UK: Caldicot's Wye Valley Meadery wins national brewing award

From southwalesargus.co.uk

TWO beekeeping craft brewer brothers behind Wye Valley Meadery have won a national award for their take on the world’s oldest drink, mead.

Matt Newell and his brother Kit keep more than six million bees in the Wye Valley - fermenting the honey they produce at their meadery in Caldicot.

The pair were awarded first place in the Brew Accelerator programme, for their sparkling mead range, a modern take on the historic drink and is infused with natural flavours.

Wye Valley Meadery was set up in 2018 by Matt, who had spent 20 years beekeeping as a hobby, and younger brother Kit, who comes from a marketing and product development background.

They saw off competition from London-based Better World Brewing Company, Flowerhorn Brewery in Cardiff and craft beer firm Fauna Brewing.   

They claimed the top prize of a year of mentoring and guidance, valued at £50,000, at the BrewLDN event in Printworks, London, which were held last month.

Judges were impressed with how passionate the pair were about their brand as well as the quality of its products and its potential for growth.  

The Newell brothers are now planning a major expansion in on-trade sales after doubling their turnover during the pandemic due to a rise in online purchases. They have also opened a tap room at the Meadery. 

Matt Newell said: “I’ve enjoyed beekeeping as a hobby for more than 20 years. 

“Its popularity has really boomed in recent years because of shows like Vikings and Game of Thrones, and we’ve grown pretty rapidly as a business since starting over four years ago.  

“Our turnover has more than quadrupled since our first year, and we’re enjoying getting more in tune with our market and customers.”

The business plan Wye Valley Meadery submitted to Brew Accelerator will be quickly escalated to focus on their sparkling mead range, and to grow production of kegs and cans for on-trade.

They have already sold their first keg following the launch at the Brew London event and plan to expand on that regionally, and then grow its sales across the UK. 

Further expansion plans in the coming years include opening their own off-site mead bar and exporting the drink to the Far East and Eastern Europe. 

The pair, who are due to appear on BBC’s The Hairy Bikers later this year, now produce 4,000 litres of the drink a month, which has a four per cent alcohol content and comes in a variety of flavours.  

Kit Newell said: “We can’t wait to see how we can move forward the business in the coming years.” 

https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/20195485.caldicots-wye-valley-meadery-wins-national-brewing-award/ 

Black Dragon Meadery Opens In New Buffalo, Michigan

From moodyonthemarket.com

“Mead is the oldest drink known to man, the very nectar of the Gods,” says Paul Peterson, Owner of Black Dragon Meadery in New Buffalo. The tasting room, located at 910 W. Buffalo Street, is cosy and inviting, accented with warm colours: deep burgundy and merlot, bright gold and, coincidently, honey yellow. A massive dragon head sits perched atop the fully stocked retail shelves, protecting the products like bejewelled treasure.

With bright smiles, Paul and Brenda greet everyone with enthusiasm and excitement, elated to have the opportunity to share libations with new customers. Mead is typically referred to as ‘honey wine’, and though it is sometimes made with hops, it is neither beer nor wine. The process of fermenting honey and water with additional ingredients like fruit, spices, and grains, delivers the most refreshing, sippable, gulpable, beverage.

While spending three years in Germany with Special Forces during the Cold War, Paul fell so in love with a certain black beer that upon his return to the states, it had him brewing and steeping in his attempt to recreate it. Through trial and error, Dragon’s Breath was born: a nearly-perfect replica that he introduced into the Renaissance Faire circuit, gaining many followers thirsty for his next creation. Naturally, this opened a door into the world of mead, where he began fashioning recipes based on the opinions of tasters from Ren Faires. His mead hit the shelves in 2015, and his logo and brand were created from Dragon’s Breath to draw in the patrons he acquired while pedalling brews across the region.

Since opening his first retail space in New Buffalo, Black Dragon Meadery has been diligently working to bring people into the new tasting room. Paul has a huge following in Indiana and the Chicago area already, and it will not be hard for him to win over the taste buds of we Michiganders. On June 18th, the Viking Warrior Festival in Marshall will debut his new mead ‘Immortality’, which he created specifically for author Treasa Kloth’s ‘The Harrow Vikings’ book series. The mead created for her book titled ‘Desolation’ is a cranberry orange mead, and is currently ranked #1 on untapped.com. ‘Immortality’ will be a plum vanilla mead.

