Mead is brewed from honey, which was probably the first sweetener used by humans and was almost certainly fermenting spontaneously in caves and trees long before hominids had even gained a taste for alcohol.
Our favourite bubbly beverage just may be beer. For other occasions—like when we’re feeling a bit more culinary or just want a faster kick—we often reach for wine, and together these forces of alcohol make our world go happily ‘round.
But there is another. It has been antiquated, almost forgotten entirely, but in the Middle Ages it ruled Europe almost as surely as gravity itself, and its name still sounds mysteriously among small circles of educated drinkers and historians: mead. It is brewed from honey, which was probably the first sweetener used by humans and was almost certainly fermenting spontaneously in caves and trees long before hominids had even gained a taste for alcohol. Bears and primates, perhaps, got drunk on such finds before mankind made a habit of happy hours and hangovers. Eventually, such elements became components of the human condition as we brewed and fermented to satiate our desires, and in northern Europe honey became the leading alcohol base in a region too cold to produce grape wine.
Mead was the foremost product of these far-north brewers, but as barley-based beer brewing took hold, malt, honey and hops sometimes landed in the same kettle. The results of such recipes were called braggots, or beers made in combination with honey. `with marmalade. The Special Reserve mead is the strongest in the bunch, and at 16 percent ABV has a warming effect in the mouth. Its flavours are flowery and even a bit starchy on account of the buckwheat honey in the blend. Russ also ages the Special Reserve two years in oak barrels before bottling the mead, a process that leaves its mark in flavours of faint whiskey and rich butter. The Ginger-Apricot Honey Wine tastes crisp as freshly chewed ginger root, the spiciness lingering long and hot after just a sip. Like all the rest we tasted, the flavours of honey underscore the other elements.
Many if not most mead-makers began their careers as beer brewers, merging into mead-making by dabbling and experimentation. Russ began making mead by this progression. So did Mike Faul. So did Brad Dahlhofer, founder of B. Nektar Meadery, another major mead producer in Detroit, whose brews include an apple cyser aged in bourbon barrels and a vanilla-cinnamon mead. Other brewers are sure to join the game, which now includes over 100 commercial mead-makers nationwide.
On the West Coast at Bison Brewing Company in Berkeley, for example, brewer Dan Del Grande has just entered the braggot ballgame by adding a dollop of honey to a light pale ale, plus fresh basil. The bottled brew—as savoury as pesto—is marketed as a honey-basil “beer,” since it contains not enough honey to qualify as a braggot.
Not that the word would sell the product, anyway. Faul at Rabbit’s Foot once tried marketing his braggots to several Bay Area beer bars as “braggots.” They wouldn’t take them, claiming that beer drinkers wouldn’t understand. Faul, today, agrees.
“Because no one has a clue what a braggot is, and it’s the same with cysers,” he says. “If you call these anything but a ‘cider’ or ‘beer with honey,’ it won’t sell.”
He has, in fact, given up on using the words melomel, cyser and braggot, relegating them to the recycling bin and the annals of history. In the craft brew aisle, however, honey beers and honey wines still live on.
http://dirtragmag.com/beer-me-fermented-honey/
