Who Is Ancient Fire?

As we begin to ramp up the buzz around Ancient Fire Mead & Cider we thought we would take a moment to share more about who we are and what our mission is.

Founding Team 

Jason Phelps has nearly 15 years of fermentation experience and has experimented with the production of a vast range of beer, wine, cider and mead styles during this time. Jason has been and is regularly featured as a guest on several craft beverage related podcasts including GotMead Live and the Tap Handle Show. Jason is regularly contacted by hobbyists and commercial producers for feedback and advice on fermentation protocols and other beverage production topics.

Since beginning to enter amateur homebrew competitions in 2006 Jason’s creations have been awarded with 120 medals, and 50 of those have been for mead and cider in just the last 6 years alone!

Jason has also been a presenter at the annual WineMaker Magazine Conference three times, and has seen his writing and photography published by both WineMaker and Brew Your Own magazines several times.

Jason is a BJCP Certified Beer and Mead judge and is planning on attaining the same certification for cider in 2017 or 2018. In his role as a judge Jason has provided feedback on both amateur and commercial products at competitions all over the country including: the National Homebrewers Competition, the International Mazer Cup, the Northeast Regional Homebrew Competition, the WineMaker Magazine International Wine Competition as well as numerous other regional and local competitions.

Jason is a 25-year veteran of the technology industry having worked for or consulted with companies including CIGNA (now Prudential), Gillette (now P&G), Evergreen Solar, Fidelity Investments, Loomis Sayles, Pioneer Investments and most recently Amadeus Hospitality. Jason’s responsibilities have ranged from software engineering to customer support, including his current role as a team lead and Scrum master for small teams of software engineers. For a number of years Jason worked as an independent consultant, creating direct relationships with customers and helping them use software and technology to grow and succeed.

Margot Phelps is a Project Management, Process and Operations professional with over 20 years of experience in various industries. Margot has leveraged her Masters Degree in Organizational Leadership to work with companies to implement organizational change, improve communication and streamline processes in an array of business areas including product management, operations, sales, accounting, regulatory compliance and marketing. In her current role as a Product Owner for Amadeus Hospitality Margot is responsible for the product direction of vendor integration and cloud service products helping create the future of hospitality and travel worldwide.

Working alongside Jason, Margot has over 10 years of fermentation experience, and continues to learn about the craft beverage industry and the production of world class products. Margot continues to develop her sensory analysis and evaluation skills, and is working towards attaining BJCP Mead Judge Certification.

Over the last four years Margot has played an integral part in facilitating the administration of the Northeast Regional Homebrew Competition and has also acted as a steward and competition staff at a number of other local, regional and national homebrewing competition events.

Purpose, Values & Mission

The Ancient Fire team has a very simple purpose, to produce delicious and distinctive beverages that bring joy and happiness to our customers, and to have fun while doing it.

Along with this simple mission we have a set of values that further conceptualize the reasons Ancient Fire exists and will be successful.

• Craft world-class, distinctive and high quality beverages.
• Be committed to curiosity, creativity and experimentation in all that we do.
• Foster the education and experience of both team members and consumers. Be ambassadors for mead, cider and unique fermented beverages.
• Promotion of community and culture through the creation of authentic and meaningful relationships with vendors, consumers, industry peers and the community at-large. 
• Responsible social consumption.
• Continuous innovation and improvement of both products and services.
• Having fun and spreading joy.

Like so many stories, the story of Ancient Fire began with difficulty and challenge.

Ancient Fire was the name that the Margot and Jason associated with their home-brewed fermentations over a decade ago. The genesis of their homebrewing hobby was an experience with cancer (Jason, 2003) and a resulting desire to take a different path in life. With a newfound appreciation for life and all of its little moments, Margot and Jason quickly developed expertise for producing high-quality beers, wines, meads and ciders. As the passion grew it became clear that sharing their creations with others created substantial joy, and in those moments where family and friends raised glasses in celebration it was clear that something special had been born. Over the ensuing years Margot and Jason were honored more than 100 awards for their creations, further fermenting (pun intended) the significance of their still extensive homebrew projects.

The name Ancient Fire is a reference to the sun and was taken from a line in the IMAX movie Seasons. In the segment of the movie from which this phrase is drawn the theme is of celebration, including celebrating the bounty of the Earth, the seasons which drive food production, and the many cultural customs humans have for celebrating the life giving force of the sun. To Margot and Jason the name Ancient Fire seemed fitting to represent the joy and celebration that had been found through their distinctive fermentations, all of which are agricultural products and would not be possible without the sun.

