Today we’d like to introduce you to Lilly Weichberger.
Hi Lilly, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Oran Mór is a small-batch Artisan Meadery with Tasting Rooms in the Sellwood Neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. We are dedicated to hand-crafting a delicious variety of Meads inspired by Ancient traditions and drawing from the abundance of the land. Each of our Meads is a blend of local and varietal honeys, fermented, aged, and blended to perfection with local seasonal fruit, herbs, and spices.
Oran Mor balances art, craft, history, and modern fermentation techniques to bring a new spin to the most ancient of beverages. Established in 2015, Internationally Award Winning Oran Mor combines fresh Umpqua Valley and Pacific Northwest Fruit with Apiary Direct Local and Varietal Honeys to create unique and delicious libations that will challenge you to redefine everything you think you know about Meads and Honey Wines.
Our CEO and Mazer (Head Mead Maker), Lilly is the passion and artistry behind Oran Mor Artisan Mead. With 20 years of brewing experience, studies in Viticulture and Enology, and a love of pushing boundaries, she brings together a fusion of art, craft, and science, to make each batch of Mead as unique and perfect as possible.
She has worked on numerous projects both Nationally and abroad in the Mead industry, including helping launch a Meadery in Wales, consulting and providing custom crush for several other Oregon Meaderies, and teaching as instructor for the UC Davis Mead Program.
We started our Meadery in 2015 in Roseburg OR, and in 2025 opened our first Portland location in Sellwood. Our Sellwood location is Fey inspired speakeasy style tasting room tucked behind Sellwood Union on 13th Ave, where we hosting tastings, a delicious menu and live music weekly. We are currently in the process of moving our whole production to the Portland area.
Oran Mór is a woman and minority owned and run business.
Besides our tasting room, we do wholesale and vend on average 60-75 festivals a year, including Renaissance Faires, Celtic Highland Games and others.
Oran Mór means the “Great Song: or “Harmony of the Universe ” in Gaelic. As such we host a wide variety of musicians and artists weekly in our tasting room.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Mead has been the redheaded step child of the alcohol industry, as such a large part of what we do is education. Even though mead is the world’s oldest alcoholic beverage, with every 40k years of history ( compared to 8k for wine and beer), it has largely fallen off of the awareness of the general public until the last 15yrs, where it’s seen some resurgence in popularity.
Luckily being a very unique beverage has set us in the position to help us traverse some of the challenges of especially the last 2 years, with the downturn in the alcohol industry as a whole. To meet the changes in public alcohol consumption, we have started offering Shrubs also known as oxymels , which are non-alcoholic version of mead in our tasting room as well.
It’s also been challenging shifting from Roseburg to Portland, and essentially building a tasting room from the ground up again, Luckily we have a loyal following and community that has embraced us with open arms.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Mead has long been either not well known, or not well received in modern times. A lot of modern Meads are either cloyingly sweet, or bone dry and bitter. Lilly had her first experiences of mead while living in the UK, and was not impressed with what she experienced when she returned home. So she started home brewing in the hopes of making something better, which ultimately led to going back to school for Enology.
Her goal has been to change people’s experience of mead and create well balanced Meads that are approachable, easy to drink ,pair well with food and are the quality of fine wines.
Her processes have been developed to incorporate both inspiration from the past combined with modern fermentation techniques to create Meads that are off dry to medium sweetness and speaks to a wide variety of pallettes. Her goal has been to “bring Mead out of the Dark Ages.”
Her collaboration with the UC Davis mead program has allowed her to meet and learn with mead makers from around the world. She has taught classes ranging from history of mead and yeast choice to flaws analysis.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Creativity, and the ability to pivot with changes and challenges in the industry and the world around us. From covid to the current economic challenges.
Most importantly, creating community, collaborations, and connections have helped us weather more than a few storms.
Pricing:
- Tasting flights are $14 in the Tasting room. 1/2 off if you mention this article.
- Bottles range from $32 to $55
- Food ranges from $10-$28
Contact Info:
- Website: Https://OranMorMead.com
- Instagram: https://Instagram.com/OranMorMead
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/OranMorMead
