1-21-20 Tonight at 9PM ET we're talking with Tony Qualls, owner of Manic Meadery and speaker at the 2020 MeadCon, where he'll be giving a seminar on Maximum Fruit: Big Berry Bombs and Other Melomels.
Tony is not just a meadery owner, he's also a musician. He toured in the band Groovatron for 12 years, doing over 1500 shows in 12 years (makes me tired just thinking about all that travel!).
Tony is a lifelong entrepreneur, having run a vinyl record company, painting company and a bunch of other businesses. Plus he's a skilled tradesman in welding and carpentry (that would help with build out!).
Tony has been married to his lovely wife Vanessa for 12 years, and they have two kids. Not to sit on his laurels, Tony plans to pursue law school and recording backlogs of musical material while running his meadery (getting tired again, lol). He likes to mountain bike and ride his motorcycle in his free time (he has free time?).
Tony co-founded Manic Meadery with Keith Cantwell in 2018 in Crown Point, Indiana. Manic is a small batch meadery, and they also do wine and cider. They've gotten a lot of interest in their sweet dessert meads using whole fruit and often multiple adjuncts. Tony is also a BJCP mead judge, and holder of Mazer Cup awards for both home and commercial mead. The plans for Manic in 2020 include increasing self distribution, expanding their production space, and organizing a mead-only festival, the Sugarbelt Mead Fest.
We're going to talk mead
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