"Brew unto others" is more than just a clever play on words for Middlebury’s Golden Rule Mead; it is a founding principle of respect for the land and the community. Golden Rule Mead, a meadery located at 8 Elm Street next to Fire & Ice, focuses on producing sustainable, thoughtfully curated meads and maple wine.
The business’ cozy tasting room feels more like somebody’s home — which it is — than a formal bar. With its squishy couches, resident cat, and lived-in ambience, it offers an intimacy that turns a simple tasting into a neighborhood hang.
“I’ve been running Golden Rule Mead for seven years now, basically seven years. I moved it to Middlebury six years ago, and I moved it to its current location March 1st of 2020,” Alexandre Apfel, the meadery’s founder, said.
Mead is one of the oldest known alcoholic beverages, made by fermenting honey with water, and is often referred to as “honey wine”.
Apfel brews his meads using Vermont-sourced honey, along with other fruits, herbs and spices from around the state. After years spent in the beer industry, he wanted to explore how local agriculture and produce could be more fully incorporated into beverages.
“There were a couple of meaderies, but orders of magnitude fewer than there are breweries, so I saw an opportunity not just to do something different and add to the conversation, but to be part of a local food system,” Apfel said.
He believes that mead provides the perfect opportunity to reflect Vermont's particular character. Apfel sources all of his honey from within the state and works almost exclusively with apiaries from the Champlain Valley, such as Champlain Valley Apiaries, Dancing Bee Gardens and New Haven beekeeper Kirk Webster.
“I like to work with smaller beekeepers, not just because I can make a difference for them for their operation, but also because I find that they aren’t moving their hives around… I prefer working with beekeepers who don’t do that, and are also applying minimal to no chemical treatments to their hives,” he explained.
Aside from mead, Apfel has also dabbled in making maple wine with limited success. Some batches turned out very well, while others were undrinkable, which was an issue he had never experienced before in his years within the beverage industry. After spending time diagnosing potential problems and slowly scaling up production, he hopes to have maple wine back on shelves by the holidays.
Jordan Henry ’26 attended a mead tasting with a couple of friends.
“I learned a lot about mead. I didn’t really know anything about mead before. It was a yummy, tasteful, fun, and informative experience,” Henry said.
After tasting seven different types of meads, she was able to identify a few favorites and purchased a bottle of Wild Light Mead.
“I really loved comparing all of the meads. There is a specific order that you drink them in. Once you finished a drink, [Apfel] would give you the next,” Henry added.
Apfel shared that a highlight of running Golden Rule Mead has been the community he has found along the way.
“I’ve met some really amazing, hardworking people, and pretty inspiring people through my work by connecting with the local beekeepers, orchardists… It’s amazing to see how driven and devoted and empowered a lot of these people are,” Apfel said.
As he’s navigated the challenges of being a small business owner, Afpel shared that he has spent time reflecting on why he chooses to curate and produce mead for the community.
“I’m glad to have come around to an answer that satisfies me, which is working within that local food system,” he explained.
Outside of his role as founder of the Golden Rule Mead, Apfel has started volunteering with Addison Country Relocalization Network (ACORN), which aims to improve food systems by empowering local farmers.
“I started working with ACORN in September and that has been my favorite thing, let me tell you, wow. What an amazing group of people to work with, I believe in the mission, and they’re great people, and there is so much good food through that space,” he said.
Open from 2 - 6 PM on Fridays and Saturdays, Golden Rule Mead offers tastings, glasses of mead, and bottles for sale. Patrons are invited to bring their own refillable containers with a capacity of up to 64 fl oz. Students who are 21+ should stop by to sample meads and spend a fun afternoon learning whilst sipping.
Katrina Schwarz '26 (she/her) is a Senior Local Editor.
Katrina has been a local editor for the three semesters, recently becoming the section's senior editor. She is a Psychology and Italian double major and was a marketing intern at Penguin Random House this past summer.
