Uncategorized

It is widely thought that mead is the oldest of the fermented beverages that mankind cultivated. While we have no records of it, as its use predates written history, the discovery of mead could have happened quite by accident. Due to the relative simplicity of mead, being just honey, water and yeast, a fallen log containing a beehive that had collected some rainwater could easily have started a fermentation. Any wandering hunter-gatherers drinking from this source would have experience the first intoxication in human history. Early cave paintings show the collection of honey from hives. Archaeologists have found traces of honey and indications of fermentation in Chinese pottery dating back to 7000 BCE. However, we don’t have a written recipe appear until roughly 60 CE.

As the mechanics of fermentation were not well understood until as late as the mid 1800s, the attempts to replicate these processes relied upon a lot of luck and guess work. This lead the art of mead making to take on a very mystical and eventually religious narrative.

The Magic of Mead

Both the Greeks, and the Norse held mead (or as the Greeks’ called it Ambrosia) of great import in their culture. Each attributed the creation of the drink to a divine act, and was not originally meant for mankind to possess. Check out the Mead of Poetry for the Norse’s myths. One depiction of the myth of Tantalus involves him stealing ambrosia from the gods in order to bring it back for mortal consumption. His punishment for doing so was an eternity of standing in a pool of water that would lower out of his reach when he went to quench his thirst, with a nearby fruit tree branch that would move just outside his grasp.

The Greeks attributed this drink to immorality, with such a high regard for the drink. It makes an appearance in many of their legends. It was even the liquid that Achilles was dipped into to grant him his invulnerability, except for his ankles where he was being held during this process.

Arguably a form of modern day mythology, the Lord of The Rings books also make reference to this drink. The meadhall of Rohan acts as a brief location for the adventuring party.

The Honey-moon

Another tradition to have sprung up around mead is the source of term “honeymoon”. The Norse wedding celebrations would last for an entire month (one cycle of the moon). The father of the bride would supply a month’s worth of the drink as a part of her dowry. It was said that if you drank mead for that entire month after the wedding, the first born would be a son. When this came true, much praise was showered upon both the groom, as well as the meadmaker. There developed a certain reverence around special heirloom drinking cups that were supposed to have luck in birthing sons. These would be passed from father to son for generations.

The idea that the drinking of mead could somehow influence the sex of the child is not as crazy as it may seem at first. The mead’s acidity and sweetness could potentially influence the soon to be mother’s body acidity. It is currently thought that acidity or alkalinity of the female body during conception can influence the sex of the newborn. However, it appears that higher acidity may actually favor the X chromosome (girls), while alkalinity favors the Y (boys). If there is any affect at all, it appears mead (and really any alcoholic drink) would promote more girls to be born.

The Downfall of Mead

As agricultural methods improved, crops such as barley and other grains, as well as vineyards for grapes outpaced the scale-ability of honey extraction. Beers and wines gained in popularity with their newfound abundance, especially in southern Europe, and eventually pushed mead into near obscurity. Outside of the more northern climes, where fruit production was limited, mead was often reserved for the royalty and nobility, with the increased expense of this now specialty drink. Queen Elizabeth was known to favor the drink, and her favorite recipe still survives. It is a metheglin braggot (herb flavored mead mixed with a beer, or fermented with the addition of grains) made with rosemary, thyme, bay leaves and sweet briar.

During the middle ages, the demand for beeswax rose with the increasing influence of the Church, and their desire for wax candles. It became more economically advantageous to go after the wax than the honey in the beehives, shifting the production of mead out of the limelight.

Outside of the Scandinavian regions, Ethiopian T’ej is one of the only other mead-esque drinks to survive with widespread use into the modern age. It is also a honey based drink, but includes the bark or twigs of gesho to provide a similar bitterness as hops do in beer. This makes the T’ej drinks resemble a braggot style mead.

Given how uncommon it can be to find commercial meads (or honeywines) available, you may be wondering “will I like mead?”. It is definitely a rational concern before going through all the trouble of tracking down a local store that sells it, or even picking up some equipment to make your own. But have no fear, barring some alcohol allergy, it is very likely that you will find a variety of this honeywine that you enjoy.

If you’re not all that into sweet drinks, that’s not necessarily a deal breaker, either. Just because it’s made of honey, doesn’t necessarily mean that the drink is going to be sweet. Both beer and wine are fermented sugars as well, but they’re not necessarily always sweet, either. Although, I will disclaim that most commercial meads available are likely to be on the sweeter side door to this popular notion. But mead can be made to fall anywhere in the spectrum from bone dry to sickly sweet. And I have found a few commercial ones that don’t focus on having candy like level of sugar.

When it comes down to it. At the basest level, mead is going to taste like honey, but in a more liquid form. Even a dry traditional (just honey) will taste like the honey used to make it, just without the sweetness. Honey comes in a whole plethora of types. Just think for a moment about every kind of flowering plant in the world. These will have unique flavors that transfer into any honey made from their nectar. That’s a lot of variety right there without even getting into the additives.

