Sweet-as-honey mead is the bee’s knees — so why aren’t we drinking more of it?

From seattletimes.com
By Tantri Wija

HELLO, HUMAN. We’re glad we have your attention. This is a far better medium for doing so than our usual method, i.e. buzzing around your face until you flail like a disco dancer. While that is most amusing, it is not conducive to real conversation, and we need to talk, human.
About mead.

Mead, in case you have been living in a cave with a bag over your head, is an alcoholic drink made of fermented honey. Honey made by us, the bees. And while we have mixed feelings about your constant theft of our most precious resource, we long ago came to terms with it used in the creation of that most delicate, pure and dare we even say divine of intoxicating libations.

        Mead is a sweet (too sweet for some) alcoholic drink made from fermented honey. (Tantri Wija)

But it has come to the collective attention of us, the bees, that humans are not drinking as much mead as they used to. And that this might have been the state of things for — well — possibly hundreds of years. You might not have even tried mead before; you probably drink beer, or wine, or (god forbid) cocktails.

WHY, humans‽ Why would you choose to drink stinky old rotten grapes or something that tastes like wet bread or the stuff you use to clean things, when you could drink something that literally tastes like liquid sunshine?!

The thing is, human, practically since there have been humans, there has been mead or, as some see fit to call it, “honey-wine.” The Greeks called it the “drink of the gods.” Yes! Mere mortals swigged boring old wine, but the gods drank mead! And the Vikings told tales of a “mead of poetry,” made from the blood of one of their gods, which turned anyone who drank it into a poet (although we, the bees, think that if you drink enough of any mead, you’ll start spouting poetry).

Mead is near-global; they drink it in the ancient land of Ethiopia, where it is called tej, and even among the Xhosa it is made, and called iQhilika. It was probably the mysterious intoxicant soma in the Rig Veda from the ancient Indus valley, and there is evidence, good evidence, that the Chinese were brewing it as early as 9000 B.C.!

Mead slaked the thirst and fired the courage of the hero Beowulf, slayer of the monster Grendl. And if it was good enough for Beowulf, it’s good enough for you. Plus, you can get it carbonated now, in case that’s important to you. It seems to be. I hear you’re very fond of some fizzy swill called “White Claw.”

Humans, it is so simple to make mead. You essentially just take the golden elixir of our tireless labour, add yeast and then neglect it for a bit. The ancients used wild yeast, captured from the winds that were the very breath of the divinity, but modern brewers usually use wine yeast, which we suppose is more reliable (but quite a bit less romantic, and therefore less appealing to bees).

And yes — some claim that mead is too sweet, and that no matter how “dry” the preparation, the drink is still cloying and syrup-like. To this we remind you — this is fermented honey. A bit of sweetness is part of the package, and if you don’t like it, go back to drinking your nail-polish remover.

Washington state is good country for bees; it is clean here, and green, and the blackberries plentiful, and a good place for you to finally get on the ball about mead. We’re told that a company called Sky River makes fine mead, and also hear good things about Author Mead, which makes a carbonated version, in cans.

If you must.

https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/sweet-as-honey-mead-is-the-bees-knees-so-why-arent-we-drinking-more-of-it/

How to make mead

From oldtimeywineyhr650.wordpress.com

Mead is best described as a honey wine, however it is in a category of its own. Traditionally mead would be made by diluting honey with water in either a clay or wooden vessel and through airborne yeast along with the naturally occurring amount which is in the honey would just do the rest. Seems pretty easy aye?

So there’s no surprise that mead is one of the oldest recorded alcoholic beverages, with references in ancient cultures of China, India, Greece, Egypt and Africa spanning as far back as 3000 BCE. The ancients believed it to be the drink of the gods, possessing magical qualities such as the ability to prolong life.

In fact, any country which is involved in the production of honey, also has a history of mead production. The popularity of mead in England was at its highest during the medieval period – hence its constant use at renaissance fairs . By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this beverage had mostly fallen out of fashion in favour of ale and later beer.

Recently though however, it has begun coming back into fashion. As with other types of alcoholic beverages, mead has a few different sub-groups. For instance, the mead could be mixed with beer, this is known as ‘braggot’. If you wish to add some fruit to your mead, you will end up with something called ‘melomel’. There is even a watered down version of mead which is consumed in Spain and France known as ‘hydromel’. Mead also comes in a variety of sweetness levels and can either be still or sparkling…

                                       This is what the final outcome should look like

Okay, I’m sure you’re eager to start brewing, I must forewarn you, that the only unfortunate downfall of this recipe is that it requires PACIENCE. It is recommended that this recipe is fermented for as long as possible before consumption, this can mean anywhere up to 2 years. However, if just don’t have it in you, the mead can be consumed after a month. Do remember though, it only gets better with age. Below are two slight variations of the same recipe.
Good luck.

What you will need
Hot pot
Wooden spoon
Empty glass bottles
A Kettle
A large container
Honey
Wine yeast or A toasted slice of bread with spreadable yeast extract
Water
Spices/berries (optional)

                                          An example of some of the equipment required

Method
Using our three main ingredients: honey, wine yeast and water, I scaled down the original recipe by one third to make the quantities more manageable. The equipment I used to make mead was a hot pot for brewing, a wooden spoon, some empty glass bottles, a large metal spoon to collect the scum of the top of the boiling mixture and a kettle to sterilise.

