Mead, the honey alcohol of the ancients, is making a comeback

From abc.net.au

Move aside craft beer, the world's oldest alcoholic drink is making a comeback and it's gluten free — made from fermented honey.
Mead was drunk by the Vikings. Ancient Greeks called it Ambrosia, 'the drink of the gods', and the brewing techniques date back more than 3,000 years.
Amrita Park Meadery at Pomona is Queensland's first commercial meadery to set up a cellar door for tastings, aiming to educate visitors about mead and the complexities of their golden brews.

                                                             (ABC Rural: Jennifer Nichols)

It is a shared passion for Nicola Cleaver and her partner Andy Coates, whose 98-year-old grandfather, Dennis 'Poppo' Coates was an award-winning mead maker.

"At first people try to pigeonhole it a little, is it like port, is it like beer? It's like mead," Mr Coates laughed.

"Most people come and they have their tasting and they love learning about mead, the education behind it and the science behind it and they just like to stay and chat," Ms Cleaver added.

The couple buy honey in bulk from a young apiarist and keep six bee hives in their lush meandering gardens.

                                                            (ABC Rural: Jennifer Nichols)

The taste varies according to the style of mead and the delicious mixes of fresh fruit and spices that are added to it in the fermenting room.
Water and yeast are added to the honey in a temperature-controlled environment to form what is known as a 'must'.
"We specialise in traditional meads, which are just the honey yeast water. Then you have melomels which has fruit additions and then there are metheglins which is mead made with spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg or cloves.
"And then there's other types, braggots that have grains added and aciglens that are made with maple syrup - there's so much variation in meads, it's incredible."

Nicola Cleaver is proud of her ginger and lime blend using fresh regional produce from Templeton's Ginger and Suncoast limes.
Their citrus and spice mix was designed with a festive feel.
The alcohol content of the couple's mead varies from 13-17 per cent, compared with 12-13 per cent for most table wines.
It can be chilled or heated, provide punch to a spritzer, and the flavour changes according to the season and the nectar the bees have been feasting on.
Mead was produced in ancient history throughout Europe, Africa and Asia, especially India.
Now old has become new again and the mead movement is gaining momentum.
"Especially in the (United) States and in Europe," Mr Coates said.
"They're opening 100 or more meaderies a year and in Australia it's just taking off, there's 10 or 12 meaderies and we're all sticking together and trying to grow the market."
The couple launched their mead at Caboolture's Abbey Medieval festival and it was so popular they are already working to supply it on tap at the event next year.
"Since the cellar door's been open it (business) has increased every week, we're just getting more people through and lots of online sales coming through as well, so that's quite exciting."

All in the family

Mr Coates is proud to be carrying on the family tradition from Dennis 'Poppo' Coates who started making mead in 1942.
In a visit to the tasting room the 98-year-old was chuffed to see his contribution honoured with special displays of his many awards and memorabilia.
"He was very successful as a bee keeper and made mead, entered in competitions all over the world," Andy Coates said.

Award winners

As the oldest grandson, Mr Coates is following in 'Poppo's' footsteps in more ways than one.
Amrita Park Meadery recently won two silver medals and three bronze medals at the 49th annual Eltham Wine Show, which attracted entries from amateurs and professionals from Australia and overseas.
Two years into a five-year plan, the couple said the demand was there and if anything, they wanted to slow things down a touch.
"We're going to stay boutique and just grow organically and just keep putting out a good product and really get behind the mead movement," Mr Coates said.
"It was the most popular and biggest drink and because of cost it went out of fashion and a lot of people don't even know what mead is now.
"We're all about educating people and educating their palates and it seems to be going really well."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2018-12-19/mead-honey-ancient-alcohol-bees/10613700

Mead is the new drinking trend among young women like me – here’s why

From independent.co.uk
By Gina Clarke

While prosecco was once the drink to welcome I’ve converted many of my friends to the ‘drink of the gods’, and you’re more likely to see us sipping on mead than toasting with sparkling wine

 Part of the appeal of mead is perhaps that it doesn’t feel gendered in the same way prosecco is    

It was a hot sunny day at a castle and I was cooling off in the gift shop when I spotted a table full of whisky, fruit brandy and – surprisingly – mead.

I had known mead in my younger days, but it was always something brewed in a cellar and would only come out when my friends and I had drunk the rest of our parents’ alcohol.

Often housed in a dusty bottle, we used to hold our noses before knocking a tot of mead back. But these bottles on the table in front of me were different – they were tall, slender and beautifully designed. Inside, the drink was a tempting golden colour and tasted sweet and gentle, with no sign of the home-brewed burn I remembered from my teenage years.    

According to the conservation charity English Heritage, sales of mead have been increasing by around 10 per cent each year for the past three years, with younger drinkers leading the way. They now sell one bottle every 10 minutes.

This may seem surprising, but there is a sense of nostalgia among young drinkers that this trend is tapping into. From the soaring popularity of gin – previously considered a tipple of upper-class grannies – to a surge in speakeasies and the craft beer movement, many people are looking to the past as a way of reviving their drinking habits.

While prosecco was once the drink to welcome I’ve converted many of my friends to the “drink of the gods”, as it was once known, and you’re more likely to see us sipping on mead than toasting with sparkling wine.

Part of the appeal of mead is perhaps that it doesn’t feel gendered. While prosecco is considered a traditionally “female” drink and beer its masculine equivalent, mead holds no such preconceptions, and allows people to step outside of their comfort zone and enjoy it together – without the undertone of cultural prejudice.

While in the past we have experimented with making our own sloe gin, I quite fancy trying my hand at mead next. Seeing how beautifully presented those bottles are at the visitor’s centre made me realise what a disservice those dusty drinks had done all those years ago. English mead is something to support – it offers a refreshing drink with a sweetness that makes you clamour for another glass. But it also only lends itself to a few sips after dinner, so I never feel too bad the next morning.

