Moonjoy Meadery

Moonjoy Meadery is a brewery in Lenoir, NC, that crafts small-batch, seasonal, artisanal meads using locally sourced honey. The meadery produces upwards of 30 different mead recipes each year, rotating its seasonal line so that the tasting room and wholesale offerings stay unique throughout the year. Current pours include Lushberg, a semi-dry mead at 16.5% ABV made with local scuppernong muscadines, lemons, and North Carolina wildflower honey, and Freya's Roses, a 15% ABV semi-sweet mead built on pomegranate, rose petals, and NC wildflower honey. The line also includes Bjornbaer, Aphrodite's Dowry, Amber Apple, and Vinland Bound, each paired with locally grown fruit. The tasting room is open Wednesday through Sunday, and the meads ship to 38 states through Vino Shipper. The meadery holds a rating of 5.00.

Moonjoy Meadery opened its doors in October 2020 in Historic Downtown Lenoir and is veteran and woman-owned by Daniel and Rebecca Phillips. The business grew out of Rebecca's mother Margaret, a home brewer who fermented mead a few times a year for special occasions, with Daniel eventually joining the craft before the couple launched the meadery. The name itself is a tribute to Margaret's practice of placing her carboys in the light of the full moon during fermentation. Every mead is made with no added sulfites or preservatives, is unfiltered, and is naturally gluten-free, and the meadery uses exclusively North Carolina honey while sourcing other ingredients from local farmers whenever possible. The business also partners with local beekeepers and contributes to events celebrating Lenoir.

The tasting room sits on West Ave NW within the Lenoir Downtown Historic District, just steps from the Caldwell County Office Plaza and Lenoir City Hall, with Main Street Northwest about a tenth of a mile away.

Customers have given Moonjoy Meadery a perfect rating on the strength of the meads themselves and the people behind them, reflecting a veteran- and woman-owned craft brewery that has made sustainability, local sourcing, and community partnership core to how it operates from its downtown Lenoir home.