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Help Rebuild Upper Reach Meadery

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Adam & Erin Crockett have been like family to me for over 10 years.  I've seen Adam and Erin work tirelessly to bring their dream of owning a meadery to fruition the entire time I have known them. When they moved back to Pennsylvania, they began to turn their dream into a reality and had finally gotten to the point where they were producing enough mead to really sustain their family as well as their employees through the business that they hold so dear.  This past week, their business was devastated by a once in a lifetime flood.  


Their insurance company WILL NOT COVER ANY OF THE DAMAGE. 


They have lost almost everything, including but not limited to:


Tanks (some crushed) 
Lab equipment
Production supplies 
Electronics 
Barrels 

They have lost all of their years worth of aged stock, their entire barrel aging program and a new project that totaled over $10k in materials. 

The only high abv stock they have left is at their pop-up shop in Phoenixville, which if sold will still not even cover any of these replacement expenses.

They will be unable to participate in their yearly competitions, which is hard because they strive to make award-winning mead, and have some beautiful projects that are gone forever. 

Weekend Water batches in progress through their contract partner have survived, but they have lost all back up packaged inventory as well as packaging stock like labels, bottles, equipment, etc. 

They also just received a new bottle filler machine that was delivered last week. This new equipment is now underwater. 

This devastating loss of time, liquid, and materials -with no immediate relief or coverage - has left them with next to nothing to rebuild. 

EVERYTHING WILL NEED TO BE REPLACED!

As they clean up, and rectify what (if anything) is salvageable, they will be moving to their Phoenixville production space, in a continued effort for independence as a brand. 

Online sales, which are a large way of bringing in revenue to the business are suspended until they can gather supplies to restart the program. This leaves them with only one revenue stream, distribution through our wholesaler Nevulis Beverage, which is the lowest margin driver of a small beverage producer.

They will need to replace: 

Honey
Equipment (which is behind schedule industry wide due to covid)
Packaging materials 
Labels 
All back stock
Lab equipment 
Testing equipment 
Production supplies
Basically everything in a working winery/meadery. 

The past almost two years has been an uphill battle. There have been a lot of setbacks, but they were finally showing great results and were moving forward with buildout and licensing of their independent production facility.

Between the pandemic, rebranding the entire company, working with shipments and materials delays, and building infrastructure this blow has the ability to shut down all of their hard work. 

From the owner himself Adam Crockett:

I wanted to give an update to everyone about the status of Upper Reach’s production space. First I want to thank everyone who has reached out, I have never felt such love and sadness at the same time. On Wednesday September 1st around 6:15 pm flash flood waters from Hurricane Ida flooded our production area in minutes. Over 1 millions gallons of water filled the 16,000 square feet in under 15 minutes that our production space was in. All of our meads in production, aging, and bottled in this space where lost along with our equipment, honey, and anything else we had down there. We are hoping that we can save a few fermentors but everything else is destroyed.


Upper Reach has been an extension of me for the last 6 years. It has been my passion project and I put everything I had into it. When we as a company won awards, it was hard to top that feeling. When the company was dealt a bad hand, I felt it. This last event is the hardest blow we have ever received, and our insurance not covering the damages is the hardest hit i've had to take to date. 


If you have had any of our meads over the last 6 years, you have shared a big part of my life. You have shared in the joy that making mead has brought me, and I cannot thank you enough for that. If you have any of our meads left, let's enjoy them together.  There are not many bottles left as 95% of them were lost in this storm. Please raise a glass for my team, for our hard work, and for all we have accomplished. Raise that glass as we try and figure out how we move forward and start over, but most importantly, enjoy the mead. 


I love you all and hope to see you on the other side

—-Adam”


Please help us save this family owned business so they can move forward to provide for their 2 daughters, their employees and their mead lover supporters! 


Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

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Donations 

  • Anonymous
    • $25
    • 3 yrs
  • Manic Meadery
    • $8,027
    • 3 yrs
  • Mead Geek Society
    • $604
    • 3 yrs
  • Michael Napolitano
    • $250
    • 3 yrs
  • Hayli Marquiss
    • $200
    • 3 yrs
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Fundraising team (2)

Phil Ebel
Organizer
Perkasie, PA
Brandalynn Armstrong
Beneficiary
Brandalynn Armstrong
Team member

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