Want to drink like a Viking? Mead is gaining popularity in Southern California

From sgvtribune.com

Mead, the honey-based alcoholic beverage consumed by knights and Vikings that dates back thousands of years, may seem like the kind of drink that someone would only crack out for a really intense game of Dungeons and Dragons or a “Game of Thrones” watch party, but the drink is finding a modern resurgence with an audience of craft spirit drinkers.

Meaderies offering complex and flavourful options full of spices and fruit flavour are popping up all over the country. In Southern California, Gardena has The Honest Abe Cider House & Meadery. Anaheim has the Honey Pot Meadery and Phantom Ales, though the latter location offers mostly beer and only a few meads. And Temecula, a place already known for its surrounding wine country and burgeoning craft beer scene, may become a hot spot for mead next.

Two meaderies have opened in the same Temecula business complex: Chubby Cheeks Meadery, which opened in late October, and Batch Mead, which opened in late November. Both business have multiple varieties of mead and some cider on tap.

      Some of the mead sold by Chubby Cheeks Meadery in Temecula sits on the counter                                    Tuesday, January 21, 2020. (Andrew Foulk Contributing Photographer )

Increased interest 

Though it is dwarfed by other products such as beer, wine and distilled spirits, mead is the fastest growing alcohol industry in the United States, according to Vicky Rowe, executive director of the American Mead Makers Association.

“Currently there are probably close to 200 meaderies in the process of opening up to add to the just over 400 that are open in the United States now,” Rowe said. She noted that not all of them will open immediately and it could take up to two years depending on local and state regulations.

What accounts for the increase?
“There have been a few mentions in ‘Game of Thrones’ and stuff like that, but more I think has been a desire for new and interesting craft alcohol beverages and that is driven in part by the enthusiasm of the craft beer folks,” Rowe said.

She also said the mead movement is being led by younger people, “millennials and Gen Xers who are really jumping in with both feet and not just to drink mead, but to start meaderies themselves.”

“A large number, in fact I would venture to say a majority of the new meaderies, that are opening are being opened by people who are under 40. That’s where a lot of the momentum is coming from.”

    Jared Caperton, owner and founder of Chubby Cheeks Meadery, stands with some of his mead                             Tuesday, January 21, 2020. (Photo by Andrew Foulk, Contributing Photographer)

The American Homebrewers Association are seeing an increased interest in making mead as well.
“Actually, for this year’s National Homebrew Competition we expanded the number of categories that we have for mead and last year’s competition we saw a 25% increase in the number of entries for mead,” said Gary Glass, the organization’s director. “So I think there is some growing interest in making mead and certainly a lot of growth in the knowledge of what goes into mead making.”
Glass, who said he’s been making mead for two decades, said it’s a lot easier to make than beer or wine.

“It’s actually very simple,” Glass said. “It’s about as easy as it gets in terms of fermented beverages, which is probably why it’s commonly thought of as the most ancient fermented beverage, the original fermented beverage, because it really is just mixing water and honey and adding yeast.”

       Derek and Danielle Busch, owners of Batch Mead in Temecula, stand by some of their hard ciders and mead Tuesday, January 14, 2020. (Photo by Andrew Foulk Contributing Photographer)

It was that simplicity that inspired Jared Caperton, owner of Chubby Cheeks, to start making his own years ago.
“I was bored at work one day and I was looking into how to make beer and I watched a video and I said, ‘That’s really hard I’m not going to do that,’” he said.  “So the next video was how to make mead and I watched the video and I was like, ‘I can do that.’”

Derek Busch, who owns Batch Mead with his wife, Danielle, began after receiving a wine making kit as a gift seven years ago.
“I got the bug and I was like, ‘All right, I want to make more stuff, but what else can I make?’ and I ended up going to the store and I was watching the TV series ‘Vikings’ at the time and they were drinking mead and I was like, ‘What is that?’
He was hooked after trying the drink.
“I said, ‘Well, I bet I can make this because it’s just honey, water and yeast’ and gave it a shot, loved it and I said ‘I can make this with fruit, I can make this with spices, dry or sweet, however I want really — the sky’s the limit.’”

