Craft Also Means Consistency

The quest to find something new is at the heart of the craft industry. Customers and trade, alike, will go to lengths to uncover the new latest brew and have that rare opportunity to seize on on the latest trend. While there is always something new happening, it doesn’t mean things aren’t planned and scientific. Though there is this “experimental” vibe to craft, there comes a tipping point where creative decisions become business decisions. And this is where many craft brewers struggle - consistency.

For this conversation, we went to the source and spoke with Robin Kosoris, the OG alchemist. Robin had casually mentioned how the team makes decisions that help keep an all-natural, organic product consistent across 6 different meads, throughout the year. As expected, this is the biggest challenge the production team faces. Honey, for example, can be wildly different from region-to-region and season-to-season, and the same can be said for the fruit. And part of the success of any brand is meeting a customer’s expectations. The flavor they fell in love with must stay incredibly close, year-after-year.

Robin holds a simple philosophy: “To minimize the natural variation, we minimize the unnatural variation.” This thinking has led the meadery to focus, obsessively, on their ingredients. Eliminating chemicals, additives or anything else that can’t be identified, which can affect flavor in unexpected ways, and choosing, instead, the same all-natural ingredients from the same vendors, every time.

The positive happenstance of these decisions has been a wildly consistent product that is very consumer friendly: All-natural and locally sourced. Making good business decisions can be compatible with healthy, consumer-friendly products. They are not mutually exclusive ideas and, in our case, has been a foundation of the meadery.

All of this goes back to the challenge for craft. At some point, the experimentation has to meet a business goal which can be consistently repeated. Over time, these reliable labels come to make up 70-80% of a craft brewers work, allowing for explorations in the remaining time. But, like any business, true success comes from identifying what works, perfecting it and repeating that for as long as the consumer public enjoys it.

So, next time you lift a glass of Mangata or Bliss, think about the hard work that went into making that pour practically identical to every other pour. And enjoy!