Major mead momentum for Lost Cause

From sandiegoreader.com/news

Suzanna and Billy Beltz show off the five medals they earned in March at the Mazer Cup International Mead Competition

Launched in November 2017, Lost Cause Meadery has quickly established itself as one of San Diego’s top mead makers. According to the results of this year’s Mazer Cup International Mead Competition, it also ranks among the best in the world.

Married Lost Cause co-founders Suzanna and Billy Beltz returned from the annual Colorado contest with five of the 69 medals awarded: a gold, three silver, and one bronze. Only one other meadery equalled the five-medal count.

The haul lends an air of legitimacy to a craft beverage still standing in the shadow of San Diego beer. However, these awards merely punctuate a year of successful growth for Lost Cause. According to Billy Beltz, tasting room sales are up 80 percent in the first quarter of 2019, compared to the same time frame a year ago.

Much of that is positive word of mouth spreading among local beer enthusiasts, but there’s a burgeoning national recognition as well. “We’re getting a lot of people from around the country,” Beltz adds, such as a recent guest from Michigan who showed up to buy a case of mead at the behest of a bottle share group back home.

That can be a significant investment. Mead costs more to produce than beer, and single Lost Cause bottles range in price from 17 to 34 dollars. The Beltzes had always hoped an audience of beer drinkers would embrace the premium beverage, and launched the business with dry, sparkling, core offerings they presumed would appeal to local craft fans.

However, most of the meadery’s recent growth may be credited to surprising styles. It turns out, “A lot of people like the bolder, sweeter, still meads,” reports Beltz. A particularly big hit for Lost Cause has been a style of mead called a bochet. It’s made from caramelized honey, which yields a richer, more potent beverage. Beltz likens the appeal of bochets to that of pastry stouts, a massively trending beer style that dresses a big, roasty stout with rich and sweet flavours such as chocolate, maple, and/or coconut. A blueberry, cinnamon, and vanilla bochet, Blåsväder, earned Lost Cause one of its silver medals.

The bochet’s success led Lost Cause to the same realization many local beer makers have faced in recent years. “What people want,” says Beltz, “is something new.” Thus, Lost Cause has shifted its focus to produce more limited, small batches, including barrel aged meads and those made with specially sourced honey. To wit, its gold medal came from a collaboration with local homebrew guru Brian Trout, made from pink peppercorn blossom honey sourced from Brazil.

Such small and barrel aged batches will provide a focus for Lost Cause’s next stage of growth: a new meadery. The Beltzes recently secured a production space in the Morena District, and while Lost Cause will continue to operate a tasting room in the Miralani Makers District space it shares with Serpentine Cider, it will move production to the larger property this fall, where it will have room to stage more mead education events.

Beltz sees local mead as being roughly where local beer stood in the 90s, when drinkers stopped viewing hops as too bitter, and started appreciating the nuanced flavours they provide. With mead, he says, local palates are coming around to distinguish the characteristic sweetness of differing honey varietals in much the same way. Rather than chalk mead up as “too sweet,” we’re learning to swirl it in the glass, enjoy its floral aromatics,

It bodes well for the future of mead in San Diego, which is looking bright. A couple of local meadmakers also brought home medals form the Mazer Cup have their own professional aspirations. Gold medallists Jared Ayo and Sean Callahan are in the early stages of planning The Swarm Meadery, while silver medallist Eric Olson and his wife Anya Gonzalez eventually plan to open Mjødhall Meadery.

https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2019/mar/29/beer-major-mead-momentum-lost-cause/#

Nectar of the Gods: A Quick Lesson in Mead

From thatsmags.com

That's columnist Chris Foste is a bearded beer fanatic whose frothy pint glass of knowledge flows over with wisdom on the wetting of one's whistle.

In the time before planes, trains and automobiles, when wooden vessels dominated the high seas, very little was known about brewing. Rough, bearded men used magic wooden paddles that would miraculously cause their vat of sugar water to foam up and transform into luscious alcoholic liquid. Now, brewing historians know that it was the yeast and bacteria that had buried itself deep into these wooden paddles that would initiate fermentation, but thousands of years ago this wasn’t science, it was magic! Which concoction was early man’s first brew of choice? Wine? Nope. Beer? Negative. The first liquid that man magically fermented was none other than mead!

Early documentation of history state that mead was popular up to 4,000 years ago. A fermented mixture of honey and water, mead is sweeter than wine and can be combined with any number of fruits and spices to further enhance the flavour. Known to be an enchanted drink, promoting virility, vitality and heightened intelligence, gods of ancient lore were often depicted slamming back giant ram’s horns filled with mead to maintain and enhance their divine abilities. 

While still being a delicious way to imbibe, mead has fallen from the limelight of alcoholic popularity. One of the reasons why mead recently has fallen off in popularity is the production time for the product. More similar to wine than beer, mead requires anywhere from two weeks to four weeks just to complete the initial fermentation. From here, mead will still require anywhere from 6-12 months of aging to round out the flavour, making it smooth and delectable. Otherwise, there is a sharp alcoholic flavour in mead directly after fermentation.

In stark contrast, beer can be fermented and ready to drink in as little as 10 days. Wines, while some do require proper aging, do not possess nearly as sharp an alcoholic flavour as mead once fermentation has completed. In addition to the preparation time, honey and the scarcity of good beekeepers makes the initial costs higher. Securing a steady and cheap supply of honey can be done, but not as easy as finding grapes or barley. Thus, the nectar of the gods has become a novelty instead of its once predominate staple in the household.

With mead not being a readily available product in the marketplace, home brewing is the best method to get a chance to taste this fantastic beverage. The most difficult part of mead is securing the proper honey, as most honey found in markets are used for cooking and will only result in a basic product. The quality of ingredients you use always represents the quality of output in the brew. In China, mead brewers also must be wary of fake honey, since many market-based kinds of honey are not really honey, but instead a viscous, dyed sugar water mixture. One can only imagine the disastrous hangover obtained from drinking the sweet imposter brew. 

The process of mead making is simple. Boil water for 10 minutes to sanitize it, then let the water cool to 70 degrees Celsius and let it sit at this temperature for another 10 minutes. At this time, add your honey, along with any yeast nutrient and energizer. Since honey does not contain the same minerals as barley (beer) or grapes (wine), the yeast will need something else to consume other than the honey sugar to achieve strong fermentation.

Now, the honey and nutrients have been stirred in and the mixture has set at 70 C for 10 minutes. The resulting concoction is called must. Now, the must needs to be chilled to around 25 degrees Celsius in order to pitch the yeast. If the temperature is too high when the yeast is added, it will kill the yeast and no fermentation will occur. From here, add the yeasty must to a fermentation vessel and cap it off with an airlock. 

Fermentation should be completed after around two or three weeks. At that time you will want to separate your mead from the yeast, so siphon it to another vessel and let it age for another 6-12 months. From this point, the mead is drinkable but won’t taste that good. The longer it ages the better the taste. Some meads even require as long as three years before they begin to ‘hit its stride.’

With an ABV similar to wine, mead is an absolutely delightful way to reach inebriation. If there is a chance to taste some mead, do it. Even better, brew at home to customize the honey wine to your liking. While a decent' amount of time is necessary to acquire a good mead, patience is a virtue when it comes to this historic drink of the gods. 

http://www.thatsmags.com/china/post/27256/nectar-of-the-gods-a-quick-lesson-in-mead