When Garagiste Meadery owner Chad Wiltz announced the meadery’s impending closure, he cited the main reason as rent increases. When the meadery closed its doors in June 2024, it was not because of a lack of interest.
Press Release:
Crafted Artisan Meadery® today announced the release of Criminal KLP. This collaboration mead was developed with Tampa, Florida-based Cigar City Cider and Mead, a sister company of Cigar City Brewing. It will be available at Crafted’s tap room in Mogadore, Ohio, Cigar City Cider and Mead’s tasting room in Ybor City and also released for limited distribution.
Jared Gilbert, head mead maker for Cigar City, flew to Akron to work alongside Kent Waldeck of Crafted and his team. The recipe, a key lime pie inspired mead, was developed in the months leading up to the visit. Aiming to replicate the graham cracker crust and lime notes the mead was infused with over 400lbs of graham cracker, pecan, lime zest and key lime juice.
“Working on a collaboration like this is simply just an awesome way to learn from each other while at the same time producing something that is out of this world great,” said Crafted Owner Kent Waldeck. “The team at Cigar City is fantastic and we made some great friends along the way as well”, Waldeck continued. Justin Clark, Co-Founder of Cigar City Cider and Mead added, “I had some Crafted meads before I got to meet Kent, but after getting to hang out with him at Cajun Cafe’s Cider and Mead Fest I knew we could make something really cool together. It was really exciting for us to have Jared up to Ohio to work with Crafted, such a respected Meadery”.
Criminal KLP will only be available in Ohio, Florida, Indiana, Texas and Chicago.
To learn more about Crafted Artisan Meadery visit www.craftedmead.com and to learn more about Cigar City Cider and Mead visit www.cigarcitycider.com.
About Crafted Artisan Meadery
Crafted Artisan Meadery opened in June, 2012. Distributed in multiple states, and through their tasting room in rural Northeast Ohio, Crafted focuses on educating its customers on the history and future of Mead as well as the importance of honey bees and local ingredients. Through consistently exploring innovative styles Crafted Artisan Meadery brings fresh, new mead experiences to their customers.
About Cigar City Cider and Mead
Cigar City Cider & Mead opened its doors in late 2014. Since then we have produced countless cider and meads, with most of our offerings exclusive to our tasting room. We recently started canning our Hard Cider and look to expand our canned and bottled lineup soon. Whether you’re a mead or cider enthusiast already or looking to expand your palette beyond beer, we want to offer our customers a diverse selection of ciders and meads brewed with Florida grown ingredients and always 100% natural in the heart of historic Ybor City.
While Wednesday was the kickoff for South Florida’s funky bunch, Funky Buddha Brewery, Cigar City Cider and Mead has one more event for Tampa Bay Beer Week, a tapping of several new and interesting cider treatments.
From Cigar City Cider and Mead:
Friday, 3/13 we will be doing a monster cider release/growler fill day featuring 7 special ciders treatments – Dry Hop Fight the Power, Congressional Breakfast, Dry Hop Mango V2, Peach Coconut, Start Fruit Habanero, Little Texas, Peach Habanero.
Cigar City Cider and Mead is located at 1812 North 15th Street in historic Ybor City.
While Florida’s craft breweries seem to be forever growing in number, counting the ranks of Florida’s mead producers and Florida’s cider makers would not event require the use of one’s toes. While few are looking to join the ranks of Florida’s honey wine and apple beverage makers, the crew of Cigar City Brewing has added another business to the family: Cigar City Cider and Mead.
Cigar City Cider and Mead has already been in production for a while- the cider was previously contracted out, but with the opening of the new facility and tasting room in Ybor City, the company has now taken direct control over production and the experimentation that Cigar City is known for. Every beverage from the fledgling company is made in Ybor City with employees working every day to keep up with demand, one 200-gallon batch at a time.
The exterior of Cigar City Cider and Mead’s new home in Ybor City.
The head of creativity at the cidery and meadery is Jared Gilbert, a winemaker whose vision for Cigar City Cider and Mead is one of both balance and experimentation. The goal with this new company and new home is to “bring enlightenment to the market, especially when it comes to meads.” Gilbert says that he believe balance is the key to both beverages and that the ideal is “not too sweet” and “not too dry” and he wants to bring these drinks to the forefront of the industry. Cigar City owner Joey Redner has long valued meads not only as unique drinks, but as the only alcoholic beverages that can be produced solely with native Floridian ingredients. Gilbert agrees with this vision and he wants to make meads with indigenous avocado honey and mangrove honey as well as expanding into a barrel program for barrel aging meads and ciders.
As of its opening, the new Cigar City Cider and Mead tasting room and production house has showcased some of Gilbert’s creations and pop culture knowledge with a spectrum of ciders like “There’s Always Money in the Banana Stand” banana cider, a strawberry banana cider, a dry-hopped mango cider, and a black currant cider along with a vanilla mead, a blackberry sourwood mead, and a strawberry shortcake demi-sec.
Cigar City Cider and Mead lives in a building that has already made history as one of Tampa Bay’s first brewpubs- 1812 North 15th Street in Ybor City first housed the Tampa Bay Brewing Company in its youth.
Since this cider and mead facility actually exists within the boundaries of Ybor City and in keeping with the Cigar City sense of humor, rumor has it that Redner and crew will erect a sister sign to the one that stands in front of the brewery reading “In Ybor Since 2014” (the sign in front of the brewery is a testament to the confusion many folks exhibit when they mistakenly believe that the Cigar City Brewing is housed in Ybor City, it reads “Not in Ybor Since 2009”).
Cigar City Cider and Mead’s talking heads, from left to right: Winemaker Jared Gilbert, Rep. Todd Strauss, Owner Joey Redner, and Vice President Justin Clark
From the group collaboration that brought Ghost Stories Braggot to Tampa Bay, Brad Dahlofer and Jeff Marshall from B. Nektar Meadery and Todd Strauss from Cigar City Cider and Mead are collaborating on a sour cider.
From B. Nektar’s Facebook page:
Brad and Jeff from B. Nektar are mixing up some sourly delicious cider with Todd Strauss from Cigar City Cider and Mead. Cigar City Brewing. More on that later.
Recently Cigar City Cider and Mead teased a photo of the hearing notice outside of their new home in Ybor City. As the cidery and meadery continues to grow, the company announced that they had moved their tanks from Keel and Curley Winery last week, and now CCC&M has released some more photos of their future hive.
About the new facility:
*CCC&M’s new facility is located in Ybor City.
*CCC&M’s new place will house the same system that was used to make all of their ciders in the past, and that system was set up last week.
Exterior of new facility.
Interior work being done on the new Cigar City Cider and Mead facility.
Interior work being done on Cigar City Cider and Mead’s new Hive.
Cigar City Cider and Mead has caused waves since announcing that they will be getting a building of their own and a new home. After being hosted by Keel and Curley Winery since their inception, the cidery and meadery will be moving to the Ybor City Historic District, according to the location finder on a recent Facebook Post.
All the post said was “Vibes and Stuff,” but a City Council Hearing will take place on 23 January 2014 and more information should be forthcoming.
Cigar City Cider and Mead’s new Public Notice: the first step to a new facility!