2009 Mead Day Mead Tasting

Mead is arguably the oldest, fermented beverage in the world. What isn’t debatable is most people don’t know what mead is. In a very small nutshell it is an alcoholic beverage made from honey. It’s not a wine (although many people market it as such), it’s not a beer (though it’s made like one) and it most definitely isn’t a distilled spirit. Mead is its own thing and should be treated as such.

To help promote the beverage and the people who make them, the American Homebrewers Association has designated August 1^st of every year as Mead Day. Meadmakers and homebrewers are encouraged to come together in appreciation of the beverage and maybe brew up a mead as well. I decided to do my part last year by holding a Beer, Food and Mead pairing event. In addition to providing the food, beers and mead, I did a mead making demo to show how easy it is to make mead.

This year was a little different. Having cut our Beer & Food pairing activities to a bare minimum, my wife and I decided this year instead to have a Mead Tasting event. We asked our guests to provide an appetizer-style dish to contribute while we provided the mead. Unfortunately we were a little last minute about the whole thing. As a result, we had a party of about a dozen people. This worked out in our favor though as in most cases we only had a single bottle of mead to share. Unlike the previous year, we held this dinner in our garden area. It was a little tight but the intimate setting proved to be well protected from the night’s occasional cool breezes.

For the most part, I was very impressed with the spread of food people brought. Even though these were just appetizer-style dishes, no one left hungry. We had bacon-wrapped dates and prunes, salad, stuffed mushrooms, salmon bruschetta, homemade meatballs, chicken wings and even country fried steak. There was even a Vietnamese appetizer that consisted of thin, disks of rice that had a firm, yet chewy homemade noodle-like consistency that was topped with shredded shrimp and mung beans and a fish-sauce based dipping sauce.

All in all, we had 10 bottles of mead for the tasting. With a few exceptions, we only had single bottles of mead to share. Everyone was given a few ounces to taste and while that may not seem to be very much, many of the meads we tried that night were hovering in the 12% ABV range. Here is the list of meads we tried plus a few of my own personal notes:

• Traditional Sweet Mead, BetterBeerBlog – This was a bottle of the very first mead I made. Meaded (or is it brewed?) in 2007, these bottle have a disturbing amount of yeast settled at the bottom of the bottle which changes the flavor of the mead when agitated. This is a wild flower mead with a pleasant, floral quality in the nose and noticeable honey character in both the aroma and flavor. Despite it’s yeasty appearance, people seemed to like this mead.
• Sweet Mead, Rabbits Foot Meadery, 12% ABV – As explained by Mike Faul, owner/meadmaster of Rabbits Foot Meadery, this is what most people think of when they think of mead. It’s what they serve at Renaissance Fairs, it’s what is referenced in those epic, Scandinavian poems of heros long lost and what is served at Hogworts. I could be mistaken, wouldn’t be the first time, but I believe the honey used to make this mead is clover honey (named from the clover flowers the beers gathered it from). This has a floral character as well but was very sweet when compared to my own. This mead would prove to be the sweetest of the night.
• Traditional Mead, Full Circle Brewing, 12.5% ABV – This mead was also on the sweet side and had a wonderful floral and honey aroma. While most professional meads tend to be clear, Full Circle’s mead was chock full of yeast floaties in gravity defying suspension. To the uninitiated this could seem like a grievous error. But for those in the know, those floaties added a little more complexity to the mead’s flavor.
• Honeymoon Nectar (Sweet Honeywine), Mountain Meadows Meadery, 12% ABV – This is a sweet, traditional mead made from wildflowers. I just happened to find this bottle while trolling around Bottle Barn in Santa Rosa. I’m glad I picked this one up as people felt it was the best out of the sweet/traditional meads we’ve tried so far. It had a very pleasant floral aroma with lots of honey character in both the aroma and flavor. This mead was sweet but not as cloying as the Rabbits Foot and more refined than the Full Circle. I’ll have to pay them a visit if I’m ever in their area.
• Black Raspberry Nectar, Redstone Meadery, 8% ABV – I first learned about mead by listening to a podcast featuring this meadery. Located in Boulder, Colorado, it’s difficult to miss this meadery’s product in their deep blue bottles. This mead is different from the sweet/traditional meads in the addition of fruit. Meads with fruit added are called melomels. With a lighter honey character than the previous meads, the berry character came through more. In addition, this mead was lightly carbonated for a spritzy mouthfeel and refreshing experience. People really liked this one.
• Orange Blossom Special, Full Circle Brewing, 12.5% ABV – Most meaders will add fruit to their meads in either the primary or secondary. This imparts the character of the fruit without being overbearing. In this case, 100% orange blossom honey was blended with 100% orange juice to make this mead. I’m not sure if it was how I stored this but the orange character played a minor part in this meads flavor profile. There was a lot of port and sherry character; almonds notes and a slight sweetness characteristice of oxidation. Not surprisingly, the least favorite of the evening. This was another example of a melomel.
• Pomegranite Mead, Full Circle Brewing, 12.5% ABV – This mead was made from a blend of 17% unnamed honey and 83% pomegranite juice. This was another polarizing mead in which people either loved it or non-loved it (hate is much to strong of a word). Some folks had trouble finding the pomegranite while Sammy was able to pick it up right away. I expected this mead to receive a fairly good reception but lukewarm was the best it got. This mead is also a melomel.
• Raspberry Mead, Rabbits Foot Meadery, 12% ABV – As the name would strongly suggest, this mead is another melomel using raspberries. This mead was very well received; people enjoyed the obvious fruit characteristics as well as the balance provided by the mead itself. I was a little worried about Rabbits Foot as their flagship mead wasn’t very well received but they rebounded quite nicely with this product.
• Nectar of the Hops, Redstone Meadery, 8% ABV – Having had this mead last year when I attended GABF, I thought this would be an interesting mead to share. Unlike the prior meads that have had fruit added to them at one point or another, this mead is brewed with hops. Technically this mead can be viewed as a metheglin, or mead brewed with, but not limited to, spices.  The hops impart only a hint of bitterness and slight hop aroma. Like the other Redstone Mead before it, Nectar of the Hops is a carbonated mead. People enjoyed this as well.
• Chrysanthemum Mead, BetterBeerBlog – I started with my own mead and I’m ending with my own mead. Like the traditional mead I served earlier, this mead is made from wildflowers locally sourced from members of the Santa Clara Valley Beekeepers Guild. Unlike the first mead, this mead is a metheglin; this mead’s must was created with 3 parts water, 1 part chrysanthemum flowers tea and 1 part wildflower honey. After primary fermentation, I added about 5 ounces of chrysanthemum flowers to secondary and let this puppy sit for about 10.5 months in a carboy. The result was a much more clearer mead with chrysanthemum aromas both medicinal and herbal in nature. In addition to being spiced with chrysanthemum, this mead finished very dry. I never took the original gravity (o.g.) so I have no idea how much alcohol is in this thing.

So there you go, the 2nd Annual Mead Day Mead Tasting at BetterBeerBlog. As much fun as this event was to host, we are now all out of mead! I really enjoyed the format of this event and I think next year’s Mead Day tasting event will be similar. For those who were able to attend, I thank you for coming and celebrating with us. See you next year!

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