Santa Clara Valley Beekeepers at Rabbits Foot Meadery

For those who may not be aware, in addition to brewing my own beer, I also brew my own mead. Despite the fact that mead is probably the oldest alcohol beverage known to man, it is the least known. You may recognize the term “mead” as “that drink at all the Renaissance Fairs” or “the stuff they drank at Hogworts”. Yes and yes. But what is mead really? Simplistically put, it is an alcoholic beverage made from honey. Some people call it a honey wine but I think the term is inaccurate. Honey:mead as grapes:wine, as malted barley:beer. It really is a beverage all on its own.

A good friend of mine recently took up beekeeping. He literally pulled this hobby right out of a tree on his yard. Somewhere in his neighborhood a colony of bees swarmed onto his property not once, but twice. Displaying indecision the first time, the first swarm flew away. With only a little hesitation the second time and a lot of prodding by yours truly, he was able to capture a smaller secondary swarm. Since that day, he’s been a beekeeper.

To help the guy out, I bought him some beekeeping equipment. There’s the safari-type hat, mesh screen, long gloves, smoker and pry bars. While Jason (that’s my buddy’s name) laughed at me initially for picking up the equipment, it has already come in handy. We did pretty much no research whatsoever with regards to beekeeping and jumped into this impulsively. After a few mishaps, Jason and I decided to read up on beekeeping. If we were to commit to this, we might as well as learn the proper way to do so.

When the time came to look for a beekeeping mentor, I immediately thought of two people: Tina and Thomas. Tina and Thomas are a couple I met a few years ago. I forget where I found their contact information but they are where I buy my honey from. I purchase about 12-13 gallons of honey at at time (approximately one gallon) because that’s how much I need to make my own meads (yes, in addition to beer, I also make mead). The last time I visited them they had about 5 hives in their backyard. While this year has been a bad year for honey, last year they ended up harvesting over 120 gallons of it which they ended up selling at local farmers markets and festivals.

Tina and Thomas are part of the Santa Clara Valley Beekeepers Guild, the local chapter of amateur beer keepers. Before I go on, I must tell you that should you run across a swarm of bees in your house or whatever, I highly recommend you call a SCVBG member. They can safely and humanely extract the swarm from your property. Chances are good that they’ll just end up keeping them for themselves but at least you’re rid of the bees. It’s a win-win for everyone and is much better than killing them or calling out pest control. The honeybee population has been decimated over the last couple of years and we could use all the bees we can find.

Purely by coincidence the SCVBG were having their July meeting at Rabbits Foot. The natural progression from beekeeper to meadmaker is a natural one and I can’t think of a better place to learn about mead than at Rabbits Foot.

Rabbits Foot Meadery, 1246 Birchwood Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94089 map

We were treated with a tour of the facilities. I had already done the tour some time back but it was good to go again and see the changes. The most notable change is the lack of space at the meadery. This is a good thing as it tells me they are busy. A thorough look at their taplist shows an increase in their product offerings. Once the tour was complete, the tastings began.

I didn’t take too many notes during the tasting portion but we tried their dry mead, sweet mead, raspberry mead as well as their hard lemonade and peach ciders. We also sampled their Chocolate Raspberry Love which is a fortified port. This is the only product in their porfolio that doesn’t have honey in it. I also got a chance to try their Honey Stout, which is an example of a dry stout brewed with honey. This puppy weighs in at 7.2% ABV but hides it very, very well. It is smooth, light on the palette and dry with a deep roasted malt character. It’s pretty good and a departure from some of their other beers.

The real treat of the night was when we were able to try some Melia right out of a keg. Mike pulled out a wine theif and doled out tasting samples to everyone. If I remember correctly, Melia is the only mead served at the award-winning, 3 Michelin star rated, The French Laundry. It is made from a single variety orange blossom honey and, as you can imagine, has a great orange blossom aroma. It is pretty sweet as it was made to be a dessert mead. Even though they’re out at the meadery, you can still pick up a couple of bottles from your local BevMo.

I spent the rest of the evening hanging around the bar while Jason was talking to Tina about beekeeping. In the end, everyone was happy. If you want to learn more about mead as well as taste some of it first hand, I fully endorse going down to Rabbits Foot for a tasting. I must warn you that the locals have discovered this place and their tasting room can get quite packed in the late afternoon/early evening. Your best bet would be to go in the early afternoon on a weekday. I’d recommend calling ahead of time as their tasting room schedules fluctuate.

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