Mead Works Toasts One Year

DAYTON - Mace Mead Works is preparing for its one year anniversary on Saturday, Aug 18, with a ceremony fit for a wine lover of religious proportions and tentative plans to move to the Blue Mountain Station.

Owner and Operator Reg- gie Mace started making wine at Dunham Cellars in 2008 where he learned to hone his wine-making craft and these skills carried over into his mead-making.

Mace said he started looking for a building for his own wine bar in early 2010 and after eight months the space on Dayton's Main Street was done and ready for serv- ing. Having never owned a restaurant before, Mace and his wife and Office Manager Heather Mace, had to make a lot of changes to accommodate his clientele.

"We've changed the lay- out about five times," Mace said.

The official opening of Mace Mead Works in Dayton was in August of 2011 and this month on Aug 18, Mace and company will celebrate the business' success of the last year.

Mace has been making mead as a hobby for more than eight years.

"It's been a wild ride since," he said.

The business has attracted people from all over the com- munity and required a few shifts to make the company the best it could be.

"When we became the default wine bar in town, we decided to make it feel more like a wine bar," Mace said. "It was a constant game of change and adaptation."

Mace's biggest adaptation so far may be his potential move out to a second location in Dayton. Mace said he is considering teaming up with the Port of Columbia and making Mace Mead Works one of the businesses to help along with the Blue Mountain Station. Tentatively, he will be using the space as offsite cold storage making the bar more of a show cellar.

"This place has been my playground," Mace said.

Mace said he enjoys work- ing at the bar and meeting the variety of people in the com- munity.

"Being a bartender means you get to hear everyone's stories," Mace said. "You get to know the people and their histories."

The history of Mace Mead Works on the other hand lends itself to exciting new growth. Mace's mead will be going on sale across the area, which is good news for fans because during the first year of operation, Mace ran out of mead faster than he could make it. But he said they would have plenty to serve and more for sale soon.

At the anniversary party, there will be a tasting of the first batch of mead Mace ever created, now aged for one year. And the barrel the mead was in will be refilled with a new batch to be opened and consumed during the second anniversary party.

Mace's brother and Man- ager Taylor Mace said he was excited about the ritualistic refilling of the barrel. Mace agreed and said every patron for the evening will have the opportunity to ladle some of the new batch into the old barrel. That same barrel will be on display, ready for the signatures of everyone who helps finish it off.

"There are 200 bottles of 'batch zero,'" Taylor said. "It'll be a kind of religious ceremony."

On top of the one-year- old aged mead for local consumption, Mace said the mead cocktail archives will be brought out, bringing some favorites for guests to try for a limited time and in limited quantities. Mace said he soaked up his mead-mix- ing tricks from Jim German's cocktail mixing and the ar- chives will allow the staff and the guests to see which cocktails should come out of retirement and which ones should stay behind the bar.

Currently, Mace Mead Works has at least a dozen cocktails on the menu at any time. The drinks are seasonal and the archives will be a fun way to look back at the last year, Mead said.

Soon, Mace Mead Works will carry a wider range of appetizers, which Taylor said he is very excited about. The new items will include a baguette sandwich, a cheese plate and even chicken tacos.

"The cool and weird menu is (the change) I'm most ex- cited about," Taylor said.

Early in September, Mace Mead Works will be kick- ing off a concert schedule bringing artists from all over, including San Francisco and Portland, Ore.

Mace said they are trying to get a more formal concert schedule set up with the ultimate goal being a record- ing of the concerts to sell on vinyl.