Commercializing these creations is the next step in spreading this joy and celebration with the hope that the Ancient Fire team can inspire everyone to fully and completely enjoy their own lives and everything they bring.

So that is who we are and what is driving us. We are embarking on an exciting journey and we hope you will join us!

Cheers!

Margot & Jason

All The Buzz About Ancient Fire Mead & Cider

Behind the scenes activity for Ancient Fire has been brisk recently. There are a few different activities in flight including, business planning, the search for a location, a marketing ramp up and of course lots of pilot batch work.

Our business planning efforts have been the biggest focus, and the exercise of putting together a rational plan has already paid off, even if the plan isn't yet complete. It is amazing how much you learn about what you are trying to do when you sit down to document the process. ;)

We haven't found a location yet, but the hunt is on. In Londonderry and Derry New Hampshire where we live there is a vibrant community of craft beverage producers, and ideally we would like to be sited right in with them. We have looked at potential locations in both Derry and Manchester, with more to investigate this week and next. Once we secure a location we can take a big step in filing our paperwork with the TTB.

Marketing to build brand awareness will be a persistent activity. Our new logo (at the top) is being circulated and the feedback has been both interesting and useful. There may be some enhancements coming, but for now we are going with it because we believe it is largely there. I think one of the biggest things to keep in mind is that it is your brand, that the best brands use the imagery that works for them, and they always assume up front that engaging people to tell the story so that the brand resonates, and better over time, is how you build a successful brand around your graphics. We will be starting to work on a web site, but for now updates and engagement are available at the Ancient Fire Mead & Cider Facebook page. Give us a Like to keep up to date on our journey!

( Release night for 'Fear of a Black Braggot' at Lithermans Limited )

Marketing ourselves before we open is challenging since we can't make product to share and sell. A few weeks back we partnered with Lithermans Limited Brewery in Concord, NH to make a braggot, a style of mead/beer hybrid, and released it from their tasting room. We based the braggot on the Lithermans Tangled up in Bruges, a saison, to which we added wildflower honey, blackberries and black pepper. We named it "Fear of a Black Braggot", and it had plenty of flav and game. On release night Margot and I spent time in the tasting room talking to patrons about beer, mead and our plans for Ancient Fire. It was fun and so worthwhile to help people get to know who we are, as well as build excitement for our launch in 2017. And the feedback on the braggot was exceptional!

( Prepping some ingredients for 'Pumpkin Spice Girls' )

Pilot batch and recipe development work is definitely a big focus for me right now. While I've got dozens of recipes from 10+ years of mead and cider-making kicking around, I am shifting around the style and presentation of some of them to go commercial so I need to make a lot of batches to work out some details before I need to do it at scale. We bought two used 7 barrel fermenters last week, so at least I know how big my next leap is going to be. ;) We will be working in 10-15 gallon formats starting next month when we get a sizable amount of cider from a local farm.

Our session meads, the term session for mead meaning 5-8% ABV, have been received very well and ongoing recipe development is slowly honing in on a lineup that will be worthy of a launch. I am also pursuing ideas for hoppy and sour offerings for this product line. We are hoping to sell lots of flights and growlers of these meads in a rotating lineup to be keeping people coming back to the tasting room, which we will be calling the "Meading Room".

On the dessert mead side we have been experiment with all sorts of flavors including revisiting work with chili peppers that has been a consistent favorite. Maple syrup, vanilla, coffee and chocolate are all getting a workout these days. Fruit meads made earlier this year are tasting very well, and should be fun to get feedback on. A new project I did on a dare is a pumpkin spice mead named "Pumpkin Spice Girls". It is coming along nicely and having tried some pumpkin infused ciders recently I can definitely see why if it is done right squash flavored beverages are quite enjoyable. Gotta use real pumpkin though.

All of the pilot work is leading to a round of tastings with family, friends, brew club and co-workers to solicit feedback. This feedback will be useful to help us further profile people's tastes, but also gauge what products might experience less friction to sell and the value people attach to the products and their quality.

So that's the current buzz (bee jokes, yes!) about Ancient Fire.

Cheers!

Jason