It’s exciting to see a drink that has hitherto been overlooked become popular once again. As a culture we are often clamouring for the next innovation, but it’s trends like these that remind us that sometimes the best things are the simplest. The past has a lot to offer – and using cocktail hour to encourage a reverence of history can never be a bad thing.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/mead-alcohol-drinking-prosecco-craft-beer-women-speakeasy-nostalgia-a8662591.html

Ancient drink of mead revived by new fanbase of younger drinkers

From theguardian.com

English Heritage among outlets serving up honey fermented ‘nectar of the gods’ in wake of craft beer boom

             Mead-based cocktail called Ye Olde Hot Tod, a tipple devised by English Heritage with The                             Vanguard bar, Birmingham. Photograph: English Heritage/PA

Mead, one of the world’s oldest alcoholic drinks, has been making a comeback on the back of the boom in craft beer.
Sales of the honey-based drink have grown in supermarkets after winning a strong fan base among younger drinkers in pubs and at beer festivals.
The conservation charity English Heritage claims to be the UK’s largest retailer of mead through the gift shops in its 400 historic buildings and monuments as well as online; it said it sold a bottle every 10 minutes.
Sales of mead have increased by an average of 10% annually for the past three years, according to English Heritage, and between April 2018 and March 2018 the charity sold 29,750 bottles, all made by the Lyme Bay Winery, in Devon, the UK’s leading producer of award-winning meads.

Mead, created by fermenting honey with water, dates back thousands of years and was once viewed as the drink of the gods, falling from the heavens as dew then gathered by bees. It was also believed to improve health and prolong life.
“As one of the world’s oldest alcoholic drinks mead has sometimes had quite an ‘olde worlde’ reputation but we’ve seen that dramatically change over the last five years,” said Samuel Boulton, managing director of The Vanguard, a cocktail bar and mead hall in Birmingham. “With the success of [the TV show] Game Of Thrones, as well as the rise in popularity of experimental cocktails, you could definitely call mead the new up and coming drink, and our customers really enjoy that historical throwback with the modern twist.”

Lyme Bay Winery makes seven own-brand meads, with different flavours, for English Heritage. In total it brews and sells more than 10 variations, including chilli and rhubarb flavours and a Christmas variety, predominantly in standard 75cl bottles but also in flagons.
Its drinks are also sold through Waitrose and local Co-ops, as well as in farm shops, delicatessens and garden centres.
Sophie Atherton, a beer sommelier, said: “I see the increase in the popularity of mead as linked to the craft beer boom and the surge of interest in gin, and also our love of food.
“Our culture today is full of desire for tasting new things and experiencing new flavours and despite mead’s heritage it will be new to most people. Perhaps there’s also an element of adding an instagram-able historic setting and you’ve got a drink everyone wants to be seen supping.”

Regional beer festivals organised by the real ale group CAMRA now often have well-stocked mead sections. The Cambridge beer festival this November served up 15 different meads, all brewed in the UK and ranging in alcoholic strength from 4% to 17%.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/29/ancient-mead-honey-revived-younger-drinkers-english-heritage-

Bushwakker Brewing Announces 2018 Vintage of Blackberry Mead

From canadianbeernews.com

REGINA, SK – Bushwakker Brewpub has announced that this year’s vintage of the extremely popular  Bushwakker Blackberry Mead (10% abv) – created using 400 pounds of Lumsden Valley honey and 80 pounds of blackberries per batch – will be going on sale Saturday December 1st at 11:00 AM. Although as always, those hoping to get a bottle may want to show up a fair bit earlier than that to avoid being disappointed, as the line-up traditionally starts the day before.

As always, there will be free hot chocolate for those waiting in line, and for the first time this year, the first 50 people in line will receive a free limited edition t-shirt.
Bushwakker Blackberry Mead will be available to purchase in a limited run of 650 ml bottles that are expected to sell out within hours of going on sale. It will also be on tap at the brewpub while supplies last.
Source & Photo: Bushwakker Brewing

https://www.canadianbeernews.com/2018/11/23/bushwakker-brewing-announces-2018-vintage-of-blackberry-mead/

How to Make Your Own Short Mead (aka Honey Wine)

From themanual.com

The ancient beverage known as mead is essentially fermented honey water. It can be spiced, carbonated, fruited, or sweetened in innumerable combinations. That versatility makes mead as rich and varied a palette for creative expression as wine or beer.

Unfortunately, the range of meads available at bottle shops can be incredibly limited. But for the creative and inspired, mead making is a task you can easily master at home, with minimal equipment and ingredients required. Bonus: you can call yourself a mazer.

Meads are hearty drinks that can  easily exceed 20 percent alcohol by volume, thanks to the base being honey. To reach that milestone, mead requires a long fermentation time and a lot of patience. If you want to taste the fruits of your labour sooner, “short meads” are the answer.

Short meads are intentionally produced with a low alcohol by volume ratio, often not more than 5 percent. That makes short meads comparable to session beers in the brewing world. Short meads require less time to ferment and can be enjoyed in larger quantities with less concern about imminent intoxication. Only have enough space on a countertop to fit a small fermentation vessel? Great, short mead it is!

To get started, you only need three ingredients: honey, water, and yeast. The only necessary equipment is a freshly sanitized 1-gallon vessel. To make the most basic mead, add one pound of honey and top off the jar with water. Pitch the yeast and mix well. After two weeks, the mead is ready for drinking.

How to Make Short Mead

Ingredients:

• 1 lb honey (try to avoid grocery store honey, as it is sometimes not actually honey)
• 1 yeast packet (while you can use an ale yeast, most mead makers use Lavin ICV D-47, a white wine yeast)
• Pure water (if you’re using tap water, it is good to know the mineral content, as that will affect the final product)

Equipment:

• 1-gallon fermentation vessel (something like this is perfect)
• Starsan

Method:

1. Sanitize your vessel, following the Starsan instructions. (If you were to be using any tools — such as a funnel to get the ingredients into the vessel — you would want to sanitize them as well.)
2. Add honey and water to your fermenter.
3. Pitch the yeast according to instructions.
4. Add yeast to the fermenter and mix well.
5. Make sure there is water in the airlock so you can monitor the bubbles (the visual bi-product of fermentation) escaping.
6. Wait approximately two weeks and your mead will be ready (the bubbles will have all but stopped). Depending on the type of yeast you use, it may take less or more time.

Short Mead Tips and Tricks

If you want to take your mead making to a more professional level, consider using a hydrometer to take gravity readings so you’ll know the mead’s ABV. Adding an airlock will allow carbon dioxide to escape while preventing oxygen and other elements from entering, improving the consistency of your mead.
Speed Brewing by Mary Izett is a great primer for short meads. A section of the book is dedicated solely to the history and processes of meads with a handful of excellent short mead recipes tossed in for good measure. Whether you want to make a bochet (mead with caramelized honey) or pyment (mead with grape juice), the basic building blocks of mead-making can be found in Izett’s helpful pages.
Another solid reference for experimentation is The Compleat Meadmaker by Ken Schramm, a book that countless mead makers got their start using.
While making a straight-forward traditional mead or following the recipes of others is a great launch point, short meads are ripe for experimentation. Try adding varying levels of honey for new experiences in sweetness and ABV. Add fresh or dried herbs, fruits or peppers. Throw in some hops. Or try different types of yeast for even more variety in dryness and flavour.

https://www.themanual.com/food-and-drink/how-to-make-short-mead-honey-wine-recipe/

The Amped-Up Ancient Booze Crashing Chicago's Craft Beer Party

From ozy.com

Honey wine is the new craft booze buzz on Chicago’s southwest side.

