Reviews

Beacon Meadery is a fairly recent entrant to the industry, but they have set a high bar for themselves, using traditional wine-making techniques and only real, natural ingredients. Their first three varieties have just become available, so Beacon generously sent samples in exchange for a review.

In case you’re unable to find their wares being sold near their Long Island location, they do deliver to most states from their website: Beacon Mead.

Meads

Blueberry

This mead is a vibrant, deep, crystal clear red color.

It has a strong berry scent, with a bit of sweetness, as well as a hint of citrussy tartness.

Although it is still, its mouthwatering acidity made it taste almost carbonated. It has a light sourness, reminiscent of lemon. The berry flavor is light – tough to pick out on its own – but blueberry is often a fairly subtle flavor. It is semi-dry, but the berry flavor helps it to present as sweeter than it is. It finishes with a pleasant tartness and clocks in at 13% ABV.

Overall, this is a nice, easy drinker.

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Raspberry

The raspberry has the same rich, red color as the blueberry; however it has a slight haze to it.

The initial whiff is of strong raspberry, which dissipates pretty quickly, leaving behind a light, sweet scent.

This mead has an appealing acidity and citrus flavor up front. It has a slight heat on the back end, which is not surprising given its 15.5% ABV. There’s a prominent, sweet raspberry flavor in the middle before that tart returns on the way down. It also gives a pleasant, subtle cooling sensation similar to mint as part of its aftertaste.

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Black Currant

This is the darkest of the three: a crystal clear, deep, crimson red that’s almost purple.

The scent is difficult to describe. It smells dark, but is still rich; sweet, but overall very subtle.

The 14.5% ABV variety opens with a bright spark of tartness before presenting a dark, berry flavor. I’m not familiar with what currants taste like on their own. This is the sweetest of the three.

A mouthwatering acidity similar to the other meads shows up to finish. It was a bit delayed compared to the previous two, but it was still welcome.

This was my favorite of the three. Very rich taste, but balanced the sweetness with the tart while allowing the complexity of the berry to still shine through.

Overall, Beacon Meadery impressed me with both the quality of their product and their professionalism. Not only were the meads well-produced, but they are also a good value. They also have fairly high ABV compared to many other commercially available meads. Features uncommon to meaderies such as shipping to other locations show foresight and will serve them well in the future. I would definitely recommend giving Beacon a visit if you are in the area, and I will hope to do the same!

Breaking Brew is a Meadery located in Dallas, Texas. The tasting room is a nice sized area, with a modern, clean-lined look. The staff there was very helpful and knowledgeable, and seemed quite excited to share their creations.

They have a bunch of varieties to try, as well as some of their home made jerky available. If you’re in the area, check them out. Everything I sampled was very good.

Meads

Blue By You (Blueberry/LemonGrass/Thyme)

Light fruity nose. This was semi-sweet, with a mouth watering acidity. It had a bit of an herby finish, as the lemongrass and thyme really shine through. It was lightly carbonated. I thought the addition of the lemongrass and thyme really made this unique.

Cherry Bear (Ginger/Cherry)

This had a strong ginger nose. Ginger was definitely the dominant flavor, with a hint of cherries at the finish. It had a nice distinct bite that ginger often brings. It was slightly more carbonated than the Blue by You.

Raspberry Beret

This had a light, sweet scent. A nice tart finish, a mild sweetness that wasn’t cloying. It was mouthwatering and very refreshing. This was my favorite of their meads I tried.

Magician (Vanilla/Honeycomb)

Not much of a nose to it. This was a pleasant, dry mead with a hint of vanilla coming through in the finish. This was a simple flavor, but nice.

Arktos is a meadery located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It can be a bit difficult to find, as it is situated in a small building located off a highway service road. A barbed wire topped fence surrounds the parking lot, and you have to walk through a snaking hallway to get to the little tasting room within.

Bizarre locations seem to be somewhat of a theme with these smaller producers. And this is a shame, really, as I greatly enjoyed the product they had available. I can’t imagine the location is doing them any favors. but the staff was friendly, and they provided us with a flight of every mead flavor they had on tap.

In addition to their meads, they also had some suggested combinations of those flavors available for purchase, as well as a few unique sodas.

Meads

Queen Bee (Traditional)

The obligatory traditional that all meaderies must have available. This was mildly sweet, with an hint of oak in the backend (from the barrel aging). It had a nice subtle honey flavor to it. Nice, simple, but not dull. A pleasant drink.

Enchanted Horse (Apple Cyser)

This was very sweet. A strong, vivid honeycrisp apple flavor. It had a light apple scent to the nose.

