Hull man launches city's first business dedicated to making mead

From hulldailymail.co.uk

Wheatleys of Yorkshire has delivered its first batch despite dealing with the pandemic

Hull’s first mead-making business has opened up despite a turbulent start due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Oliver Wheatley left his job at the University of Hull at the end of last year to pursue his dream of opening the meadery.
But just after making his first batch which was put aside to age for a few months, the pandemic hit.
But that has not put Oliver off establishing Wheatleys of Yorkshire and he has now sent out his first batch of orders from his premises off Arthur Street in west Hull.

“I have been making mead for a couple of years but it was more of a hobby at first,” he said.

                          Mead-making Hull business Wheatleys of Yorkshire has just opened

“Last year the university was letting some people go so I took the opportunity to leave and try something I have been wanting to do for a while.

“I started putting things in motion and, by February, I had my first batch ready to age.”

So what exactly is mead?

“It is an alcohol in a category of its own,” Oliver explained. “It isn’t a wine or a beer.
“It has been linked to the Vikings but I am not going down that route. I like to see it as a modern drink.
“It is a drink fermented from honey. I have tried to use local produce where possible but the amount I need means I have had to find other suppliers as well.
“It is quite full-bodied and has a mellow taste on the tongue. It also gives you a warmth as it goes down. Generally, its strength is around 14.5 per cent.”

There are different ways of producing mead but Oliver prefers the more nuanced, scientific approach.

“You generally age it for between three and five months,” he said. “In a way, lockdown has helped me to ensure I age it longer and do not get ahead of myself.
“Mead is generally quite sweet but I have a dry version which has more of a whisky taste.
“I age the mead in glass carboys but you can used oak barrels like you do for whiskey or wine.

“There is a debate as to whether you are traditional and just through all the ingredients or take a more scientific approach.
“I prefer the latter which means keeping an eye on the temperature, measuring out the ingredients and the amount of yeast.
“The different taste come from the honey used and how long you age it. Generally, the more it ages the better.
“But I do different flavours. I have a cherry one and a pear mead. But the one I am particularly proud of is a hibiscus infusion using the flower which provides this lovely red colour."

Launching your own business is a brave move at the best of times but Oliver has also had to deal with the pandemic which came at a very bad time.

“It has been tough trying to set the business up during the pandemic,” he admitted
“At the moment it is just myself and my dad, who is retired, and my girlfriend help out.
“I could not be furloughed and I didn’t have a record of income so I got no help from the Government. Luckily, I had some savings which have helped me through this.
“But we have just sent out our first orders and we have had a good amount of interest.

“We hope to stock local bars and we have already had interest from the Boardroom in Newland Avenue. I hope in time we can actually stock some shops too. We have had 25 orders in the last few days which is a promising start. My unit is really for production rather than drinking but if people want to come and take a look they are welcome if they book in advance."

To find out more or to order any mead visit the Wheatleys of Yorkshire website.

https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink/hull-man-first-mead-business-4467433

This liquid gold from Viking Alchemist Meadery breaks away from sweet stereotype

From gainesvilletimes.com

Mead doesn’t have to be sweet.

Sure, it’s a beverage created from fermenting honey and water, but like beer and wine, mead is diverse. And most of all, mead is delicious.

At the Viking Alchemist Meadery — located in both Smyrna and Marietta — its mead-makers took most of the world's perception of mead and turned it on its head through crafting an off-dry and delightfully acidic concoction — Solifaction.

Tamara Kosoris, the meadery’s head mead-maker, said Solifaction was a part of the operation’s signature meads when they first opened in 2016. Like an alchemist transforming gold into wine, she took Georgia wildflower honey and conjured something worthy of Dionysus.

“As a challenge, we made it as an off-dry,” Kosoris said. “Everyone talks about how sweet mead is.” 

Solifaction from the Viking Alchemist Meadery strikes a delicate balance between dryness and honey. - photo by Kelsey Podo

https://www.gainesvilletimes.com/life/kelsey-drinks-beer/column-liquid-gold-viking-alchemist-meadery-breaks-away-sweet-stereotype/

Magical Mysterious Mead

From revuewm.com
By  Jack Raymond

Mead often feels shrouded in myth and intrigue. Historians consider it the world’s oldest alcoholic drink, likely enjoyed by such royalty as Cleopatra and Alexander the Great. The Norse certainly loved it, bearing to mind the image of Beowulf types clanking pewter mugs after slaughtering some village beast. Mead is potent, with the power to imbue virility, wit and strength. It must possess a little magic, no?