Chicago is a beer town, and perhaps no part of the city slugs suds like the southwest side. Seven nights a week, crowds flock to a three-mile strip of Western Avenue in the neighbourhood of Beverly where restaurants and Irish pubs — emphasis on the pubs — dot every block. There’s beer and Irish whiskey galore, of course. But there’s a new booze on the block appealing to the craft-alcohol set: mead.

Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery is Chicago’s only meadery on the Northern Illinois Wine Trail. And we’re not talking your standard mead. Wild Blossom is taking the ancient honeyed beverage to new places, establishing itself as a Midwest pioneer in sustainability, production and creative flavours — like one spicy version that might just send your eyes somersaulting backward.

With roots in ancient Africa, mead may be the oldest alcoholic drink in human history. Hunter-gatherers in the savanna, the story goes, stumbled upon pools of water containing the fermenting remains of fallen, honey-filled beehives. What probably began with the shy taste of a dipped finger sparked a honey wine love affair. Varieties of the drink now appear everywhere from Lithuania and Finland to Mexico, northern China and Ethiopia. Now, an American public with a growing taste for craft beers and spirits is creating a market for craft mead.

                                                   The front entrance of Wild Blossom.

                                            Source Courtesy of Greg Fischer, Wild Blossom

“With mead, we can manipulate it to reflect any style that we’re looking for,” says Greg Fischer, founder and owner of Wild Blossom. The mildly sour Cran Apple Cyser is an apple-infused mead, and Pirates Blood, a hot chili-infused version, is smoky, fiery and sweet (the appropriate skull-shaped bottle retails for $19.95). The Wolfcraft — a hoppy, sparkling mead with blood orange — pays homage to both beer and champagne. Then there’s the Charlatan, a dry blueberry mead aged in red wine barrels, and the bourbon barrel-aged Sweet Desire ($35.95, 16 percent ABV) that delivers autumn in a glass. At the winery, with its Finger Lakes-esque backyard patio bordering the shaded corner of the Dan Ryan Woods forest preserve, a six-pour flight will set you back $12 to $15.

Wild Blossom’s meads are made with purified water from Lake Michigan and honey that hails from a variety of local sources: five hives ranging in location from the roof of the Marriott on the “Magnificent Mile” to Indiana’s Ogden Dunes. Each bottle of the sweet, alcoholic final product leads to 2 million flowers pollinated in the area, says Fischer. In addition to meads, Wild Blossom also produces a range of Chicago-themed wines, like South Side Syrah and Chicago Bulls Blood.

The company opened for business nearly 30 years ago as a winery … in a Prohibition-era dry zone. Fischer relied on the skills he had learned as a boy, helping his Italian immigrant grandfather make wine and mead in the family basement. In 2017, Fischer opened the doors to a full-scale meadery, equipped with a tasting room, a 14,000-square-foot backyard and a production space — this time in a building just outside the dry zone.

Still, in beer country, Wild Blossom feels like a hidden gem to those in the know. The new location is helping to change that, as is word of mouth. “People appreciate a local product and our willingness to experiment,” says Fischer. But the new appetite for mead goes to show that it’s not just beer leading the craft craze, at least on Chicago’s South Side.

Go There: Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery

• Location: 9030 S. Hermitage Ave, Chicago. Map.
• Hours: Wed-Thurs: 3 p.m. - 9 p.m.; Fri-Sat: 3 p.m. -10 p.m; Sun: 1 p.m. - 8 p.m.
• Pro tip: Start with a traditional mead, such as the Prairie Passion, to get a taste before progressing to the more creative flavours.

https://www.ozy.com/good-sht/amped-up-ancient-booze-crash-chicagos-craft-beer-party/89242

This Disney Child Star Turned Brewer Is Trying to Make Mead Cool

From hollywoodreporter.com

Dylan Sprouse talks moving beyond his NYU dorm to his first Brooklyn brewery: "My first batches were terrible. But we were 16, 17, so all of us drank the shit out of it anyway." Now he draws comparisons to his first gig, telling THR, "Brewers are entertainers ... they are creating an experience for people."

Dylan Sprouse at his All-Wise Meadery Courtesy of Brad Japhe

In the age of craft beer and CBD cocktails, Dylan Sprouse is trying to make mead the next big thing.
You might remember Sprouse as the former child star who — along with his twin brother Cole — was the face of Disney TV for much of the mid '00s. But today his output is aimed at a more adult audience. In 2015, the actor took a brief break from Hollywood to build a commercial brewery in the hipster heart of Brooklyn. The result was All-Wise Meadery, which opened in Williamsburg last winter. As one of the youngest master brewers in the country, Sprouse's precocious passion is as improbable as it is infectious.
Despite the adventurous drinking habits of the millennial foodie generation, mead — brewed from honey as opposed to grain — remains relatively obscure. A relic of bygone civilizations, it's associated more with Egyptian pharaohs and Viking quests than modern speakeasies. It was the ancient lore, however, that captivated an adolescent Sprouse — a lifelong mythology buff who still dons Thor's hammer on a pendant around his neck.
"I was a pretty piss poor student in high school. I had ADHD and brewing was a way for me to pace myself. I picked mead because a lot of home-brewing books I read said that if you wanted to try something easy, start with mead."

All the while, the nascent hobby fed an underlying enthusiasm for literature, history and fantasy. "I consumed media en masse about mead," he recalls. "I kept brewing and brewing. Obviously my first batches were terrible. But we were 16, 17, so all of us drank the shit out of it anyway."
Yet even back then, Sprouse demonstrated a serious desire to hone his craft. "I went to some home-brewing meetups, faking that I was 21. I don't even know how I got away with that because I don't even look 21 now," admits the fresh-faced celebrity. When he moved to New York City to go to NYU, he set up his brewing set in his dorm room and soon began selling bootlegged mead to friends and classmates across the lower Manhattan campus. It was the beginning of a fledgling commercial enterprise.
Beyond satisfying his own creative urges — and providing some extra pocket cash — his side-gig was helping expose a neglected niche. "When I could finally go to the store and buy it legally, I just hated what was being sold," he remembers of mass-market mead. "It was this sugary, sweet desert wine that was selling for $70 bucks a bottle." He longed for a cleaner, dryer mead reflective of the raw ingredients used to make it. After graduating he set out to create just that.

