From: NEXT Pittsburgh
A few years ago, mead was pretty easy to ignore. Perhaps it would come up when you were browsing Viking folklore or pregaming for a Renaissance fair, but it more or less lived in obscurity otherwise. And you certainly wouldn’t see mead on tap at your local bar.
Nowadays, mead is where cider was a few years ago: still somewhat uncommon but rapidly gaining a following. In the Pittsburgh area, much of that growth can be chalked up to Carnegie’s Apis Mead & Winery, which has been producing a wide array of mead (including nontraditional flavors like Hopped Passionfruit) since mid-2014. But Apis isn’t the only one getting in on the mead game. This past weekend, Laurel Highlands Meadery opened a tasting room in Irwin, where guests can sample and purchase traditional and flavored meads. And Wigle Whiskey recently announced the launch of Threadbare Cider, a cider house and meadery that will open on the North Side later this year.
All this talk about mead may have you wondering: what the heck is it? Simply put, mead is honey wine. Fermented grain becomes beer, fermented grapes become wine and fermented honey becomes mead. The strength of mead is closer to wine than beer, usually clocking in somewhere between 10 and 20 percent ABV. The flavor of the finished mead can vary widely depending on the type of honey used, and many mead makers will add fruits, spices or hops to create additional layers of flavor. And though it’s made from honey, mead is not necessarily sweet; like cider, mead can be quite crisp and dry.
Everything old is new again, and in mead’s case, that means really, really old. Some historians believe it’s the oldest alcoholic beverage in the world, and references to mead-like concoctions have been found in the writings of numerous ancient cultures. So if you’re feeling pretty cutting-edge when you order that mead on draft, just know that you were beaten to the trend by about 30,000 years.
http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/eatdrink/eat-drink-do-tako-opens-at-consol/
No comments:
Post a Comment