Starting off by sterilizing all of the equipment to avoid contamination, add 450g of honey to 2.2liters of water into a pressure cooker or any other large pot. Make sure to stir the mixture until the two are combined and the mixture runs smooth. Boil for an hour on high heat, after some time, the mixture will develop a white froth, made sure to take all of the scum off and let the mixture cool for about 3hours. we must wait until the honey cools down well but not too much, or otherwise the yeast will not activate properly. Once the mixture cooled off enough and was warm to the touch, you can either add half a teaspoon of yeast to 200ml of warm water mixed it through or alternatively you could take a slice of toast and spread a generous amount of yeast extract onto it and add that to the rest of the mixture.

If you are using toast for your mead then when your mixture develops a head, you can take out your piece of toast. You may need to heat the mixture slightly to do this. Finally, cover the mixture while allowing a vent to prevent pressure build up. I secured the lid of my pressure cooker and placed a balloon on the top allowing for the gasses to escape without outside bacteria getting in. After about 4 weeks’ time I decided it was time to bottle the mead. After properly disinfecting your cork bottles, different flavourings can be placed in such as raisins. It is important to leave it in a cool dry place to sit and don’t forget to check on your mead bottles as you may have to release the pressure build up to avoid any accidents.
Enjoy

https://oldtimeywineyhr650.wordpress.com/2020/05/12/how-to-make-mead/

Mead? Mead!

From austinchronicle.com

A little more buzz for the honey-based libations of Texas

Because sometimes you just want mead.

Sure, Austin is one neverending hoppy explosion of craft beer bliss – even during COVID-19 times, as the Chronicle’s dedicated brewster Eric Puga has been reporting in his ongoing series.
And, sure, there’s a good reason cider has made such a welcome comeback – that reason is called “taste,” and it’s being perfected by the likes of Eastciders and Argus Cidery and Texas Keeper and others.

And, sure, there’s maybe still an idiot or two out there, someone who will respond to an offer of mead with a goofy smirk and a “Hurr-hurrrrrrr, do I get a turkey leg to go with it?” because – well, because there always has to be an idiot or two in this benighted world, doesn’t there, if only to let the rest of us feel a bit more like Einstein?

But sometimes you just want mead.

           One honey of a design, one excellence of a drink. Well, quite a few excellences, actually

Because mead, that delicate wine made from honey, is precisely the taste you’re craving. And, it turns out, it’s precisely – especially as summer starts a-comin’ in and something sweet and cool is just the balm for your gullet’s parched Gilead – it’s precisely what a lot of people are craving these days.

Good thing Texas provides a panoply – a panoply, by Melisseus! – of fresh, honey-based fermented beverages for our delectation.

One of the fiercest of these meaderies is, as you likely know, Meridian Hive – based right here in the ATX city limits. Hell, we told you all about that particular team of winners when they were just starting out. And of course, a little beyond our burgeoning urban hub, there’s Rohan Meadery and Thorin’s Meads and Dancing Bee and more, and they’re batching up all manner of bee-derived liquid gold for the quaffing.

Bee-derived, we emphasize, yes. Because, not to put too fine a point on it, but it turns out that the newest meadery in these here parts – WildFlyer Mead Company, out in Lynn Grove – happens to be the latest initiative from the oldest, continuously operating beekeeping and honey farm in the Lone Star state.

That’s a little surprising, isn’t it, that provenance? Not just to you, but to your current reporter, who happened upon this information – and sparked this post – from a totally different perspective.

“I blame the internet,” says the Chronicle’s Wayne Alan Brenner, happily sipping from a chilled glass of WildFlyer’s Imperius brew. “I mean, we’re all constantly online in these stay-at-home times, and so I was finally checking out the Instagram account I’d set up in 2014. I hadn’t looked at the damned thing in years, but, well, you know – streaming, bingeing, Zooming, it’s a bigger part of life for so many of us now.

“So I was checking out Instagram,” says Brenner, “and one of the accounts I follow is Lewis Carnegie. They’re an Austin-based graphic design firm, and they’d recently handled the branding for this mead company, WildFlyer, and so they posted a few images, and – the designs were gorgeous. I love mead anyway, but the typography and other elements here were, ah – I pretty much hate mezcal, you know? Because even good mezcal tastes, to me, kind of like burnt rubber? Like the distilled version of a big ol’ tire fire? But if Lewis Carnegie had provided design like this for a mezcal company, even, I might’ve eventually bought a bottle – just for the visuals. So I left a comment on the photo, praising the work. And Sean Carnegie, the co-honcho of the design firm, he’s a friend from back in the day, he was like, ‘Yeah, you like mead? We’ve got so much of the stuff right now from this project – come on over and get some.’”

So, you see, reader: One thing leads to another, by pure chance. And that happens so often in our lives that it requires its own word – serendipity, right?

But the above story also provides evidence of quality, concerning what WildFlyer’s got to offer.

Because this is a post for the Food section, after all, and we wouldn’t've steered your attention back to mead in the first place if that well-designed bottle of Imperius didn’t contain a wonderful way to slake a person’s mighty thirst. Bright, clear, not too sweet, its amber flow refreshing your palate like a blessing from the god of bees – this Imperius mead is just what you want to drink when the sun is high in the Texas sky. Or, hell, even when the stars at night are big and bright.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/food/2020-05-08/mead-mead/