                      The view from All-Wise Meadery Courtesy of Brad Japhe

It was an elaborate endeavour, as evidenced by the large fermenters and state-of-the-art filtration units that now populate his Brooklyn brewhouse. Sprouse navigates the space with ease, rattling off technical jargon like "terroir" and "lees cakes." "If you ferment all of the sugar out of goldenrod honey," he explains excitedly, "what you're left with is a mead that tastes similar to if you were to actually take the [goldenrod] plant and chew on it. It leads to the herbal, grassy or wheat-y notes that surprise people a lot [when they try] dry meads." (His Ali-Wise Show Mead, $30; and Oolong Mead variation, fermented with Chinese tea, $35, are available at his Brooklyn meadery or online, with shipping to many states).
Sprouse so far has no trouble toggling between his dual professions (he just returned from a six-month shoot for a star turn in the upcoming fantasy romance, Turandot). In fact, he sees a certain symmetry between the two. "Brewers are entertainers whether they like it or not, because they are creating an experience for people. Oftentimes the alcohol is the entertainment at any party you go to."

Nowadays, even when he's on-location, half a world away from his brewery, Sprouse is still thinking like a brewer. "I take it with me wherever I go," he says, noting that downtime in rural China was spent exploring new flavours and local ingredients. The fruits of that labour eventually found a happy ending in mead: "I brewed a batch as a wrap gift for the entire cast."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/dylan-sprouse-child-star-turned-mead-maker-1149767

A better beer? Etowah Meadery in new territory

From gainesvilletimes.com

Bottles of mead stand at Etowah Meadery on Thursday, Aug. 9, 2018, in Dahlonega. Blair Housley and the other owners of Etowah Meadery have branched out from traditional mead, or honey wine, into a wide variety of carbonated, beer-like beverages. - photo by Nick Bowman
The honey bee has become a homebrewer in Dahlonega.
Hops, grilled pineapple, caramelized honey, currants, blueberry, raspberry, rhubarb: Etowah Meadery is churning out a bubbling variety of carbonated meads that are taking the little-known beverage to new places — and into the hands of beer fans.
Blair Housley and his team entered an open market when the company launched in November selling wine made from honey, called mead. With only two other producers in Georgia, Blair Housley and his team are banking on the popular return of one of the oldest alcoholic beverages on planet earth.
Mead has existed for thousands of years, traditionally as a simple mixture of honey, water and the little critters that turn sugar into alcohol.
But the shop just outside of Dahlonega is getting its most popular hits on recipes that stray from the traditional.
Classic mead has a warm, sweet, rich flavour and about 16 percent alcohol — not the sort of thing you’d pack in the cooler and carry out with you on the boat on a Saturday.
Housley and Co. have come up with a series of what they call “session meads,” canned, carbonated beverages with about 6 percent alcohol and a deep bench of flavours in the mix.
A few of those recipes brewing at 3003 Morrison Moore Parkway in Dahlonega started out as tests on the tap wall at Etowah Meadery but are now being produced in larger batches.
Southern Luau is a carbonated mead mixed with grilled pineapple and bananas, while IPA Wanna Bee is a hopped, gluten-free mead with a flavour approximating an India Pale Ale — it’s not a beer, but it wants to be.

                       A cask of mead at Etowah Meadery in Dahlonega. - photo by Nick Bowman

Battle Branch is named after a gold mine in Dahlonega where men fought over the gold that lay in Battle Creek. It’s made with cherries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries, cocoa nibs and aged in a chocolate rye whiskey barrel.
Figgy Pudding is an uncarbonated mix of fig mead and fall spices that Housley calls “Christmas in a glass.” If you’re waking up with a pumpkin spice latte (you poor soul), try finishing your evening with a glass of fig-infused Christmas spirit.
“That’s one of the aspects I like about making mead: It’s so versatile and you can play with it so much. With wineries, once you have that particular grape in that particular harvest that particular year, that’s pretty much it,” Housley said at the meadery on Thursday, Aug. 9. “Whereas honey … it doesn’t spoil, we can play with flavours and we can try it on our tap wall to see what people like.
“We’ll do some small batches — some of them we were doing only 5 gallons — and we’ll make bigger batches if it was very popular.”
Kegs of Etowah’s session meads are popping up at Gainesville’s Downtown Drafts and Cumming’s Cue Barbecue.
Look for new Wanna Bee recipes coming later this year — different takes on pale ales and even stouts as Etowah Meadery blends its honey wine and grainless beer-brewing crafts.
Stouts, sometimes called a loaf of bread in a glass, will have to be made “very carefully,” Housley said, because it will require caramelizing large batches of honey.
“We’ll put some coffee beans in it, we’ll put a little chocolate in it,” he said. “By caramelizing the honey it gets some of those toffee-style flavours, it gets it a little darker — we’ll be creative.”

A can of Southern Luau is canned on Thursday, Aug. 9, 2018, at Etowah Meadery in Dahlonega. Southern Luau mead is made with grilled pineapples and honey and then carbonated. - photo by Nick Bowman

https://www.gainesvilletimes.com/go/better-beer-etowah-meadery-new-territory/

Cheers! A Viking drink in Mexican cocktail

From michiganradio.org

                                               

                                          Tammy Coxen preparing the Blooming Paloma.

                                                  Credit Lester Graham / Michigan Radio

Cheers! We've got a honey of a Michigan cocktail for you.
The website for Bløm Meadworks suggests, “…if the word ‘mead’ automatically conjures a drinking hall filled with Vikings for you, think of ours as its friendly, approachable descendants, without the pillage and plunder.”
Cute.
But we’re taking the Vikings to Mexico.


Tammy Coxen of Tammy’s Tastings visited the new Bløm Meadworks in Ann Arbor. It opened in May of this year. The company features a wide variety of session meads. Unlike typical meads which are basically a sweet wine made from honey, weighing in with a hefty alcohol level of around 14 percent, session meads are very dry with an alcohol level of between five and six percent. It’s more like a beer than a wine.
“I immediately thought these are going to mix great in a cocktail,” Coxen said, adding, “I’ve been playing around with them ever since.”

