found at stores that sell a wide variety of craft beers, or at the places it's made.