Red Fox (Grape Pyment)

This one was actually my favorite, and I’m usually not usually a raving fan of grape flavored things. It’s nose had a faint grape scent to it, very subtle. This drink had a nice acidity to it, that left your mouth watering. The grape was more of a grape juice, than a wine flavor, so nice and fruity. It was nice and sweet. My wife also approved of this one. We ended up getting a bottle to take with us.

Black Stripe (Strawberry)

This had a sweet nose. The strawberry fruit flavor was light, but had a nice tartness to the finish. It was also a strong one, weighing in at 18% abv.

Ursa Major (Braggot)

This half mead, half beer variety doesn’t appear in a lot of meaderies, so is always interesting to see. This was somewhere along the lines of a stout or porter with a hint of that honey flavor. It had a strong, dark malty, or coffee-like nose to it.

Cricket Song (Coffee)

This is a cold brewed, Guatemalan green coffee bean flavored mead. It had a complex nose to it, with strong, bitter coffee as the primary with a faint hint of sweetness underneath. The flavor was much more subtle than the scent suggested. Just a hint of that coffee bitterness, which even I enjoyed, not being a coffee drinker.

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They have some interesting ceramic flip top bottles/growlers for sale, that they are willing to fill up with what they have on tap. Do note that the price they have listed for these is just for the bottle itself, not including a fill up. This caught us off guard, slightly when we ordered.

This meadery shares space with the Promeny Winery, so was a little difficult to locate if you’re looking for a separate establishment.

Walking up to the wine tasting counter, you are presented with a two page list, with wines on one side and the Black Dragon meads on the other side. This establishment was a bit more difficult to try their wares. Instead of available flights or taster glasses available, you had to purchase a physical wine glass (of which they offered 3 sizes), and that came along with 3 samples.

They had a pretty sizable list of meads available. Every manner of fruit flavorings was available. While everything I tried was good, they were somewhat simple and predictable. Honey plus singular, one-note, fruit flavor.

Meads

Dragon’s Blood

This had a berry nose. Sweet cherry flavor. Sweet up front, tart to finish.

Wyldewood Mead

This was a maple flavored mead. I got more of the woody note, than a syrupy flavor. It had a sweet nose to it. This was very wine-like.

Red Currant

This was described as semi-dry, but the berry flavor gives the illusion of a strong sweetness. This was a cloudy mead. Strong berry scent on the nose. Solid currant flavor.

Of the meaderies I have visited so far, this is one of my favorites. Bee Well is Located in Bellaire, Michigan. While their mead selection was somewhat limited, they had a ton of nice ciders to pad out their available products. Everything they had available was very good.

They also had available an apple soda available for sale that my wife raved about. Although that wasn’t one of their own creations.

Meads

Ginger Peach

This had a light ginger nose. It was sweet, with a strong ginger kick to it. It finishes with a hint of peach. This was lightly carbonated.

Antrim Apple Pie (Apple, cinnamon, vanilla)

No noticeable nose. This had a crisp, apple flavor. The cinnamon and vanilla were very faint. It had light carbonation, but a bit more so than the ginger peach.

Cherry Vanilla

No noticeable nose. This one surprised me. It was a different type of cherry from what I was expecting. It had a very sweet, tarty flavor with a bit of a bite to it. I couldn’t identify whether that bite was from a spice or part of the cherry (it seemed present in some of their other cherry beverages as well), but it rounded out the flavor nicely. This was also lightly carbonated.

Hey Neighbor (Hopped apple)

No real nose. This had a strong citrusy flavor to it, with a light hoppy bitterness to it. It had a dry finish. I found it very pleasant, and I’m not even a huge fan of hops.

Cherry Tonic Jr.

This experimental brew comes in at 17% ABV. You can taste the heat. There was a sweetness to the nose. I could still detect that bite/spice, the same as the Cherry vanilla.

Overall, very enjoyable, however I believe they may have run out for the time being. It remains to be seen if this will be added to their tap permanently.

Ciders

Pear-Achute (Pear, Pineapple, Hops)

This was a very mild flavor, but definitively pear. Nice and sweet.

King’s Cherry

This had a light cherry nose. Tart and sweet, with a fair amount of carbonation. This was not the same super sweet cherries as the two cherry-based meads. Very smooth to drink. Finishes with a crisp apple flavor.

The Ghost (Ghost Pepper)

This one is all about the heat. With an impressive list of heat inducing ingredients, with the ghost pepper as the centerpiece, this one is an interesting drink.

It includes: Passion fruit, peach cider, ghost pepper, habanero, Carolina reaper, smoked cayenne, scotch bonnet, red hot chili peppers.

The heat was a slow build, and wasn’t quite as bad as I had built it up in my mind. Never reaches the painful heat that some foods can. If you’re feeling adventurous, give it a try. But save it for last, you won’t be able to taste much for a while afterwards.