She settled on a riff of a traditional Mexican cocktail called the paloma. You might think of tequila and a margarita, but in Mexico, the locals drink paloma, a mix of grapefruit juice and tequila.
A particular Bløm Meadworks mead incorporates hops. It’s dry-hopped which means it’s not as bitter as an IPA (India Pale Ale), but it does have a lot of those hop aromatics. It matches up with fresh grapefruit juice very nicely.

Bløm Meadworks is owned by Lauren Bloom and Matt Richey. Richey is a brewer who found he was gluten intolerant, a disadvantage for a beer and ale brewer. But, making session mead avoids that problem.
“Their philosophy is to be ultra-local. So, they’re sourcing all of their honey from Michigan and that means their mead will change throughout the year as their honey changes,” Coxen said.
Some of their session meads use rhubarb from the Traverse City area. They’re also working with Ann Arbor Distillery to use some of its spent gin botanicals to use them in their meads.
We like to make cocktails with Michigan ingredients. The Bløm Meadworks dry-hopped mead is a great start, but Coxen added Cabresto tequila which has a strong Michigan connection through the Lopez family in southwest Detroit.
The drink Coxen came up with is an easy drinking summer cocktail that you can mix right in the glass. Just make sure you stir it thoroughly to mix the agave nectar and large pinch of salt into the drink.

Blooming Paloma
2 oz tequila (Cabresto)
3 oz grapefruit juice
2 oz Bløm Meadworks Hopped Mead
1/2 oz lime juice
1/2 oz agave nectar
big pinch salt
Combine ingredients in a tall glass. Add ice to fill, and top off with additional mead as desired.
Update: the mead was mistakenly referred to as ale in one sentence. That has bee corrected.

http://www.michiganradio.org/post/cheers-viking-drink-mexican-cocktail

Meadiocrity has something to braggot about

From sandiegoreader.com

Call San Diego the land of beer and honey, because the guys behind a local mead startup have won a nationally televised beer contest.

Andrew Segina, John Botica, and Mark Oberle co-founded Meadiocrity Meadery in 2016, making occasional small batches in an Escondido winery co-op. But when they appeared on a June 5th episode for the Viceland cable channel show Beerland, they did so as homebrewers of beer.

Somewhat of a traveling homebrew competition, Beerland visits a different city each episode, giving host Meg Gill a chance to meet and drink with teams of local homebrewers. She assesses their brews and advances her favorite to compete in a season finale.

Segina, Botica, and Oberle earned a victory during the San Diego episode with their brew, The Brothers’ Brood, which is actually a braggot: a beer brewed with at least 50 percent honey. Making the drink more unusual is that its base beer was a milk porter recipe, made with lactose (the sugar found in milk).

                Meg Gill drinks braggot with John Botica, Andrew Segina, and Mark Oberle.

However, the distinction that helped Brothers’ Brood beat out four competing beers in the finale was that honey. Meadiocrity operates its own apiary in Valley Center, and the homebrewers supplied their own honey to the beer, lending its unique terroir.

“The winning characteristic of the beer was the terrific self-made honey,” said TV host Gill. “While terroir is a characteristic found often in wine, I had never tasted a beer that truly tasted of the land from which it was made.”

Gill is best known as a co-founder of Los Angeles beer company, Golden Road Brewing, where the finale was filmed. In the episode (which aired June 26th), she cast the deciding vote after discussing the beers with a judges panel that included Nate Soroko, a bartender at Modern Times Beer and North Park taproom Toronado. Soroko previously appeared on Beerland's San Diego episode to share insights into San Diego craft beer culture.

Thanks to its win, 100 barrels of The Brothers’ Brood milk porter braggot has been produced by Golden Road (a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch), and will be distributed in 19.2 ounce cans to select retailers in Southern California.

While the Meadiocrity brand didn’t feature much on the show, Mark Oberle hopes the win will shine some light on a burgeoning craft mead movement. “We were going on with a desire to help promote honey and local honey production,” Oberle says, “to get some air time for mead.” The rare distribution of a braggot in cans may be a good start. “People are always looking for the new thing,” he says, “and braggots are certainly new to most people!”

He adds that Meadiocrity is looking to produce braggot collaborations with local breweries later this year, as it finalizes plans to open its own mead brewing facility somewhere in North County.

Meanwhile, Meadiocrity has timed its latest bottle release to coincide with the team’s win; a carbonated session mead flavoured with vanilla and oak.

https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2018/jun/28/beer-meadiocrity-has-something-braggot-about/#

4 Great Places to Sip Drinks In Phoenix

From phoenixnewtimes.com

When the temperatures rise, it's time to get into some drinks. We have spent many pixels on the goodness of the Valley's beer scene. But our chops with booze extend far beyond. There is good local wine. There is good local whiskey (and more coming soon). There is even good local mead. So cheers to kicking back with some friends and one of these beverages. Here are four places that will up your drinking game this summer.

Arizona Mead Company
6503 West Frye Road, #12, Chandler
At Arizona Mead Company, mead is served chilled from the bottle. Ciders and cysers are dispensed from four rotating taps. “I started doing this on the side,” says Cody Brown, the man behind the operation. Now, he’s a full-time mead master, owner, and bartender at Arizona Mead Company. Brown lets his mead ferment an average of six months. This is a long fermentation. He has gone even longer, letting some meads ferment for over a year. How does he know when a mead is ready? It's ready when it tastes good, he says. Meads currently fermenting include bourbon-barrel-aged traditional meads (just honey), a guava-berry mead, a strawberry mead, and a raspberry. Brown is prepping ingredients for a second batch of pumpkin-pie mead and coffee-chocolate mead, both of which will be ready this fall.

GenuWine Arizona
888 North First Avenue, #101 GenuWine Arizona is a self-serve wine bar. More than half the spot's 24 wines come from Arizona vineyards, many with names are sure to tempt you: Dos Cabezas, Arizona Stronghold, Sand Reckoner, and so on. Grape varietals are all over the map. GenuWine balances your buzz with a limited food menu. There's a build-your-own cheese board, hummus plate, and two dessert boards that source ingredients like peanut butter and honey from local suppliers. GenuWine also serve beer on tap and by the bottle or can. Add all that to the cosy furniture, laid-back atmosphere, and the local angle, and you might have just found your home away from home downtown.

