The Colony Meadery Coming To Allentown

ALLENTOWN, PA— When Mike Manning and Greg Heller-LaBelle met at a beer tasting in 2012, they had no idea what it would lead to.

Mike was an accomplished homebrewer and home meadmaker who had won the Best in Show award at 2011’s Valhalla national mead competition. Greg was a beer blogger whose blog The Pour Curator focused on design and branding in the craft beer industry who had recently returned to the Lehigh Valley and had rebooted the Lehigh Valley Beer Society.

Neither knew about the other’s passion for mead, but the discussion quickly turned from beer to its older honey-based cousin. At the next tasting, Mike brought some of his award-winning lime and mint mead, Mo-Me-Doh.

“Since making my first batch of mead in college, I had wondered why its presence in the market wasn’t greater,” Greg said. “When I tried Mo-Me-Doh for the first time, I knew Mike had a gift.”

Greg then turned to his training in small business development, and put together a business plan that he pitched to an old friend of his from business school, Anthony Durante, who runs the manufacturing incubator program for Allentown Economic Development Corporation. At first, Durante was skeptical.

“I’d had some pretty bad meads before, so I wasn’t sure it could work,” Durante said. “But when I tried Mike’s, I knew this would succeed.”

After fourteen months of licensing, The Colony Meadery’s equipment arrived in October of 2013 and they celebrated their grand opening during Lehigh Valley Beer Week, with Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski assisting in the ribbon cutting.

“I want to welcome Greg and The Colony Meadery to Allentown.  As one of just three meaderies in the Commonwealth and the only one in the Lehigh Valley, there is no limit to their growth potential,” Pawlowski said.

Though Mike’s homebrewing and Greg’s blogging have definitely been curtailed with all the time devoted to their new venture, local mead and craft beer fans have been thrilled at the bold new products coming out of the old Mack Truck plant 4A.

The Colony Meadery has a dozen varieties currently in bottle and on draft. Their five flagships include Mo-Me-Doh and WOOFIEDOG, a mead generously hopped with Cascade and other pale ale hops. Their tasting room is open Fridays evenings 4-8 and Weekends 12-5. Starting this summer they will join Weyerbacher Wednesdays at the Easton Farmer’s Market.
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