Thomas Croskrey stands over a small kettle as he simmers two-and-half gallons of honey. He checks the viscosity with a long spoon. Suddenly, he darts across the brewing room and bounds up a step ladder to check on a bigger kettle, making sure the boil is just right — a proper roil, but not so violent that it bubbles over the top. The room is bright, and an open back door lets in a breeze that gently swirls soft perfumes of honey and hops, while Croskrey does what he does best: creates.
Croskrey is the head brewer and founder of Emrys Beer & Mead Works, a project that's been in the works since 2015 and is finally celebrating its grand opening in Liberty Lake this June. Emrys means "immortal" in Welsh, which fits Croskrey's undying enthusiasm to bring the meadery to life, but also his modern-historical fusion concept that resurrects an ancient drink for contemporary palates.
Mead, an alcoholic beverage made from fermented honey, is currently the oldest fermented drink on historical record.
"Mead is so wildly different from other alcoholic beverages," Croskrey says. "It's the only one not made out of plants. It is made out of an animal product."
When Croskrey helped open Bellwether Brewing with Dave Musser in 2015, he wanted to include mead in their taproom. But they soon found out that mead required a different license than beer and was going to be difficult to get. After he and Musser amicably parted ways in 2019, Croskrey set out to build his own brewery-meadery combo. He set his sights on a spot in Liberty Lake's Riverstone District by the end of that year and set a target opening date for September 2020.
COVID, however, had other plans.
"What I lacked in fortune-telling, I made up for in stubbornness," Croskrey says.
There were days he felt no forward momentum. But Croskrey started brainstorming anyway, tapping local chef Travis Dickinson to help finalize Emrys' food menu. Croskrey originally planned to offer smashburgers, but after hosting a few pairing dinners at Dickinson's Cochinito Taqueria, the team dreamed up a "peasant food" concept that would riff off historical meals to compliment the ancient mead.
After the restaurant world went topsy-turvey and Croskrey got new, post-pandemic cost analyses, he returned to the original smashburger plan. Guests can nosh on a single, double, triple or quad smashburger ($12-$22), or a frankfurter topped with bacon, onion-pickle marmalade and sauerkraut ($13), or a veggie smashburger with grilled mushroom, hummus, havarti and hot honey ($12). Oh, and don't skip the pickle fries ($5/small, $8/large).
But a few snacks do nod to distant history. Emrys offers griddled bakestones, a traditional Welsh sweetbread from the 1800s. At Emrys, they're stuffed with rosemary and currants and served with either jam and whipped cream or cheddar and hot honey ($6/two, $10/four).
Yet most of the honey on hand will always be reserved for Croskrey's mead. After he started learning to brew beer, mead was the next logical step for Croskrey, whose background blends farming and animal husbandry.
"I come from some strong ranching in Montana, so just growing and farming and ranching in general was really fascinating and exciting to me," he says. "It included learning about fruit, and then I learned about pollination, and I learned about bees. Also, I really, really like history. I like knowing where we came from so that we know where we're going. Mead is extremely historical."
It also scratched a creative itch for Croskrey, who dropped his career as a rock violinist to settle into family and business life.
"I find mead to be the most versatile," he says. "It can be infused with fruit, botanicals, any old thing you want. It can be low ABV, high ABV, carbonated, still, blended, barrel aged."
New meads are rolling out as Emrys works through its soft opening. So far, Haze of Annwn has hit the taps, a botanical mead with hops, juniper berries and catnip, as well as a mead seltzer called Return to Innocence. Croskrey has been teasing his social media with pictures of forthcoming lilac-infused mead.
There are also plenty of options for dedicated beer drinkers. Some are collaborations with the Grain Shed, but a pilot series of the first beers made onsite are also available. Pilot Series #2, for example, is a Norwegian farmhouse and Northwest pale ale fusion, while Pilot Series #3 is a rare herbal pale ale with rosemary and lemongrass.
In his quest to create ancient food and drink, Croskrey has gotten more in touch with the environment and ecosystems around him today. His brewing requires about 20,000 pounds of honey a year, which is far more than any local apiaries can supply him. He sources as much honey from Washington beekeepers as possible, and tries to reduce shipping material and fuel costs when he does need to import honey from Californian or Hawaiian hives.
In a time when many consumers and environmentalists are worried about dwindling populations of honeybees and trying to "Save the Bees," Croskrey wants to take a step back to think about the larger ecosystem being affected.
"I've probably got a slightly different opinion than some people on this," he says. "And it's partly because [honeybees] are an agricultural animal. They're not native to our area ... they sometimes displace bumblebees and other native species. Sometimes honeybees can act like an invasive species," he continues. "So I'm very much in favor of saving and protecting bees. But I do try to focus a lot on the native pollinators, butterflies and moths and ants, even bats."
Not only does Croskrey want to preserve the history and tradition of mead for the next generations, he wants to make sure the environment that supplies the honey, herbs and hops to do so is healthy for those generations, too. He'll never claim to be able to tell the future, but he'll put his stubbornness toward creating a better one. ♦
Emrys Beer & Mead Works • 21850 E. Wellington Pkwy., Liberty Lake • Open Mon, Wed and Thu 11 am-9 pm, Fri-Sat 11 am-10 pm, Sun 11 am-8 pm • facebook.com/EmrysFermentations • 509-505-4519