Wren House Brewing Company
2125 North 24th Street
Wren House Brewing has emerged as one of the best breweries in metro Phoenix, young or old. The 24th Street taproom seems to wipe the stresses from life, leaving you in a space that has a residential vibe, like a cool friend’s lake house where people bullshit and share pictures and drink good beer. Head brewer Preston Thoeny's most recent stunner is a sour beer series called Las Frescas. Sour beer is a sprawling beer style that spans from gently tart brews like Berliner weisse to ferociously puckering lambics and wild ales. Las Frescas starts with a sour beer base on the milder end, with Wren House’s take on Berliner weisse. Thoeny spikes this base with fruit solids and juice, creating a beer that is part beer, part sangria-like infusion, part nectar. “The original idea was it would be kind of reminiscent of those iced Mexican beverages, like agua frescas – more juice-based, super-palatable beers for the summertime,” Thoeny says.

Flying Basset Brewing
720 West Ray Road, Gilbert Flying Basset Brewing is a realized vision of pilot Rob Gangon and his wife, Sara Cotton. They got married in 2011 and started homebrewing that year. Not long after, Gangon started placing in Arizona Society of Homebrewers competitions. According to Sara, “it’s just been a roller coaster of beer ever since.” The beer menu is written on a chalkboard adjacent to the bar. It covers the 25 brews on tap written and includes the brewery's three house beers. Flying Basset debuted with a classic copper ale. It’s balanced, malted, lightly hopped, and has a hint of caramel. The house copper was followed by a double IPA and a Hefeweizen. The beer list features local favourites like Pedal Haus and Huss. There are also 40-plus bottles to choose from. Flying Basset Brewing is quickly becoming a neighbourhood favourite in Gilbert.

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/restaurants/4-great-places-to-drink-phoenix-10494799

Dogfish Head releases Mixed Media beer-wine hybrid

From doverpost.com

Dogfish Head announced the late-April debut of Mixed Media, its newest beer-wine hybrid creation.

Brewed with a Belgian yeast strain, Mixed Media is a vino-esque ale with a white wine body and notes of sweet melon and white grape. With 51 percent of the fermentables coming from grain and 49 percent coming from grapes, this wine-inspired ale is the closest to a wine a beer can legally be. Clocking in at 7.5 percent alcohol by volume and 15 International Bitterness Units, Mixed Media is pale straw in colour with a tart, dry finish. Late-harvest viognier grape must from friends at Alexandria Nicole Cellars in Washington were used in the brewing process to round out the flavours.
A beer for both chardonnay and mead drinkers alike, Midas Touch, the original Ancient Ale and first beer-wine hybrid from Dogfish, is a sweet, yet dry beer made with barley, honey, white muscat grapes and saffron. Another fan-favourite for those that love wine is Sixty One, a beer marrying Dogfish Head’s award-winning 60 Minute IPA and Syrah grape must.

Starting in May is Festina Pêche, a neo-Berliner Weisse. Available for the first time in 12-ounce, six-pack bottles, this pale straw-coloured beer clocks in at 4.5 percent ABV and 8 IBUs.

For more, visit dogfish.com

http://www.doverpost.com/news/20180423/dogfish-head-releases-mixed-media-beer-wine-hybrid

We brewed an ancient Graeco-Roman beer and here’s how it tastes

From theconversation.com

Beer is the most consumed alcoholic beverage in the world; it is also the most popular drink after water and tea. In the modern world, however, little consideration is typically given to how beer developed with respect to taste. Even less is given to why beer is thought of in the way that it is.
But today, Canada is in the middle of a beer renaissance. A relative explosion of craft breweries has led to a renewed interest in different methods of brewing and in different types of beer recipes.
In turn, this has driven interest into historical methods of brewing. It is a rather romantic idea: That very old brewing processes are somehow superior to those of the modern world. While almost all of the beer on the market today is quantitatively and qualitatively better than that produced in the ancient world, attempts made by both historians and breweries recently have had some good results.
For example, the collaboration between University of Pennsylvania archaeologist Patrick McGovern and Dogfish Head Brewery that resulted in their “Midas Touch”, based on the sediment found in vessels discovered in the Tomb of Midas in central Turkey, and the Sleepy Giant Brewing Company’s ancient beers created as part of Lakehead University’s Research and Innovation Week.

Beer made an old-fashioned way is shown at Barn Hammer Brewing Company in Winnipeg in March 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/David Lipnowski           

Why re-create ancient beer and mead?

From an academic point of view, researchers have realized eating and drinking are important social, economic and even political activities. In the ancient world, food, drink and their consumption were important indicators of culture, ethnicity and class. Romans were set apart from non-Romans in several ways: Those living in cities versus those who didn’t, those who farmed in one place versus those who moved around, and so on.
One of the other ways in which this distinction was made was in the different foods people ate and in the liquids they drank. This is clear in the ancient Graeco-Roman debate surrounding those who drank wine and those who drank beer.
Although the saying “you are what you eat” is a fact in terms of physiology, the Romans also believed that “you are what you drink.” So Romans drank wine, non-Romans drank beer.
These indicators (real or not) even exist today: The English drink tea, Americans drink coffee; Canadians drink rye, the Scottish drink scotch.
So the re-creation of ancient beer and mead (an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey and other liquids) allows us to examine many things. Among them are these cultural and ethnic considerations, but there are other important and interesting questions that can be answered. How has the brewing process transformed? How have our palates changed?

                                                             Mead beaker. Matt Gibbs

The “Roman” recipes and their recreation

The Romans left us a variety of different recipes for food and drink. Two of them form the basis of an ongoing research project between the co-owners of Barn Hammer Brewing Company — Tyler Birch and Brian Westcott — and myself that attempts to answer some of these questions.
The first is a recipe for beer that dates to the fourth century Common Era (CE). It appears in the work of Zosimus, an alchemist, who lived in Panopolis, Egypt, when it was part of the Roman empire. The second is a recipe for a mead probably from Italy and dating to the first century CE, written by a Roman senator called Columella.

Both recipes are quite clear concerning ingredients, with the exception of yeast. Yeast, or more appropriately a yeast culture, was often made from dough saved from a day’s baking. Alternatively, one could simply leave mixtures out in the open. But the processes and measurements in them are more difficult to recreate.
The brewing of the beer, for instance, required the use of barley bread made with a sourdough culture: Basically a lump of sourdough bread left uncovered. To keep the culture alive while being baked required a long, slow baking process at a low temperature for 18 hours.
Zosimus never specified how much water or bread was needed for a single batch; this was left open to the brewers’ interpretation. A mix of three parts water to one part bread was brewed and left to ferment for nearly three weeks.
The brewing of the mead was a much easier process. Closely following Columella’s recipe, we mixed honey and wine must. The recipe in this case provided some measurements, and from there we were able to extrapolate a workable mix of roughly three parts must to one part honey.
We then added wine yeast and sealed the containers. These were placed in Barn Hammer’s furnace room for 31 days in an attempt to imitate the conditions of a Roman loft.

