By Leah Deitz
Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines mead as a fermented beverage made of water, honey, and yeast. However, Hawk Knob Hard Cider and Mead Owners, Josh Bennett and Will Lewis, define it as something much larger than an alcoholic beverage. From crafting meads and ciders, to farming for sustainability, Hawk Knob is about incorporating traditions from a bygone era into a blueprint for the future.
West Virginia is in the midst of a craft brewery boom. Facilities such as Greenbrier Valley Brewing Company, here in Lewisburg, and Bridge Brew, of Fayetteville, are working hard to bring local flavor to the beer market throughout the state. Today new products are emerging, and Hawk Knob features a variety of meads and hard ciders, new options for those who want to keep their drink local.
“Mead is the oldest fermented alcohol drink in history,” Bennett explained. Mead is considered to be the ancestor of all fermented beverages and the earliest mention of hard cider goes back to 55 B.C. in Kent, England, when Roman invaders made note that the villagers were drinking fermented apples. The difference between the two comes down to one thing, apples. Hard cider is a fermented apple beverage and mead is made from honey.
Despite the sweet ingredients, do not expect a sugary drink from Hawk Knob. “We like drinking the dry stuff, and so that is what we are making,” Bennett said. According to Bennett and Lewis, their hard cider products are for craft beer drinkers and the mead is appealing for wine connoisseurs.
“We are going to have blueberry and elderberry mead,” Bennett said. “They are both very complex with room for a refined palate.” The cider products are wild fermented, bourbon-barrel aged, in a style typical to Appalachia. “This is cider like people would drink back in the 1800s.”
For both Bennett and Lewis, utilizing the traditional methods of products is part of the charm. “It comes down to every aspect of living,” Lewis explained. “It’s a style of farming and doing things. There are older ways of doing things that give us something to build on.”
Bennett agreed, “That is what we want to drive home,” he said. “It’s about values and a respect for a traditional way of doing things.”
Crafting beverages in an old fashioned way is both an advantage and a risk. “A lot of brewers are not aging their products in barrels because they are afraid of the variances,” Lewis said. “But we feel that is a good thing.” Each batch of Hawk Knob Hard Cider has its own distinct personality. “We want to let the apples do what they do season to season,” Lewis said. Both Lewis and Bennett are excited to use local fruit. They currently work with Morgan Orchard to get their apples, although they grow some on Bennett’s farm in Pocahontas County as well.
The resurgence in products such as mead and cider can have a big impact on the West Virginia farming communities. “All agriculture needs to move back to a regional system,” Bennett said, and Greenbrier, Pocahontas, and Monroe Counties are ideal farming regions due to the sun and rain ratio.
The dream of crafting mead and hard cider has been a long time in the making. The two met in college, where Lewis learned to make mead from a professor, and Bennett has a history of cider making that goes back generations. However, it wasn’t until Bennett purchased a farm in Pocahontas County that the two began to make the dream come true. “I saw a growing demand for cider,” Bennett said. The two came to the former Watts Roost Winery to purchase equipment but they ended up moving shop instead.”We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Frank and Barbara (Tuckwiller of Watts Roost),” Lewis said. The two decided that utilizing the existing space was going to work better than starting from scratch.
Hawk Knob Meads and Ciders will be available at stores and restaurants in the area. They are bottling their product locally and distributing throughout the Greenbrier Valley, Fayetteville, Morgantown, Charleston and other parts of the state. “We want to focus on having a regional product that is not typical of anything else on the market.”