Caperton was also impressed with all the different things he can do with mead.

“It is in my opinion the most versatile of all alcohols, not only because of the honeys that you can use but because of the external flavourings,” he said.

The meads
Batch Mead’s meads range from sweet and fruity to drier variations. They currently have four meads, two ciders and a mead-cider hybrid called a cyzer. The meads range in alcohol content from 7.5% to about 10.5%.
Some of the varieties include a pineapple mead, a blueberry mead and a seasonal mead with spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg and clove as well as orange peel. Pricing for the meads and ciders ranges from $12 for a flight of four, $7 per glass and $18 per bottle.

Chubby Cheeks has a variety of fruited and spiced sweet and semi-sweet meads with creative names such as “Pineapple Under the Sea,” “Pear Pressure” and “Blurred Limes.” His range in alcohol content from 8% to about 14%. Pricing at Chubby Cheeks runs $3 for a 4 ounce pour, $6 for an 8 ounce pour and $8 for a 10 ounce pour.

The honeys 
What really accounts for the versatility and differences in flavours in meads is the honey used.
“Honeys come from bees that are pollinating various plants and in many cases they’re pollinating very specific crops so depending on the source of the pollen the honeys can range dramatically in the flavour,” Glass said.

Glass said that most people are familiar with the store-bought honeys that are from alfalfa or clover pollen and those have the typical, most recognizable honey characteristics, but there are others, such as buckwheat honey that can impart a muskiness, or meadowfoam honey which can give the mead an almost marshmallow-like flavour.

At Chubby Cheeks, Caperton uses primarily orange blossom honey from the Pauma Valley, but he’s used some other very unique honeys as well.
“We have honey from the superbloom in Lake Elsinore," he said. “It’s a wildflower honey. That honey has some crazy waffle characteristics… You taste the honey and you get almost the aftertaste after you’ve eaten a bite of a waffle.”

At Batch Mead, Derek and Danielle Busch are currently using different varieties of Temecula Valley Honey Company honeys in all their meads, but they plan to soon incorporate honeys from elsewhere on the West Coast and Hawaii.

The future 
Caperton said that as mead continues to surge in popularity, that he expects new meaderies to open in the Temecula area. He said that’s something he welcomes.

“Variety is the spice of life — just think about how many wineries we have and it’s a destination spot for them now, so now you can go get wine, we have some of the best craft breweries in the area and you can get some great mead now with the two new meaderies,” he said.

Information: chubbycheeksmeadery.com.
Information: batchmead.com.
Information: Honeypotmeadery.com.
Information: Facebook.com/HonestAbeCidery

https://www.sgvtribune.com/2020/01/30/want-to-drink-like-a-viking-mead-is-gaining-popularity-in-southern-california/

The Wide Angle: The mad science of meadery

From austindailyherald.com
By Eric Johnson

A number of years ago, I stood in the kitchen of Kevin and Jill Jones, watching Kevin mix a new batch of home-brewed wine for fermentation.

At the time I found the concept of home brewing mildly interesting, but not interesting enough to fully grab my attention. However, on and off over the next few years I did a few more stories involving the Jones, including the opening of their microbrewery The Angry Hog, and I found myself becoming more curious.

Then I did another story on home brewing, this time with Cody Anderson, he of Plunging for Pink emceeing fame. As he took me through his process, I discovered myself asking questions, not so much for the story, but for my own interest.

By now you can probably see where this is going and you are absolutely right in the proper amount of scepticism you are now showing.

I can’t see you showing this scepticism, but I know you by now, dear reader, just as you know that there is probable cause to suspect this could end with alcohol all over the floor of our basement.

The pull to actually try home brewing has only really started to surface in the last couple years, with no real urge to go much beyond brewing for my own simple tastes. Given how this could go, I see no reason to take down a small business venture along with it.

But lately, the urge has taken on a stronger pull as I’ve started thinking more and more about the idea of brewing mead at home.

Mead is an absolutely marvellous drink, expertly brewed by the Norse using honey. I’ve had drinks that have come close to mead, but aside from the Renaissance Festival, I have only really had real mead once in my life when a buddy of mine brought me back a bottle from Ireland.

I fell in love with it immediately, and as I began to give more and more thought to this idea of dipping into alcoholic chemistry, my thoughts immediately drifted towards mead.

However, there comes a problem the further along I go and it is this — chemistry.

I’ve written more than a few times in this space you so stubbornly read that I was never a fan of math. However, this spreads a little further when I tell you that science in general seemed to baffle me, which has always been weird because I like science. I enjoy those things that come from science, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m bad at it.

Math, chemistry, physics and all the rest of these related field of studies really confounded me and caused everything to be a head scratcher, and now I’m thinking about trying something that requires a certain level of chemistry and maybe a little bit of math.

I know what you may be thinking. “But Eric, there are beginners kits.”

Yeah, I know, and a lot of the kits come with such assurances as, “certified frustration-free.” And yet … AND YET! … we all know by now that I am every bit capable of fouling this up. It’s what I excel at. Find simple things, make them as complicated as possible and ultimately screw it up.

Which is daunting when I have to — at minimum — buy kits with a bunch of honey that costs a pretty penny.

There is not just a notion of failure here. There’s a spectacular notion of failure, specifically including a fear of coming home and finding exploded bottles of sticky mead all over the basement floor with drunk cats.

Now I know this is probably a worst case scenario and I’m probably overthinking the effort, and there have been some instances where I pulled off the improbable. Remember, I once repaired a taillight all by my lonesome self.

Still, we have to consider the idea, maybe even expect it, that this will go wrong in ways I haven’t even thought of yet.

But on the other side of things, mead is really, really good and at some point in life, don’t you think we have to try something new?

I think I’ve now convinced myself that this will happen, which should bode well for you all. Imagine a summer of not only garden hijinks, but home brewery hijinks as well.

The things I do for you people.

https://www.austindailyherald.com/2020/01/the-wide-angle-the-mad-science-of-meadery/

Meet Mead, the Ancient Honey Wine Making a 21st-Century Comeback

From theepochtimes.com

I first learned of mead in high school, but then it was only by reputation: The mead hall in “Beowulf” where Danish king Hrothgar and his people quaffed cups to achieve “mead joy”—until Grendel showed up and ruined the party. 

Others may have recently caught wind of it via Game of Thrones. But textual mentions of this honey wine date back to ancient Greece, and even earlier to 1500 B.C. in India, while 9,000-year-old pottery artefacts in China show evidence of fermented honey. 

“At its most basic, mead is honey mixed with water and yeast,” said mead maker Jon Hamilton of White Winter Winery in Iron River, Wisconsin. For Hamilton, commercial honey has been in the family for generations. 
“My dad had a hive in the backyard in Minneapolis, but he never had bees in it for fear of getting sued,” he said. But his uncles would stop by with trucks full of five-gallon tins of honey. “I grew up chewing on honeycomb, and even did a research paper on honey in eighth grade.” (He still has it!) 

                             Mead, a honey wine with 9,000 years of history. (Shutterstock)

Just after college, Hamilton started home-brewing beer and a couple years later moved on to mead. He had access to abundant honey but sought to add value to the work of the bees. “‘Why not mead?’ I thought. ‘Nobody else seems to be doing it.’” 

A Growing Movement

In the mid-1990s, Jon and his wife Kim set out on road trips from one end of the country to the other, seeking out meaderies to see how they were making a business out of it. “There were only about 22 in the whole United States at the time,” he said. 

The couple opened White Winter Winery in northern Wisconsin in 1996, but even seven years later there were still only 30 meaderies nationwide. But in the last few years, that’s grown quickly.
According to Vicky Rowe, executive director of the American Mead Makers Association and founder of GotMead.com, over 400 meaderies are now in operation, while another 170 of them are in the process of getting the required permits and licenses. 

Rowe credits the sudden interest, in part, to movie mentions, but “the biggest drive we’ve seen is the under-40 set, which is getting into mead in a big way. They’re not just drinking it; they’re starting their own meaderies.” 

It’s a gluten-free alternative to beer, and, as Rowe points out, it’s also a greener craft beverage: It doesn’t use the massive amounts of water that are required for grapes, and the increased demand for honey supports beekeepers and, in turn, the bee population. 

        Jon (R) and Kim Hamilton of White Winter Winery. (Courtesy of White Winter Winery)

The World of Mead

Mead has always been produced in a broad range of styles and strengths, but its resurgence in the 21st century is much like the craft beer scene: mead makers are exploring the limits. 

Traditionally, mead is a sweet drink, but there are also dry and semi-sweet options. The common alcohol content is similar to most wine, somewhere around 12–15 percent.

Stronger meads surpass 20 percent, while the latest trend takes a cue from the craft beer industry: session meads. With alcohol content of under eight percent, these mellowed meads can be consumed in larger quantities in one sitting. Rowe likes to call it “beach mead,” as you can pick up a six-pack and take it to the beach or on a picnic. 

“We like to keep ours a bit more traditional, at least for the wine styles,” said Hamilton. But this hasn’t stopped him from exploring. He fortified his black currant mead with an eau de vie—a distillate of his own making—and aged the blend on oak chips, to create a more potent sipping mead that compares to port in terms of potency, deliciousness, and complexity. He also makes a cyser, a blend of local apple cider and honey. 

Other mead variations include melomel, mead fermented with fruits; metheglin, a spiced or medicinal mead; and pyment, a blend of mead and grapes. Ethiopian restaurants often offer traditional tej, sometimes made in house, a honey wine with a bitter ingredient, the leaves and twigs of gesho, a species of buckthorn. 

Some modern mead makers also add varieties of hops, the sort one finds in beer. This may sound like a ground-breaking crossover, but mead’s relationship with beer goes back centuries: see brackett, or braggot, “a mead and ale hybrid made with both honey and malted barley,” said Hamilton. “We were one of the first in the United States to make brackett,” he said; White Winter’s version won a silver medal at the World Beer Cup in 2002, in the Specialty Honey Lagers or Ales category.

You can even find meads with carbonation—a sort of mead cooler, if you will. Heidrun Meadery in California produces a range of brut dry, naturally sparkling varietal meads, and Michigan’s B. Nektar offers a Bubbly Strawberry Pyment, made with Chardonnay and Gewurztraminer grapes, strawberries, and star thistle honey.

Superstition Meadery in Arizona has taken to aging meads in new oak barrels and repurposed bourbon barrels. Their mead and cider creations number over 200 to date. Peanut Butter Jelly Crime mead, flavoured exactly as the name suggests, sells out as soon as it’s released, while others top the ratings at RateBeer.com and Untappd. 

For Hamilton, mead-making is about subtlety; he doesn’t want any one flavour to stand out. “We look for balance,” he said, and he prefers “letting the flavours play with each other, getting people to think about what they’re drinking and tasting.” Still, he acknowledges the occasional mood to taste something boldly different: “There’s a place for everything,” he added with a laugh.

Compared to the popularity of craft beer, mead itself is still “something different” for many. But with nine thousand years of history behind it and a passionate modern artisanal movement on board, now might be a good time to head on down to your local mead hall, Beowulf.

                 White Winter Winery’s range of mead. (Courtesy of White Winter Winery)

https://www.theepochtimes.com/meet-mead-the-ancient-honey-wine-making-a-21st-century-comeback_3196357.html

Lyme Bay Winery launches canned sparkling mead

From thedrinksbusiness.com

Lyme Bay Winery in Devon has launched a pair of canned sparkling meads in the UK on-trade with the aim of introducing younger consumers to the fermented honey drink.

Jack Ratt Cyser is a blend of sparkling mead and scrumpy cider, which, according to Lyme Bay, offers a “crisp, clean and refreshing” combination of apple and honey flavours.
Jack Ratt Sparkling Mead meanwhile, has “light notes of honey, a delicate fizz, and a mouth-watering finish.”

In addition to English wine, Lyme Bay specialises in mead, producing over half of the mead currently made in the UK, including premium private label products for the likes of English Heritage.

“People are increasingly looking for products that are authentic, high quality and with provenance, and they like to discover new drinks with a clear focus on flavour.
“Both the Cyser and the Sparkling Mead deliver this, and the new serve, in a 33cl can, offers convenience, preserves quality and gives a clear point of difference,” said Sara Walters, Lyme Bay’s national account manager.

“These new products appeal to younger consumers that are focused on discovery, interesting new flavours and, often, lower alcohol levels. These meads are just 4% ABV and offer a refreshing and flavoursome drink,” Walters added.

Helped by the popularity of Game of Thrones, sales of mead are on the rise in the UK. Lyme Bay has seen an 11% increase in volume sales in the last three years.

In America there are over 600 meaderies with many more in the pipeline.

Lyme Bay decided to use the can format to appeal to craft beer and premium cider drinkers. Based in Devon’s Axe Valley, in addition to mead, and still and sparkling wine, Lyme Bay produces a range of fruit wines, ciders, spirits and liqueurs.

https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2020/01/lyme-bay-winery-launches-canned-sparkling-mead/

How Mead Is Making a Comeback

From njmonthly.com

Sergio Moutela, owner of Melovino Meadery in Vauxhall, has his fingers on the pulse of New Jersey’s mead movement.

Mead, perhaps the world’s oldest fermented beverage, dating back thousands of years, is making a modern comeback, and New Jersey’s Melovino Meadery is making its mark. At last October’s first Mead Crafters Competition, sponsored by the National Honey Board, Sergio Moutela’s 5-year-old meadery in Vauxhall won two silver medals and two bronze across three categories. And in the world’s biggest mead competition, the Mazer Cup International, over the last two years Melovino has placed higher, in sum, than all other entrants.

Mead—a wine fermented from at least 51 percent honey, plus water and almost anything else, flavorwise—isn’t necessarily sweet. “I think about what I want my meads to taste like,” says Moutela. “It’s like cooking. You blend flavours and methods to get to the final outcome.”

                                                      Courtesy of Melovino Meadery

This month, Moutela celebrates the second anniversary of his Mead Bar, where patrons can sample eight taproom-only drafts, plus many bottled varieties, every Friday through Sunday. “There’s something new on tap almost every single week,” he says. 

Flavours vary depending on the type of honey as well as the yeasts, fermentation temperature and other factors. Like wine, meads typically weigh in at about 12-14 percent alcohol by volume. Melovino meads sell for about $25 per 500-ml bottle.

There are about 500 artisanal meaderies in America. As president of the American Mead Makers Association and of the New Jersey Mead Alliance, Moutela has his fingers on the pulse of the movement. He campaigned for a new state license that allows Jersey meaderies—his will soon be joined by three independent start-ups—to sell online, as well as from their taprooms and in stores such as Wegmans.  

https://njmonthly.com/articles/eat-drink/mead/

Rievaulx Abbey offers traditional dishes to celebrate St Aelred's Day

From yorkpress.co.uk

FOOD inspired by English monasteries is being served at Rievaulx Abbey throughout January.
The abbey's cafe will be serving Monk’s Pottage and Mead and Honey Cake to celebrate St Aelred's Day which takes place on January 12.

A spokesperson for the English Heritage site, said: "Monk’s Pottage is a hearty vegan stew of root vegetables, pulses and herbs served in a large granary roll inspired by the kind of food Rievaulx’s most famous abbot might have eaten from bread trenchers.

        Food inspired by English monasteries is being served at Rievaulx Abbey throughout January

"The Pottage is made with onions, leeks, garlic, parsnips, carrots, lentils and carlin peas. Carlin peas are thought to have originated in the monastic gardens of the Middle Ages – a sort of medieval chick-pea.

"The dish also features a huge granary roll made especially for Rievaulx by the Derventio Bakery in Norton. "The delicately spiced honey and mead cake is made with traditional mead produced exclusively for English Heritage. An ancient honey wine, Mead has long been connected with bee-keeping English monasteries."
pottage,
The Monk’s Pottage is £8.50 and the Mead & Honey Cake is £3.60 a slice.
The café at Rievaulx Abbey is open Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 4pm.
For more information go to www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/rievaulx-abbey/

https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/ryedale/18148437.rievaulx-abbey-offers-traditional-dishes-celebrate-st-aelreds-day/

Viking-themed meadery opens Friday in Colorado Springs

From gazette.com

Mead is the booze that launched a thousand myths.

In one of Tim Martin’s favourites, the Norse god Thor is dispatched to retrieve a kettle massive enough to serve everyone at the pantheon get-together, all at once. Because you can’t party like it’s Ragnarok without honey wine!

“It’s the oldest alcoholic beverage known to man and likely predates civilization,” said Martin, whose Viking-themed tasting room, Drekar Meadery, celebrates its grand opening Friday in Colorado Springs.

Mead can occur naturally if a honeycomb gets waterlogged and the right wild yeasts find their way in, so “that’s the first thing ancestral humans probably came across that was alcoholic: magic hives, with honey that got you drunk,” Martin said.

Drekar's meads get significantly more production oversight, from co-owner and brewer Mike Sonderby, but the duo aimed to stay as close as possible to the styles that Vikings might actually have quaffed during the Middle Ages.

“We call it traditional Viking style because we do a lot less to it. We don’t have any complex clarification process. Ours isn’t very clear, much more a homespun product in that way,” Martin said.

Martin and Sonderby met at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, bonding, in part, over their shared Scandanavian heritage. Sonderby had been exploring those roots by home-brewing mead and refining his process, and his creations were a hit.

“Anybody who came over to his house and tried it, they asked where can I buy it? But you couldn’t. It was homebrew,” Martin said.

When the two decided to go entrepreneurial in 2018, the product, and theme, was a natural.
There's no denying Vikings are having kind of a pop culture moment, thanks to superhero movies and TV shows.
“It’s a cool time to make a comeback," Sonderby said. "When I first started doing this, it was still an underground scene. But just in the last five to six years, it’s taken off like crazy.”

 “I can’t imagine a better time to — unironically — open up a Viking-themed meadery,” added Martin, whose meadery is named for the infamous dragon-headed Viking warships.
The meads at Drekar are semi-sweet and include a traditional style, Freyr’s Sail; one made with raspberries, Freya’s Tears; and one with blackberries, Loki’s Barb.

“I wanted to be different from everything else on the market. Things on the market were either too sweet, or like a dry white wine. This falls pretty squarely in between those two,” said Sonderby, who “wanted something drinkable that wouldn’t stick in your mouth after you take a sip, and just be delicious.”

Other local mead-makers include Black Forest Meadery and the production-only Annapurna Mead, based on West Pikes Peak Avenue. 

Drekar's modest Knob Hill location fits about 30 people and has family-style seating.
“We've got a couple nice big tables we made, for big parties or if people want to play board games. If somebody wants to run their D & D game here, they can do that,” Martin said.

After a series of soft openings in late December, the tasting room celebrates its official grand opening with a “ribbon axing” at 1 p.m. Friday.

https://gazette.com/business/viking-themed-meadery-opens-friday-in-colorado-springs/article_15bd77da-2d99-11ea-8e64-e39b52a37ccf.html

3,000 Years Later, This Viking Drink Is Making a Home in Iceland

From ozy.com

Fifteen minutes east of Reykjavík, lush, mossy pastures fade into a layered horizon of rolling hills and mountains that envelop a small, simple steeple. The town of Mosfellsbaer was built into the dramatic and wild landscapes that once welcomed Iceland’s settlers in the ninth century. It’s the kind of place that, come winter, shivers with gusty winds and temperatures that dip below 20 degrees F.
For this reason, the Vikings turned to mead. Now Icelanders can do the same.

Öldur, based in Mosfellsbaer, is the country’s first meadery, which is surprising given Iceland’s Viking roots. In their heyday, the Vikings chugged mead from cattle horns and wooden cups. This sweet, fermented drink made from honey, water and spices was likely imported because beekeepers didn’t start popping up in Iceland until the 20th century, according to Öldur co-founder Helgi Þórir Sveinsson.

Nearly 3,000 years later, Öldur is bringing mead back to the land of fire and ice. The idea was forged after Sveinsson and Sigurjón Friðrik Garðarsson met and bonded over beers through an Icelandic home brewers club. At first, they planned to co-launch a brewpub. Things changed when Garðarsson casually shared a tiny-batch experimental mead at a club event for members and the public. “We had one owner of a fine dining restaurant taste the mead and ask if he could buy it legally; I told him no, well … not yet,” Garðarsson says. The two decided to drop the brewpub idea and make mead instead.

In 2017, Öldur officially launched as Iceland’s first meadery, with two melomels (mead made with fermented fruit): cherry (Rjóð) and blueberry (Blámi), which is made with locally foraged Icelandic blueberries. But instead of following the Viking’s boozy recipe –– sweet, heavy, not carbonated, high in alcohol –– they went a lighter route for their carbonated 6.5 percent alcohol melomels. They now produce around 1,270 gallons per year.

“We first brew a basic lighter mead, then we add the berries and a second fermentation starts,” Garðarsson says. “Once that has run its course, we siphon off the berry sludge, then filter it, carbonate it and package it.”

                                          Sigurjón Friðrik Garðarsson, co-founder of Öldur.

This break from tradition was a good move, according to Hjörvar Óli Sigurðsson, Iceland’s first certified cicerone (the equivalent of a wine sommelier, but for beer). It’s one of the reasons that Öldur was added to the regular taps list of BrewDog, the popular Reykjavík bar where Sigurðsson works. He likes that both versions offer “impressive depth of character.” In particular, the Blámi, where “notes of more sweetish jammy flavours are countered by a vinous tannin dryness reminiscent of the herbs and flowers that grow around Icelandic blueberries.” 

Given mead took a nearly 3,000-year hiatus from Iceland’s drink scene, it took some grassroots and comprehensive publicity to help it catch on –– such as pop-up events, beer festivals and building relationships with bars and retail shops. “Somehow over the years, the Icelandic word for mead has been mistaken as just another word for beer,” says Garðarsson. “So we kind of have to educate everyone.”

As in most of the world, craft beer’s popularity is on the rise in Iceland. The country of 330,000 now has more than 20 small breweries, according to Garðarsson. But mead is a relative newcomer to the scene, so there’s room to grow. And perhaps the United States might be a strong indicator. At the end of the 20th century, there were 64 meaderies in the U.S., but within the past 20 years, that number has nearly doubled to 118. 

There’s definitely interest in Iceland: In 2018, a crowdfunding campaign raised more than $15,000 for Öldur’s new meadery. And Rjóð and Blámi –– both of which received honours at the 2018 Icelandic Craft Beer Festival –– are now available at the duty-free shop in Keflavik Airport and at dozens of Icelandic bars and bottle shops (about $14 a bottle).

But, despite budding momentum, Iceland’s mead interest is far from where Öldur’s brewers want it to be. That’s why they’re planning to open the Mosfellsbaer doors for informal tours and tastings later in 2020. They’re also continuing to experiment. “We’re working on a 14 percent mead made from caramelized honey that’s been aging in whiskey barrels,” Sveinsson says. “That one is for the beer geeks.”

We’ll clink our cattle horns to that.

https://www.ozy.com/good-sht/three-thousand-years-later-this-viking-drink-is-making-a-home-in-iceland/259271/