In actuality, mead is a simple beverage — mix honey, water, and yeast in a bucket, add time, and blammo! You’ve got yourself some fermented nectar. That said, the path to getting there isn’t always so cut and dried. Our state’s best producers have proven that sourcing local, oak aging, and experimenting with tradition results in a complex beverage worthy of the gods, or any ol’ gump with a sweet tooth. 

While Michigan’s east side has long ruled the roost with mead powerhouses Schramm’s and B. Nektar, we’re showing our prowess over here too. As fall approaches, mead’s flavour profile fits the season, so fill your cup with stuff from these mead makers. 

GRIMSBY HOLLOW MEADERY4525 N, M-37 Suite E, Middleville 

Allow me to unspool a tale of the lovers Grimsby, two star-crossed mead makers with a penchant for honey whose destiny brought them to ... Middleville? While perhaps not the most obvious spot to plop a meadery, Grimsby Hollow has been so successful, it’s hard for co-owners Mandy and David to keep up with demand. They’ve earned this devoted following with meads that are adventurous, inventive, and packed with Michigan fruit and honey.

For newbies, the oak-aged traditional mead The Beekeeper is a great entry point. Each sip pulls the pin of a honey grenade. It leaves a film of sweetness on the lips like a French kiss with a queen bee. The oak aging imparts wisps of vanilla and char. It’s really special. 

From there, branch out with concoctions like When Ravens Dream, a red and black currant, chocolate, and vanilla mead that reads like Neapolitan ice cream and tastes like it too. The Grimsbys never claimed to be subtle, but their meads confirm that’s all for the better: Big flavours leave big impressions.

ADESANYA MEAD3012 28th St. SW, Grandville

The newest meadery on the block, Adesanya opened just last month to rave reviews for its honey wine that comes in all shapes and sizes. From boozy melomels — mead fermented with fruit — like Make Me A Believer to session draught meads like the lightly carbonated Shiftless When Idle, with vanilla and passionfruit, Adesanya demonstrates versatility in spades. 

Instead of fairytale vibes, Adesanya’s taproom opts for décor more modern and spare, with light wood and an open floor plan that screams mid-century hive. Owner David Sawyer powered through a pandemic to get here, and the blood, sweat, and mead clearly paid off. The level of quality out the gate excites for what’s to come. Expect cyser, cider, beer and food as they get settled in their location. 

Keep your eyes peeled for openings in Adesanya’s membership program, which grants you exclusive access to one-off experiments that may include cognac-barrel-aged mead or chocolate-covered cherry braggot. 

ARKTOS MEADERY442 Bridge St. NW, Grand Rapids 

Arktos might sound like the name for the Greek god of mead, but truthfully, it just means bear. I guess it’s fitting: I think we all know a Pooh with a taste for honey. 

Since 2014, Grand Rapids’ one and only meadery has scooped up awards left and right — including a handful of Best of the West wins! — for its meads inspired by ancient recipes and millennia-old techniques. Yes, the flagship Queen Bee with Michigan Wildflower honey is outstanding, but best in show goes to Cricket Song, a coffee metheglin — mead with flavour added — that squeezes perfectly between the Venn diagram of upper and downer. 

We’ve been waiting with bated breath for their Bridge Street tasting room to open, and now it seems we’re closer than ever to toasting honey wine in the new mead hall. With communal tables, dangling animal pelts and a hearthstone fireplace, the new space will surely transport us away from the dumpster fire that is our current reality.

WHERE TO STOCK UP ON MORE MEAD:

CRAFT BEER CELLAR GRAND RAPIDS404 Ionia Ave. SW, Grand Rapids

SICILIANO’S2840 Lake Michigan Dr. NW, Grand Rapids 

HORROCK’S MARKET4455 Breton Road SE, Kentwood 

MARTHA'S VINEYARD
200 Union Ave. NE, Grand Rapids

BELLAVINO'S
3920 Plainfield Ave. NE, Grand Rapids

https://revuewm.com/food-drink/microbrews/item/4868-magical-mysterious-mead

Honey Wines Australia is a leading Australian Meadery

From newsmaker.com.au

Honey Wines Australia is a leading Australian Meadery based in NSW. The company is well-known across the Hunter region for brewing high-quality mead. What makes Honey Wines Australia stand out is the vast majority of honey used is produced from their own hives. Yes that's right! Honey Wines Australia are passionate beekeepers producing honey from their own bees on their premises, and uses entirely local produce, with nothing artificial added. 

