Last night I heard some rumblings that B. Nektar Meadery will start making their way to Eastern Iowa shelves and even possible showing up at Benz Beer Fest today! B. Nektar is located in Ferndale, MI and is known for making some of the most award-winning meads and ciders in the country. Their Zombie Killer is one of the most highly regarded ciders in the country. They have a huge lineup of ciders, meads, and they also brew beer. Fingers crossed that this rumor is proven to be true! Here’s more on B. Nektar:
Guided by geeky imagination, influenced by sub-pop culture and never satisfied with the status quo, B. Nektar aims to bring a modern twist on mead as well as diversify craft mead, cider and beer.
B. Nektar Meadery was founded in 2006 by Brad and Kerri Dahlhofer, with the help of their good friend Paul Zimmerman. Brad has been an avid homebrewer since 1998, making beers, meads, ciders and wine for his own enjoyment. When Brad and Kerri got married in 2005, he made a mead to toast with at their wedding and received great reviews from the guests. Jokingly, he said that he’d someday open a meadery. Paul, a long-time friend and fellow homebrewer, soon began making meads along with Brad in the Dahlhofers’ basement. Their meads quickly began winning awards at homebrewing competitions
In the summer of 2006, Kerri was laid-off from her job. While sipping a glass of vanilla cinnamon mead made by Brad, she thought, “Why not try to sell this?” It was then that the three decided to take their mead making to the next level. In the spring of 2008, Brad too fell victim to layoffs, and the three worked night and day to prepare for their opening. After nearly two years since its inception, B. Nektar finally opened it’s doors on August 2, 2008 (National Mead Day).
B. Nektar’s session meads and hard ciders are now shaping the craft revolution. To say it’s been a long road from the home-brewing days would be a tremendous understatement but B. Nektar continues to increase their production capacity and is currently the largest meadery in the U.S.A.
B. Nektar was the first meadery to join the ranks on the top 100 best breweries in the world by Ratebeer.com, and has remained there since 2013.
This hasn’t been confirmed yet so stay tuned for more info. Please take a look at B. Nektar’s site for a list of the meads and ciders. Safe to say, this would be a huge “get” for Iowa! Exciting news folks!
Cedar Rapids Beer Week is right around the corner and one place that will focus on the local breweries during that week is Mount Vernon Road Hy-Vee. Below is a list of brewery spotlights that the store will focus on. During the week of May 6th-14th there will be many beer happenings around CR. Check out Go Cedar Rapids to follow all of the goings on by clicking 
Nothing beats a nice summer day sitting in the seats at a baseball game, sipping on a cold brew and scarfing on a hot dog.
CRAFT BEER
**Behind section 103 you will find the Millstream Brewery Shack. They feature 4 beers from Millstream Brewery in Amana;
An excellent piece of news to start the holiday weekend as Abu Nawas Beverage has announced that they will be distributing Mikkeller San Diego to the Iowa Market. The news comes from Abu Nawas’ own Frederique Boudouani:
A couple of big events featuring Big Grove Brewery and taking place at John’s Grocery and Blackstone Restaurant in Iowa City.
Big Grove Brewery in Solon will be having a special cask tapping along with a 3-course pairing coming up this Friday in Solon. First thing, the beer. They will be tapping a cask of Que Sera with charred grapefruit, smoked sea salt, and roasted coriander. Along with this wonderfully refreshing sounding beer will be a paired 3 course meal. The meal will consist of:
A list of exciting releases are coming from the folks at Big Grove. Both the Brewpub in Solon and the Brewery and Taproom in Iowa City have a nice array of brews coming to those locations. Que the music, let’s break it down: