Horwich Mead Company toasts success

From horwichadvertiser.co.uk
Published by: Daniel Almond

A WINNING collaboration between Bolton-based creative design and marketing agency, Portfolio, and The Lancashire Mead Company, has led to 50 percent growth for the Horwich-based meadery in the last year.

Established in 2013 and run by husband and wife team, Gordon Baron and Ann Farrell, The Lancashire Mead Company approached the agency for help in January 2019 when their website crashed. Within 10 days, Portfolio had built them a new website and developed a new logo and a consistent look across the site and promotional material.

In 2017 they were making 200 litres per batch, now capacity has increased to 1400 litres per batch. Capable of producing up to 500 bottles per day, the meadery has also joined forces with C&O Wines in Altrincham, specialist wine suppliers to the hospitality industry, who are handling distribution across the north of England.

Darren Clare, Creative Director at Portfolio, said: "My first question to Gordon and Ann was "Can you make more mead?" because I could see the huge growth potential of the brand. Each bottle is named after a Norse god, so the design draws inspiration from medieval influences. The fact that we were able to turn the project around so rapidly meant that they lost minimal sales when the original website went down. The huge increase in sales this last year is pleasing and testament to our can do attitude and creative flair."

The meadery has also received award recognition in the last twelve months, winning the Gold medal in the ‘Traditional mead: Dry' category at the 2019 European Mead Makers Association Conference in Poland for its ‘Baldur's Mead' which beat stiff competition from brewers across Eastern Europe, Korea, Japan and New Zealand. ‘Aegir's Mead' also picked up the Silver medal in the 'Melomels and other Fruits' category.

Gordon Baron of The Lancashire Mead Company, said: "Portfolio came to our rescue when the website went down and we knew we'd have to get everything back up and running in time for our most profitable event, the Jorvik Viking Festival in February. We're delighted with the results and they're a great team to work with. Because of the success we're looking to automate the bottling line and have recently invested in new filtration equipment."

Now one of the largest producers of real mead in the UK, the firm's mead is supplied at iconic London restaurant Claridge's and at L'Enclume in Cartmel, which is run by Michelin starred chef Simon Rogan. Through the partnership with C&O Wines, the mead is also now available at restaurants owned by former Masterchef winner, Simon Wood.

https://www.horwichadvertiser.co.uk/news-article/5176/Horwich-Mead-Company-toasts-success

Kent winery releases mead-based spritz drinks

From drinksretailingnews.co.uk

A Kent winery is launching a Spritz-style drink made from honey wine, which it hopes will tap into the consumer demand for hard seltzers.

Marourde is made using honey wine, or mead, which is described as “the world’s oldest new drink”, according to producer Mereworth Wines. The team at the winery said they have “ignited their passion for fermentation and wine-making” to reinvent the ancient tipple for a contemporary audience. By adding locally-inspired botanicals.

Marourde Spritz is medium-dry and has citrus, honey flavours, complimented by woody undertones, with a bright, crisp finish. The producer’s Rose Spritz has flavours of honeyed hedgerow black fruits, with delicate flavours of elderflower and elderberry.

William Boscawen, founder, said: “There is a culinary nature to this type of winemaking. The process we use with Marourde allows us to be particularly experimental with ingredients and conditions to create a real depth of flavour, which is rarely found in such drinks.

“We are excited to offer Marourde as a refreshing alternative to Prosecco, wine and many of the ready-to-drink offerings which are currently available. We are proud to raise the bar in the ‘hard seltzer’ sector in terms of taste and quality.”

http://drinksretailingnews.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/19308/Kent_winery_releases_mead-based_spritz_drinks.html

Schramm’s Mead: The Seductive Alternative Alcohol

From michigandaily.com

Mead has unflattering image problems, and the most common imagery may be what you think of at your local renaissance fair. That drink is overly sweet yet insipid — a drink you would reluctantly sip as you wistfully pine for a drier, sharp-tasting beer. You may wonder how an ingredient as aromatic and complex as honey can be reduced to what amounts to little more than alcoholic, sweet and yellow water.

Compared to its more popular cousins, beer and wine, mead has yet to grab the attention of mainstream culture. But the production and quality of craft mead has exploded within the past decade, with some of the finest meads coming from the state of Michigan. At the centre of that boom is Schramm’s Mead, the storefront of the eponymous Ken Schramm: author of “The Compleat Meadmaker” and referred to by many mead-brewers as “The Godfather of Mead.” 

Schramm’s Mead is located within a cluster of well-established restaurants of Ferndale in the heart of Nine Mile Road. You may find the storefront of Schramm’s quite comely aside from the garish American stars with its blue background painted on its side facing the parking lot. Walking in, you find the interior is anything but garish; you are greeted by a warm, cosy bar and tasting room and knowledgeable bartenders passionate about the meads they have on tap.

Before I encountered Schramm’s Mead, I had been indulging in sweeter dessert wines such as the 2014 - 2016 batches of Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling. It’s a surprisingly crisp but light drink — a wine that almost reminds you of a dry-sweet cider made from Granny Smiths as opposed to a wine made of white grapes. This is a drink you savour on its own, perfect for a night-in while binging Netflix. Yet a dessert wine like this feels somewhat incomplete. You crave full-bodied drinks which possess a thick, luscious mouthfeel that complements their intensely sweet and fruity profile. What you crave, in essence, is an alcohol unicorn to provide the perfect finish to your day.

A brief look into Schramm’s tasting menu shows that Schramm’s specializes in melomels, meads which include fruits along with honey in the fermentation process. You may be confused about this kind of mead if your previous experiences with mead were solely with ghostly renaissance fair varieties. Given the bias towards berries, you may wonder whether these meads have some passing resemblance to young ruby port wines or perhaps even to a Korean raspberry wine called bokbunja.

Among the selections are the raspberry mead and the blackberry mead, excellent starting points for your adventure. Upon first taste, you may be stupefied by the sheer intensity of honey flavor and aroma that sings throughout each sip. The tartness of either the raspberry or the blackberry alleviates the heavy-hitting sweetness of the honey while also complementing the honey with a fruity and jam-like quality. Taking a second sip, you are intrigued and amazed at how the honey and the berry harmoniously express their individuality without compromise, similar to the proud, unabashed confidence of Shakira and J.Lo performing “Let’s Get Loud” at the LIV Superbowl halftime.

Following the raspberry or blackberry mead, you may be piqued by the boldly-named “The Statement” — a sour cherry mead. Like the raspberry and blackberry meads, the flavour of the Batalon cherries melds inconspicuously with the sweetness of the honey. Fans of sour flavours may rejoice to find that compared to the raspberry or blackberry meads, the sourness of the Batalon cherries takes the centre stage compared to the sweetness of the honey. “The Statement” is reminiscent of the 1976 London live performance of “Europa” by Carlos Santana, in which the sour tartness of the cherries melodically riffs across your tongue in the midst of honey-like synthesizer melodic chord progressions.

But perhaps no night is complete without trying Schramm’s “Heather” mead. Unlike most of the other selections, “Heather,” as its name suggests, consists solely of Scottish Heather honey. In contrast to many of Schramm’s offerings, “Heather” provides a flavour reminiscent of vanilla and oak barrels — somewhat similar to a whiskey, yet packed with a honey aroma bordering on caramel. Consider the possibility of the “Heather” as a whiskey substitute in an old-fashioned, or instead simply enjoy “Heather” for the drink that it is — a show-stopping, exclamatory punctuation to end your mead-drinking experience.

You may be concerned that a prerequisite to enjoying a bottle of Schramm’s for your nightly Netflix binges would involve driving to Ferndale. Luckily, Schramm’s is available across many locations within the state of Michigan, including Ann Arbor stores such as Blue Front and Plum Market. Not all of Schramm’s products are available in these locations. Notably, the “Heather” is disappointingly missing from these available meads.

In the cold, overcast winters of the Midwest, any reminders of warmth and sun provide a welcome respite to an otherwise dreary day. During the winter, Schramm’s Mead is a powerful but demure reminder of the warmth and joy that lies ahead of the harrowing weather. In the height of spring and summer, Schramm’s is a celebration of nature’s luscious bounty that flourishes throughout Pure Michigan.
Schramm’s Mead is located at 327 W Nine Mile Rd, Ferndale, MI 48220.

https://www.michigandaily.com/section/bside/schramm%E2%80%99s-mead-seductive-alternative-alcohol