From phoenixmag.com
Arizona’s preeminent mead maker is suddenly feeling bubbly
To know mead is to love mead. But therein lies the rub for Superstition Meadery owner Jeff Herbert and other producers of the venerable honey beverage: How do you get the masses to try it in the first place? Knowing that many consumers – especially young consumers – are unlikely to drink anything they can’t pull from an ice chest and guzzle at a pool party, Herbert shrewdly conceived a line of bubbly session meads as a gateway mead of sorts for the White Claw crowd. “These are definitely made for warm weather and should be served chilled,” he says of the canned beverages, which join his cast-of-hundreds line of bottled heavy meads. He walks us through his process.
1 Creating a carbonated, low-ABV mead isn’t just a matter of adding water and CO2 to existing meads – doing so would “skimp on flavour,” Herbert says. Thus, he tweaks his brewing process to leave more “residual sweetness” as yeast converts wildflower honey into alcohol.
2 Herbert adds other natural flavours to arrive at his 12 session styles. For Dune Bloom, he adds prickly pear juice to get that “beautiful desert terroir.” For Electric Sunrise, he ferments the honey with Sangiovese wine grapes to create a “pyment,” or grape-honey hybrid. And so on.
3 Finally, he dilutes the mead to reach his target 6-7 percent ABV and adds carbonation, for a crisp, naturally sweetened antidote to the summer inferno. “The bubbles balance out [the honey and fruit] so nicely,” he says.
4 Other selections include mimosa- and Bellini-inspired sparking meads, and a soon-to-be-released mead-jito (read: mead mojito). Available online and at Herber’s brick-and-mortar Valley outpost, Superstition Downtown.
https://www.phoenixmag.com/2022/05/05/liquid-arizona-superstition-meadery-carbonated-session-meads/
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