The Magnum Mead Ale is semi-dry, made with clover honey and magnum hops, and it is sweet, refreshing, and luscious. The Blackberry Cyser I sampled is well-aged, semi-sweet, and made with apple cider from Coloma. It is a little fruity, a little floral, and offers the perfect amount of sweetness. All fermentation is done on site, and Paul uses local ingredients whenever possible: blueberries from Sawyer, honey from Eau Claire, and he frequents Coloma Frozen Foods often.

“I’m open to the possibility of a franchisee for the future,” Paul says. “Then we could truly expand into the Michigan market.” Michigan retailers that are interested in selling Black Dragon Meadery products can contact Eagle Eye Brands, a distributor based in Michigan that is quickly expanding internationally.

Black Dragon Meadery is open Thursday through Monday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m, with the option of hosting groups and parties– just call in advance. “Themed parties are always on the table, too,” says Paul, “We’ll dress like pirates!”
For a detailed list of all of the meads and their ingredients, where to buy, and which local restaurants serve it, visit blackdragonmeadery.com. Congratulations and welcome!

By Jocelyne Tuszynski, MOTM Contributor

https://www.moodyonthemarket.com/black-dragon-meadery-opens-in-new-buffalo/

Canada: New meadery opens in Alberta hamlet

From globalnews.ca

It was an exciting weekend in New Sarepta — a hamlet about 50 kilometres south of Edmonton. After years of work and delays because of COVID-19, Old Station Honey & Mead was finally able to have its grand opening.

It’s a dream come true for 61-year-old Will Munsey.

This dream all began 15 years ago when Munsey moved his family from Hong Kong to the Alberta hamlet. He decided to buy a berry farm and it grew from there. First, he got bees, then one day, Munsey’s friend gave him some mead that he had made from Munsey’s honey.

Munsey was hooked and thought maybe he should try to make mead himself.

“The very first mead I made was excellent and I thought it was going to be easy,” he said. “I spent the next four years trying to make a mead that good.”

Munsey’s said his golden ticket was when he was able to lease the Old Fire Station in New Sarepta. He got to work to change it from an empty garage to a functioning meadery.

It’s not just about making and selling mead, for Munsey, it’s also about bringing life back to the small community.

“Putting this here and trying to build it into something that people around the city of Edmonton and metropolitan area know and come to support, and bring people back to the community, I think it’s a great thing for this little community.

“All rural communities should have something.”

Many people travelled from the neighbouring community for the grand opening, including Ross and Sheila Lusk. After seeing a post on Facebook, they decided to make this their Sunday drive destination.

“I think it is very special because it’s local, it’s close, it’s a short drive and it’s something different,” Sheila said.

Sheldon Andres and Brynn Martin came from Leduc.

“I like seeing how such a small community and having this big idea, comes together,” Martin said.

“When you think of distilleries, you think of something big, something very upscale, but this one is very small, very local, very well built and well-grounded,” Andres said.

Munsey said his family has played a huge role in helping him. He said the community of New Sarepta has also been very encouraging.

“I show up here after a blizzard and my driveway has been ploughed by somebody, I asked for rhubarb for a mead and there’s rhubarb at the door,” Munsey said.

Munsey added that he has plans to grow.

“We want to be a place where people can spend an hour or two, have a glass of mead, have something to eat, maybe have some ice cream and venture off into non-alcoholic sodas made from honey and the berries,” he said.

https://globalnews.ca/news/8898670/new-meadery-opens-in-alberta-hamlet/ 

Notes on mead: First of all, mead is not beer

From spokesman.com

By Thomas Croskrey

Here is everything you ever wanted to know about mead but were afraid to ask:

Origin: No single culture is credited with inventing mead. Some cultures that have a strong, ancient mead practice include the Cymry (Welsh) and other Insular Celts, Nordic peoples, Chinese, North African and Ethiopian.