What did we learn?

First of all, it’s worth noting that the principles of brewing have not changed significantly; fundamentally, the process of brewing both beer and mead is arguably the same now as it was 2,000 years ago. But as true as that may be, even now the production of Zosimus’ beer — particularly the baking of the bread — was labour-intensive.

                                                                Mead decanting.

This led to another question: Did the link between baking and brewing depicted so clearly in ancient Egyptian material culture and archaeology persist even centuries later?
Second, we recreated beer and mead from the Roman Empire as faithfully as we were able. The data all suggest that the beer is a beer, and the mead is a mead, right down to the pH level: The beer, for instance, stands at pH 4.3 which is what one would expect from a beer after fermentation.
Third, as the photos here make clear, the mead looked like red wine, the beer was quite pale but cloudy. Neither case was particularly surprising, but what was interesting was the difference between the first tasting of the beer and the second 10 days later.
In the former, the beer looked liked a sourdough milkshake; in the latter, the beer looked like a pale craft ale, and one that would not be out of place in the modern craft beer market.
Fourth, with respect to taste, the beer was sour but quite smooth, and had a relatively low ABV - Alcohol By Volume: the measurement that tells you what percentage of beer or mead is alcohol — around three to four per cent. The sour taste resulted in diverse opinions: Some people liked it; others hated it. The mead was incredibly sweet; it smelled like a fortified wine due to presence of Fusel alcohols, and had an ABV upwards of 12 per cent.
While general tastes may have changed, there are modern palates that appreciate ancient beer and mead. Is this a physiological question? Perhaps, but what seems clear is that ancient indicators based on what people drank are likely more indicative not only of the Romans’ beliefs and opinions about non-Romans, but also their prejudices against them.
Ultimately, what the project suggests so far is that while the brewing process may not have changed that much, in some ways neither have we.

https://theconversation.com/we-brewed-an-ancient-graeco-roman-beer-and-heres-how-it-tastes-94362

Castle to host medieval feast

From teesdalemercury.co.uk

A MEDIEVAL banquet complete with minstrels and period costumes is to be launched at a hotel in a nod to its ancient past.

Walworth Castle Hotel dates back to 1189 and its staff have organised a four-course feast with entertainment from acting troupe “Trouvere”.
Rachel and Chris Swain have owned the grade-I listed castle on the fringes of Teesdale since 2000.
If the banquet on April 20 is a success, the pair want to make it a regular event in the calendar.
Mrs Swain said: “We want the evening to be as authentic as possible and there will also be the opportunity to explore the dungeon while enjoying a glass of ale or mead.”

The evening will see Trouvere pair Paul Leigh and Gill Page, from Richmond, set the tone with medieval music.
Storytelling, dancing and games will also cap off the evening.
The event starts at 7pm and a free glass of mead is on offer from those attending in fancy dress.
Tickets cost £35 – for more information go to www.bw-walworthcastle.co.uk.

https://www.teesdalemercury.co.uk/business/castle-to-host-medieval-feast

Raise a pint to the craft at Vancouver Spring Brewfest

From Columbian.com

Fourth-annual event celebrates local brewers, benefits charities

Here, hold my beer.

Wait, what are you doing with my beer? Give that back. Didn’t you know, today and Saturday are Vancouver’s Spring Brewfest?

You’re forgiven for losing track. The fourth annual Spring Brewfest has moved a few yards over from its usual home and is a little hemmed in this year. Because of ongoing construction at the waterfront, the Vancouver Landing patio space is not available, organizer Cody Gray said. So Spring Brewfest will be up in the southeast section of Esther Short Park, on the brick plaza only. The city doesn’t schedule anything on the grass before May, Gray said. No live music this time, either, he said.

That means the beverages themselves will be the stars of this show. That’s no problem; Spring Brewfest will blossom with new and familiar flavours April 13 and 14. Visitors will be treated to the creations of 30 local breweries plus 15 meaderies, cideries and wineries. Each will pour two varieties — plus, many local taprooms put their foamy heads together to concoct something special for this event only: an “ALEtogether Pale Ale” that got brewed at Brothers Cascadia Brewing in Hazel Dell.

“Clark County is now home to 22 taprooms by the last count,” said co-organizer Michael Perozzo, and they enjoy working together and showing off what a friendly, collaborative beer community we’ve got here — so much so that they’ve hash-tagged their partnership projects as #CommunityNotCompetition. “It’s a celebration of the growth of craft beer in the area and the first iteration is set to debut at Spring Brewfest this weekend,” Perozzo said.

New arrivals

Several beverage crafters are new to the festival or new, period. A fledgling Vancouver company called Author Mead will go live and offer its first commercial sales — of a semisweet mead and an Oregon raspberry mead — at this event. Other newcomers are Dwinell Country Ales of Goldendale, with a Berlin-style wheat ale and a dark farmhouse ale; Wolf Tree Brewery of Seal Rock, Ore., with a spruce tip ale and a golden IPA; Thunder Island Brewing of Cascade Locks, with a golden ale and a “Remember the Forest IPA”; and Little Dipper Brewing, based at Battle Ground’s Northwood Pub, with a honey IPA and a classic British brown ale.

“Everybody is continuously innovating beer styles, and we always look forward to seeing what’s new,” said Gray. Check out the complete list of beers and other beverages on the Vancouver Spring Brewfest website, VancouverBrewfest.com.

No-frills, $10 admission at the gate gets you a wristband, but if you mean to drink, you’ll also need to buy a $5 pint glass and tokens for pours at $1.25 each. Those are included in ticket packages priced at $25 (8 tokens) and $35 (16 tokens). Buy your wristband and glass April 13 and get in free April 14. Minors and pets are not permitted.

You’re welcome to use previous Brewfest tokens you didn’t spend. And, Brewfest tokens you don’t spend now can be spent at Summer Brewfest, set for Aug. 10 and 11.

Veterans and volcano

“It’s a great mix of old and new and a great way to support your local craft breweries,” Gray said. “And, it’s a great way to support local charities.”