Is Mead more like beer or wine?

So what on earth is Mead?! Mead, also more commonly known as ‘honey wine’, is believed to be the oldest fermented drink in the world, traditionally made from honey. Just like beer, mead is often flavoured with spices, fruits, hops or grains. But mead is generally higher in alcohol than beer & more in line with grape wine—typically anywhere from 8 to 20 percent

Made from Quality Honey 

You won’t find many meaderies out there who can claim they produce all their own honey themselves. The fact that Honey Wines Australia has recently purchased another 50 hives to increase honey production makes them one of the busiest and fastest growing mead breweries in Australia. The honey used in their mead has been filtered but otherwise untouched, with no artificial additives. 

Honey Wines Australia is one of few trusted commercial meaderies in Australia selling mead to customers in 750ml bottles, instead of 375 or 500ml, based on their established, quality produce. 

Mead History

Historically, this beverage has been popular amongst ancient Greek, African, and Chinese cultures since they are known to have used mead in their diets as far back as 3000 BCE. It is also frequently consumed in Eastern Europe and Russia. There are many different names given to mead - for example, in Ethiopian culture it’s called tej, which is brewed in a slightly different way. 

Honey Wines Australia extracts the sweetest and highest-quality honey from their own beehives. Their bees have flown an estimated 44,000km and visited around one million flowers to produce each bottle. 

Customers can buy this honey wine online from their official website, and they deliver nationwide. For new and aspiring customers unfamiliar with mead wine, or established connoisseurs of the beverage, Honey Wines Australia are confident that new palettes will soon be converted. 

Products

Honey Wine Australia offers a top range of mead wine made from the best quality honey. Their product range and flavours, mixed with quality ingredients, includes Turkish Delight, Orange and Pink Grapefruit, Lemon and Ginger, and Peach and Passionfruit. This semi-sweet Mead is made from raw honey from the Hunter Valley region of NSW. Their Rose and Lemon flavour features a delicious Turkish delight taste. 

The mead is made with 14% alcohol and comes available in a 750ml bottle. Mead is recommended to be stored at room temperature but can be refrigerated based on taste and preference.

To learn more about Honey Wines Australia, their products and offers, visit the official website.

honeywinesaustralia.com.au

https://www.newsmaker.com.au/news/378307/honey-wines-australia-is-a-leading-australian-meadery#.Xz1IFLpFzIU

Producing Sparkling Dry Mead at Heidrun Meadery in Point Reyes, California

From coolhunting.com

West Marin idyllic cape is home to sweeping views of the national seashore, artisanal foods makers and this award-winning meadery

For Gordun Hull, a honey fermentation experiment led him down the unexpected path to opening Heidrun Meadery. Hull, who formerly worked as a beer brewer, crafts sparkling dry meads from a variety of single-blossom varietals as well as multi-floral version that reveal the terroir of the region where the honey is from. From their Orange and Sage Blossom liquid to their delectable Point Reyes Wildflower Estate, Heidrun meads taste more like champagne than the sweet honey wines you might find being served at a Renaissance faire.

After tasting several of these meads—fermented alcoholic beverages made from honey and water—by Heidrun at the Cheesemaker Reception (hosted by Cowgirl Creamery during the Winter Fancy Food Show weekend in San Francisco earlier this year), we spent time learning about the history of Heidrun, the mead-making process and what is coming up for their releases this fall.

A few decades ago, back when he began exploring the fermentation process from a commercial brewery in Humboldt County, Hull did not enjoy the sweet meads he tasted. That motivated him to learn how to make his own dry sparkling version. With one gallon of apple and blackberry honey, he made his first batch, and three months later, he happily discovered it was clean, dry and effervescent. From then onward, his goal became to bring mead culture into restaurants to appeal to wine and champagne enthusiasts and to develop an audience for a 21st century mead.

Hull named his company after the Norse god Odin’s mead-bearing goat and after a few years of working from his garage, Hull moved the operation into an incubator space in Arcata. While producing, he would bring bottles to SF for appointments at restaurants with wine directors. His first restaurant placement was at Green’s Restaurant in 1998, and later the iconic Chez Panisse put some Heidrun on their wine list.

