Unpossible Mead
111 E Chippewa Street
Dwight, IL
UnpossibleMead.com

Saturday: 2-8 p.m.
Sunday: 1-5 p.m.

History in short: Brian Galbreath, admittedly “lazy by nature,” used to watch his friend brew beer and thought it “looked like a long process,” so he instead got into cider for a few months back in 2013.

“But the cider I was making needed work, so I read about meads and I thought: mostly just honey, water and yeast — that sounds like it’s for me.”

(Meads, if you’re unaware, are by definition an alcoholic liquor made of fermented honey and water, often with spices, fruit, malt, etc. added.)

So Galbreath started experimenting and made 12 different one-gallon batches of mead in 2014. “Hot trash,” is what he called his initial recipes, but he began learning about temperature control, reading up on different techniques and making progress. Serious progress. In fact, just a couple years later, in 2016, his dry cherry mead would win first place in the Mazer Cup International. 

Galbreath, who was previously a “job hopper” with gigs in everything from TV and teaching to tow boats and driving semi trucks, bought a building in the town of Dwight (about halfway between Joliet and Bloomington) in 2017 and opened his taproom in 2018.

Galbreath acknowledges that being able to sell his meads to breweries was instrumental for his growth, and he credits for the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild’s legal work in Springfield for that.

The space: Unpossible Mead’s industrial taproom is “built to look like an old tavern” with railroad rails as foot rests under the bar and tables that fold up into the wall like a Murphy bed. It’s very welcoming, too, with no TVs and an emphasis on enjoying each other’s company — and getting to appreciate meads.

Be on the lookout for the barrel-aged Tastes Like Toffee in bottles. They aged eucalyptus blossom honey in rye whiskey barrels from Few Spirits. The honey has natural notes of butterscotch and toffee, and the mead carries a buttery finish from the rye barrel.

Interesting notes: Open only on Saturdays and Sundays, most of Unpossible Mead’s patrons are from out of town, especially the central Illinois region or those passing through who’ve done their research beforehand. The distribution of his meads to retail stores and bottle shops — including a variety of regions like Lake County, Bloomington, Peoria, the Quad Cities and more — has been a significant factor in bringing foot traffic in.

He also credits the support of Lodi Tap House (Maple Park) and 7th Street Cidery (Springfield) when it comes to promoting his product early on. … Galbreath’s Bee to Zee won the Governor’s Cup Award in the Specialty Wine division in 2023.

What we’re eating and drinking: Danger Noodle is one of Galbreath’s favorite concoctions, in part because it actually has a vanilla bean in the bottle. It is, as he calls it, “almost a vanilla bomb… one stop short of being vanilla extract.” 

Fruited meads are all the rage, and at the forefront is his blueberry lemon mead called Mega Meme, which is the most popular option they have going and a multi award winner. He’s also done four different cheesecake mead variations, with the blueberry option generally taking the cake, so to speak.  

Be on the lookout for the barrel-aged Tastes Like Toffee in bottles. They aged eucalyptus blossom honey in rye whiskey barrels from Few Spirits in Evanston. The honey has natural notes of butterscotch and toffee, and the mead carries a buttery finish from the rye barrel. 

On draft in the taproom are also several rotating beers from Illinois breweries like Emancipation Brewing, Route 66 Old School Brewing and Black Lung Brewing Co.

On the horizon: Galbreath has some pepper meads on the calendar for early 2025. And a green tomato-lemon mead called Love Apple that launched around Thanksgiving. “We like playing with weird stuff,” Galbreath admits, “and it usually turns out well these days.”  

From the brewery: “Every year has been so different since our launch — between building our space, Covid and government shutdowns. We’ve had to pivot so many times and done some contract brewing for others, but we’re still standing and really growing now. I’m looking to expand back into cider soon and grow our footprint for self distribution, so keep an eye out.” 

Open only on Saturdays and Sundays, most of Unpossible Mead’s patrons are from out of town, especially the central Illinois region or those passing through who’ve done their research beforehand.