Historical evidence suggests that they all independently invented the beverage without interaction. The oldest example of mead that historians have found is from about 7,000 years ago in China – it was likely co-fermented with rice. The oldest European example is about 2,500 years old out of present-day Scotland but was likely produced throughout Europe before that.

Etymology: There are several etymological theories for the word mead. My favorite comes from the Cymry word medd (pronounced similarly like meth), which means medicine. It shares etymology with methamphetamine. Mead was often used as medicine in Wales, especially when infused with botanicals, making it a methaglyn.

Style names: Style names for mead are varied and interesting, many sounding like magic words or spell names. Style names are mostly driven by their ingredients more than where the style originated, although there are examples of geographic styles, too, like Tej out of Ethiopia, all of Poland’s mead styles or chouchen out of Brittany.

Typically, if a mead is infused with botanicals, it’s called a methaglyn or metheglin. Fruited meads are called melomel. Meads produced with grain or malt are called braggot. Bochet, a style out of France, is the style of mead that uses caramelized or cooked honey.

There are subcategories like pyment, which is a melomel produced with grapes, or cyser (either sye-zer or kye-zer), which is a melomel produced with apples. There are a few references for a mead made with only water, honey and yeast, and I call that a simple mead. Assigning style names to hybrids can become a headache, so approaches vary.

Hierophant’s lavender citrus mead at Hierophant Meadery, 16602 N. Day Mt. Spokane Road, in the Green Bluff area of Mead. (Courtesy of Ari Nordhagen)

Obscurity: Mead has had such a back-and-forth existence owing largely to the expense and difficulty of producing such large amounts of honey. Mead mostly has been considered upper class or even mystical. That obscurity has confused many U.S. regulators and lawmakers.

Mead is not beer (alcohol from grain sugar). Mead is not wine (alcohol from grapes or possibly other fruit sugar). Mead is so different from other alcoholic beverages, it’s the only one that’s not produced from plant sugar.

It’s unfortunate that mead is lumped in with wine regulation in the U.S. It gives people (especially consumers) the wrong idea about mead, and then us producers have an even more difficult job selling our products – or we just go along with the misinformation.

Production: Dissolving sugar in water is relatively easy, but hitting all the exacts and taking care of the yeast is where it gets laborious and time-consuming. Typically, must (the honey-water solution before being fermented) is only heated enough to get honey dissolved in water, as opposed to brewing beer, which has a mash period at about 150 degrees and then a boil period.

The most important facet to mead production is yeast care. Healthy yeast makes tasty mead, and unhealthy yeast makes off-flavours. Mead is known to take years to ferment and be drinkable, but that’s when proper yeast care isn’t in place.

Proper nutrient and O2 additions, along with other details including temperature control, will keep yeast healthy and vibrant, making fermentation for mead last just a few weeks.

Honey: Mead is defined as “fermented honey in water.” Honey varietals and terroir make mead fairly inconsistent in flavour profiles. Making two batches of mead in identical ways except using different honey varietals will make two completely different meads. My approach is to celebrate the variances derived from terroir and varietal rather than try to fight it.

I want consistently tasty, consistent quality and consistent integrity, not consistent sameness. If subbing out honey varietals becomes necessary, there are ways of making good substitutes such as keeping like-kind honeys together according to colour, flavour and richness. Subbing mint blossom honey (very dark) for fireweed blossom honey (very light) would be a mistake.

In general: Mead is in a renaissance – truly and genuinely in a rebirth period. Mead is the fastest-growing sector within craft beverage, but there are growing pains. U.S. regulators haven’t really put a lot of thought into where to categorize mead or how to regulate it, so it has been assigned to the wine industry – and there are difficulties in sharing that space rather than mead having a space of its own.

Also, given the cosmopolitan originations of mead, producers can follow vastly different traditions in terminology and practices. My favourite phrase that I’ve been using for years is “there are hundreds of ways to do it right.”

That said, I do hope the mead industry can start unifying in a bit more approachable way for the public. I think the public has a tendency to be a little timid about mead because of the obscurity, and our industry seemingly not having it together compounds the issue.

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2022/jun/01/notes-on-mead-first-of-all-mead-is-not-beer/