The interesting thing about mead is that it provides a good base for a wide array of other flavors. Beers tend to have a smaller variety of flavor profiles that are either noticeable or complementary to it’s base. And wines are also limited by having their fruit flavor in the mix. The honey varietals’ characteristics can range from the very strong, to nearly nonexistent -essentially just sugar. This in turn allows a ton of flexibility for the mead makers to customize their brew. Fruits, berries, spices, herbs, even some vegetables or grains, or nuts can be used as flavoring to create a unique palette unachievable in the other drink categories. With all these different possibilities, there’s bound to be some combinations you would enjoy.

That’s so many choices

Don’t be overwhelmed by all the variety. I’ll try to separate things into categories that help give a sense of what they taste like and who would like them. Unfortunately, unlike wine which has specific names for certain flavor varieties that also come with a general sweet/dry ranking and a flat/carbonated expectation, Mead has a much less rigid categorization method. In fact, meads categories really only define what types of ingredients we’re used. A melomel, or a fruit or berry flavored mead can be sweet and flat, dry and bubbly or any mix of the two. So commercial meads’ names may not describe everything about them.

Wine drinkers will feel most at home with mead in comparison to others who prefer other types of drinks. Most meads are very wine-like. Especially the traditional (just honey). They are most similar to white wines, in both flavor and appearance. Next is the melomels. While possible to make these dry, they will still have that sense of sweet fruitiness even without the sugar content. A dry melomel will tend to have a considerably fainter fruit flavor, and likely to rely on tannin to give it more body and mouthfeel. These will most resemble a red wine. Semi-sweet and sweet meads have the sugar to enhance the fruit flavor and also give it some character. So those will be most similar to a blush or white wine. Of special interest to you wine drinkers may be the pyment. This is a subcategory of melomels, but is specifically using grapes as its fruit flavoring. Depending upon the type of grape and whether the skins are used or not will mimic their likeness to the red-white spectrum.

The different tastes of mead

Cyser (apple mead), while technically another subcategory of melomels, deserves special mention. These often can turn out very similar to hard ciders. But instead of being fully apple flavored, there will be that honey base behind it. Also, due to the higher sugar content of honey versus the corresponding volume of apple juice it is displacing, an apple mead is likely to be higher in alcohol content than pure cider. Depending on the yeast used in their creation, cysers can also fall into the white wine-esque category. The yeast that eat malic acid produce these, as malic acid gives apples, and also pears, their slightly sour/tart flavor. Without that crisp bite, an apple mead is a very smooth.

Metheglins are an odd one. Meads flavored with either herbs or spices can span all the flavors of the different spices available to us. Cinnamon, vanilla, and cloves are very commonly added to melomels, as well. So these naming categories aren’t even rigid, as you can have fruits, spices, grains, and honey all in one batch. But I think the best comparison we’re going to get for a metheglin is a mulled wine. When making your own, be careful, as it can be easy to overdo spices or herbs. Fresh versus dried, and whole or cut versus ground will have a huge impact on the speed and strength of the flavor imparted. Making tinctures is a common practice to help combat this. Soaking the spices or herbs in a high proof, relatively flavorless alcohol like vodka can get you a standard measurable strength of flavor. Adding a little bit of the tincture at a time until you find the sweet spot gives a much greater amount of control over the end result.

What if I’m not a big wine drinker?

Fear not, beer drinkers. Braggots are a mead that also makes use of grains, malt, and hops to make it much closer to what you are used to. In olden times these were actually made by mixing two different beverages together. Modern brewers tend to mix the ingredients together prior to fermentation, however. To be a true braggot, it still needs to be over 50% honey as the fermentable sugar. Otherwise it is just a beer with honey, which tastes mostly like beer.

Also I have found, oddly enough, capiscamel (pepper mead) can have a beer like character to them. With some added heat.

Next, we have the bochet. It is a beast all on its own. I’m not really sure what it can really be compared to. A bochet is a mead where the honey is first cooked or caramelized before adding it to the must. This will give it a nice toffee or butterscotch flavor. The longer it is cooked, the more pronounced these flavors get. This is the one is for those wanting that super sweet candy flavor.

Note: If you attempt to make one of these be very careful. Honey expands a lot when heated. And a boiling super sticky liquid is not unlike napalm in its difficulty to remove.

Similar to the bochet, is the acerglyn. This is a maple syrup mead. What could go better with a sweet viscous liquid than another sweet viscous liquid? Another one for the sweet tooth. You are unlikely to find any dry versions of this one, as maple syrup without the sweetness tastes very much like wood.

Hopefully this guide has given you an idea of what mead tastes like, and where you should begin your adventure. This drink is uniquely customizable to pretty much any palette imaginable. As this niche in the home/craft brewing scene grows, we are bound to see more of these interesting combinations become available commercially. As it stands, even a traditional mead is a rarity in stores. But the explosion in craft brews had helped kickstart the rebirth of this drink as well. And seeing how others are experimenting with their brews will only inspire that creativity in others. Enjoy!