By Glenn Rolfe

SEAFORD — If all goes according to plan, business will be brewing in Seaford this fall for Jon Talkington and Robert “J.R.” Walker Jr., co-owners of Brimming Horn Meadery.

Check that.

“We don’t make beer,” said Mr. Talkington. “We make meads. It’s not brewed. It is not like beer at all.”

Just a little over a week after celebrating their five-year anniversary in eastern Sussex County, Brimming Horn Meadery is expanding west, with plans to add a downtown Seaford location to its existing meadery business in Milton.

City council’s 5-0 approval Tuesday night finalized a three-year agreement for Brimming Horn to lease the city-owned 106 Spring Street property. The 3,000-square-foot block building will serve in a similar capacity to their current Lewes-Georgetown Highway property as a tasting room. Seaford will also be their main production facility serving both meadery locations.

With a Scandinavian branding twist, Brimming Horn is believed to be the first business of its kind in Seaford.

“For us to be able to be the first to come in, that was definitely a draw,” said Mr. Walker, who mostly handles the marketing side of the business. “We want to kind of ingratiate ourselves into the community and focus a lot into the community that we don’t really get to do where we are at. We’re kind of on the outskirts. Here we are in the heart of the city. We want to be part of that draw.”

City leaders welcome the addition of this experimental destination.

“We are super excited to welcome Brimming Horn Meadery to downtown Seaford,” said Seaford Mayor David Genshaw. “Their award-winning meads will be a draw for our entire area, having a positive economic impact for all. I want to thank everyone who was involved to make this happen, a true team effort.”

“They did a nice job courting us,” Mr. Walker said. “We decided it would be a great place to set up shop.”

“They have done a lot of work,” said Mr. Talkington, who resides in the Seaford area. “The downtown area is looking a lot better than it used to. I like Seaford. And there has never been a brewery or a winery over here.”

“We really wanted this to be that incubator space,” said Trisha Newcomer, city economic development director. “The city is working to retrofit that building.”

The two meadery entrepreneurs struck up a friendship while employed at Dogfish Head where Mr. Talkington was a head brewer for 15 years.

“We decided to make mead,” Mr. Talkington said. “It’s a mixture of honey, water and yeast. It goes through a fermentation. It’s more like wine. We have some meads that are beer-like that we add hops and different things to. But it’s more of a honey wine.”

“Mead is the oldest alcoholic beverage known to man. It goes back over 10,000 years. The Greeks, the Vikings, the Celts, the Egyptians all made mead,” said Mr. Talkington, who has won several international awards for mead-making. “We’ve been doing it for five years at our (Milton) business. It’s doing very well.”

Their mead options include sweet, dry and carbonated. Brimming Horn also makes cider and fruit wines and has its mobile Hammer and Horns food truck for events.

They hope to be in business around November of this year.

Councilman James King recognized the effort of Ms. Newcomer and city staff for the energy put into this. “It’s very exciting where the downtown is now versus where it was three or four years ago,” said Mr. King.