8-15-23 Ben Chaney – Scale and Feather Meadery

8-15-23 Tonight we're talking with Ben Chaney, owner of Scale and Feather Meadery in Avondale, Arizona.

Scale & Feather is a small meadery run by three friends, Ben and Tamara Chaney are high school sweethearts who are going strong with 25 years together. Amber DeGiso is a graphic design specialist–creates cool labels and logos. They specialize in using local ingredients to produce their products. Chaney and one of the other founders, Matt Cross, took a class at UC Davis to learn more about honey wine. Their first foray into the mead business was making it for friends’ weddings.

Decorated like an ancient mead hall complete with a flickering chandelier, the tasting room’s theme is reminiscent of Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. Chaney says a highlight of the space is a dragon head with glowing eyes that’s poised above the bar. Scale & Feather is also located next to a Nintendo-themed brewery called 8-Bit Aleworks.

Ben has been making mead at home since 2011, and inspired by friends living their dreams, He decided that it was time to play with the big boys and, along with his wife and friend, opened Scale and Feather Meadery in 2019. A Native Arizonan, Ben graduated from Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Science in Marketing degree and has over 18 years of advertising, marketing, and event management experience. Ben completed the UC Davis Advanced Mead Making and Business of Mead Making course and won a silver medal from the Arizona Society of Homebrewers before going pro. Scale & Feather Meadery has received bronze medals from the National Honey Board in 2021 and Texas Mead Cup in 2022. Spicy meads started in 2019 and have since become a focus point for sales as in Arizona sweet and spicy seem to be a winning combination.

Join us to see what Ben, Tamara and Amber are up to and talk mead!

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Upcoming Shows

August 29 - Kent Slaymaker at Slaymaker Cellars
September 12 - Don Miller at Texas Rivers Distilling Company
September 26 - Ali Fox at Dragon Meadery
October 10 - Brian Galbreath at Unpossible Meadery

Show links and notes

Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff
The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff
Let There Be Session Meads by Rob Ratliff

Upcoming Events

Aug 17 - MeadKrieger - Old Norse Mead, Loveland, CO - Free Trivia by Geeks Who Drink
Aug 17 - Elgin Meadery, Elgin, TX - Beekeeper 'Mead" Up
Aug 18 - Leonard Oakes Estate Winery,  Medina, NY - Mulberry mead release
Aug 19 - Arthurdale Heritage, Arthurdale, WV - Mead Workshop and Tasting
Aug 19 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Honey 5k Fun Run
Aug 20 - Wyrd Leather and Mead, Portland, OR - Mead and Magic Saturday
Aug 25 - Good Omen Mead, Escondido, CA - Latin Night (Salso, Bachata, Cumbia)
Aug 26 - World of Beer, Melbourne, FL - Cider and Mead showcase
Aug 26 - B. Nektar, Ferndale, MI - Italian Honey and Mead Pairing by Bees in the D at B...