Gray, a combat veteran from Operation Desert Storm, has supported veterans’ charities throughout his years of brewfesting. This is the fourth annual spring event, but Gray’s been piloting a summer Vancouver Brewfest — a really big outing that takes over the whole park — for the past seven years. Returning beneficiaries of Spring Brewfest include the Northwest chapter of Disabled American Veterans; Northwest Battle Buddies, based in Battle Ground and providing assistance dogs for veterans with post traumatic stress disorder; and Second Chance Companions, a pet adoption network.

Admission to Spring Brewfest is always free for disabled veterans; an ID at the gate is required. Those disabled veterans who want to drink, will still need to buy a glass and tokens, and those who get a designated-driver wristband can enjoy free non-alcoholic beverages. “There is absolutely no charge,” the website says.

New on the charity scene at Spring Brewfest will be the Mount St. Helens Institute, a non-profit educational facility in the foothills of the big volcano. Gray said he reached out to the institute as a potential beneficiary for a simple and non-military reason: “Who doesn’t love the great outdoors? I’m a native Pacific Northwesterner and I’ve been around since before St. Helens blew the first time.” 

By rule, brewers never do their own pouring at Gray’s brewfests; volunteers do that. And the last volunteer shift on Saturday is always staffed by folks from the charities reaping the benefits. “That’s their one contribution for the donation,” he said. Hang around until the end to rub elbows with folks you can really lift a glass to.

Fewer fests

The busy Brewfest scene in Clark County has shaken off at least two previous outings. There’ll be no fresh hops festival in October this year, Gray said, because that event has lost money twice in a row. And December’s Winter Brewfest appears to be a casualty of the bankruptcy of Energy Events, whose major project had been staging the Vancouver USA Marathon.

Here’s the schedule of other upcoming beer- and brewfests in Clark County this year:
• Craft Beer and Wine Fest, June 8-10 in Esther Short Park.
• Vancouver Summer Brewfest: Aug. 10-11 in Esther Short Park.
• North Bank Beer Week: Sept. 20-30. All over Southwest Washington.

http://www.columbian.com/news/2018/apr/13/vancouver-spring-brewfest/

Welcome to Lindisfarne Mead

From lindisfarne-mead.co.uk

St Aidan's Winery is the home of the world famous Lindisfarne Mead.
Lindisfarne Mead is a unique alcoholic fortified wine manufactured here on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. It is a vatted blend of honey, locally drawn water, fermented grape juice and neutral spirits. It comes to you from The Holy Island of Lindisfarne.

We have a family of 3 meads, our Original (over 2,000,000 bottles sold) and 2 new additions, our Spiced and our Pink.

World famous Lindisfarne Mead is not only the connoisseur's choice but makes a supreme drink for young and old alike whatever the season. To many, it is regarded as the "nectar of the gods"
The Winery Showroom opens to visitors everyday in the year (except Christmas and New Year's Day) for free sampling daily (Adults / Over 18's Only). Stocking speciality foods and drinks available at the winery or online including:

• Our family of Meads and Fruit Wines,
• Our own Rums, Liqueurs, and Malt Whiskies
• and Speciality Local Crafts and Preserves.

We also have one of the largest Craft Shops in the region which displays a unique collection of local wares.

The word "honeymoon" is derived from the ancient Norse custom of having Newly-Weds drink Mead for a whole moon which was thought to increase their fertility and therefore their chances of a happy and fulfilled marriage.

The origin of mead appears to be simply fermented honeys diluted with water. The years have seen many varieties enjoyed and there are many different meads of interest. Of particular interest to us has been the Roman Mulsum honey wine and also mead made through the blending of honey with grape juice (called Pyment). The terms mead and honey wine are often used synonymously.
Made today exclusively on The Holy Island of Lindisfarne our mead was inspired by the rich history of our island. It was developed during the last century to capture the deep rooted historical and cultural overtones of our region. Wanting to keep the rich history of our lands alive we have embraced ancient Rome's favoured approach of using grape juice in our fermentation process.

http://www.lindisfarne-mead.co.uk/

Here come the Vikings! An authentic Scandinavian beer hall is set to open in Seattle

From lonelyplanet.com

Skål, meaning ‘cheers’ in Norwegian, will be the name of a new Viking bar due to open in Seattle’s waterfront neighbourhood of Ballard this summer.

                     The waterfront at Ballard’s Golden Gardens Park in Seattle. Image by Getty Images

The new drinking spot will be designed like a Viking mead hall (or Viking living room). “The mead hall was the center of the community,” said Skål’s owner Adam McQueen, “a welcoming spot to gather or to host visitors from afar. It was the hall where stories of adventure, exploration and new ideas were shared and debated over food and drink.”

In the venue’s main great hall, there will be Norse mythology touches, including a huge central fireplace to gather around on dreary Seattle nights. The drinks will be served in large ale horn mugs, and choices include a rotating selection of local craft beer, cider, and mead, regional wine, and speciality cocktails with an emphasis on the popular Scandinavian spirit – Aquavit. “We’re looking forward to featuring some of our terrific but hard-to-find local products as well as some Scandinavian imports,” explained McQueen, who has part Norwegian and Swedish ancestry.

A Viking beer hall at Lofotr Viking Museum, Borg, Norway. Image by altrendo travel/Getty Images

Meanwhile, the open kitchen will be inspired by the idea of a Viking butcher shop and will feature bar bites and shared plates that explore wild flavours from the woods and sea. Imagine being at a gathering “near a roaring fire at the edge of a fjord,” said McQueen. There will be game, meat skewers, a large rotisserie for chicken, pork, and rabbit. “We’ll also have lamb and pork sausages, potato dumplings and pickled herring,” revealed McQueen, but those searching for meatballs will be out of luck, it’s not a dish Skål plans to serve.
Those who really want to integrate into Scandinavian culture can get involved in Nordic events, classes, and partnerships with the local Nordic community groups at Skål. “Who knows – maybe even Kirk Douglas will appear on the big screen in the classic movie The Vikings!” said McQueen.
Ballard has a strong Nordic community, it’s common to see flags and shops inspired by the region, plus community groups, museums, and statues. Ballard is also home to the largest Syttende Mai celebration (Norwegian Constitution Day) outside of Oslo, attracting 20K visitors each year, plus a new $200+ million Nordic Heritage museum will open in downtown Ballard in May. Visit the Skål Viking beer hall in early summer, see here for more info.

https://www.lonelyplanet.com/news/2018/03/23/skal-beer-hall-open-seattle/