Still, Hull wanted to improve and learn more. Inside the wine section of the Sonoma public library, he studied how to transition to méthode champenoise—wherein the secondary fermentation takes place in the bottle. Along with his wife, Jeffra, Hull then began to explore properties with beekeeping operations. Their search led them to West Marin where they found a dairy farm for sale in Point Reyes that would provide everything they needed for a full working meadery.

Hull took beekeeping classes through the Marin Beekeeper’s Association and at Beekind in Sebastopol. The first few challenging years were a lot of trial and error. Then Hull reached out to beekeepers Bonnie and Gary Morse of Bonnie Bee & Company, who were working to improve the health of bees in Marin. “They have now been taking care of our bees for five years. We now have nine of our own apiaries in Marin,” Hull says.

On their 13-acre Point Reyes property, Hull transformed the loafing barn into a greenhouse-style tasting room filled with flowers and plants. A grassy field that was once for the cows is now being solarized to make way for a meadow of wild flowers for their bees

Heidrun does not change their process from one mead to another, despite the vast differences in honeys they use. “What we are doing is revealing to our visitors and customers how extraordinarily different every honey varietal is and how that expresses itself in our wine,” says Hull.

Similar to winemaking, “in addition to the element of the species of flower, there is also a clear sense of terroir for honeys,” Hull continues. “The honey from the Sonoma Mountains is different than in Point Reyes. From the soil to the climate, even the beekeepers techniques, are reflected in the variations.”

Hull makes their carrot blossom varietal from a madras carrot honey that he bought from a beekeeper in Oregon’s Willamette Valley that has a strong vegetative flavour. “The mead we produced from that tastes very rich like incense and sandalwood,” says Hull. “It tastes like a Belgian Saison.” Hull especially loves the mead they made with Lehua Blossom honey from the Big Island of Hawaii. He feels the champagne-like dryness in the Lehua Blossom pairs well with raw oysters and sushi, while their Orange Blossom matches nicely with Indian food.

Their farm manager previously worked with the nearby Cowgirl Creamery and likes to plan mead pairings with cheese. “The unexpected gift of moving to Point Reyes was how well we fit into the local culinary world of cheese makers, oyster farmers and the fresh seafood. There is a synergy here between all of us working together,” says Hull. “It is fun to collaborate.”

A friend of Hull’s keeps hives on his rooftop in San Francisco’s Western Addition neighbourhood and their honey led to another liquid. “It’s a flavour of that botanical terroir there in SF, our first urban honey,” Hull says as he describes this varietal as lightly effervescent with flavour notes that evoke a German Riesling.

This fall, Hull and the Heidrun team are looking forward to releasing a new pumpkin blossom varietal made with honey from Oregon.

Transforming the best honeys from their own land and all around the world into mead continues to inspire everyone at Heidrun. “We are starting to work with honey from other continents and with organizations that are promoting beekeeping in forests in South America and Africa,” says Hull. Their goal is to help keep these forests alive though agricultural practices that encourage conservation. Increasing the demand for honey to make mead does have a benefit ecologically. Mead consumption promotes beekeeping, which benefits the environment.

“Our bees are our workers,” Hull adds. “The world of flowers is our source. Whether they are collecting the nectar of the crops that grow our food or the flowers of our neighbouring gardens, the bees are vital to sustaining life. We benefit from the delicious varieties of honey they create. We strive to highlight the importance of their sources and the need to preserve them.”

Until their tours and tasting room reopen, Heidrun meads are available on their website and from K&L and Whole Foods Markets throughout California.

Images courtesy of Heidrun Meadery

https://coolhunting.com/food-drink/heidrun-meadery-point-reyes-california/

National Mead Day 2020 (US): From The Oldest Alcoholic Beverage on Earth to Drink of Royalty

From latestly.com

National Mead Day 2020 will be celebrated on August 1. Every year, this event is observed on the first Saturday of August in the United States of America. The intention of this day is to increase awareness and foster camaraderie among mead makers. Mead is also known as honey wine, ambrosia or nectar Craftsman combines honey, water, and yeast to make mead.

More details can be found here:-

https://www.latestly.com/lifestyle/food/national-mead-day-2020-us-from-being-oldest-alcoholic-beverage-on-earth-to-drink-of-royalty-here-are-five-things-you-didnt-know-about-honey-wine-1931203.html