Mead Lovers: Game of Thrones

Showing posts with label Game of Thrones. Show all posts

Tuesday, 15 February 2022

We rate the best meads as Game of Thrones sends demand for ancient honey drink through the roof

From thesun.co.uk

By Alex James

A thirst for craft booze, the popularity of TV’s Game of Thrones and the simple Paleo diet trend have all combined to resurrect the ancient honey and water drink.

Mead is back after a millennium in the culinary wilderness

Until recently it was purely the preserve of battle re-enactment enthusiasts, yet mead is now cool again.

The earliest traces of the tipple were found in a 9,000-year-old Chinese Neolithic vase, so it’s about as traditional as it gets.

The drink played a big part in Anglo Saxon and Celt culture, too. Viking mythology held that it was a gift from the gods.

It declined here with the 1066 Norman invasion introducing cider and wine.

But the ancient nectar, which was often drunk by newlyweds on honeymoon, has now returned and there is a huge range of types, from still to sparkling and sweet to sharp.

Unlike many other drinks, there is no set recipe for mead. Traditionally it was made by beekeepers, who ferment honey in water, but some meaderies use white sugar in place of honey.

Traditional meads tend to be favoured by an older, geekier crowd. Real ale types. Good sorts. Session meads are lighter and marketed like craft beers towards younger boozers.

Most producers have seen increased sales in the past two years, possibly due to people exploring different types of booze while pubs were shut in lockdown.

I wanted to get some mead for my honeymoon 20 years ago, but it was nigh on impossible. But now we’re spoilt for choice.

So could this really be the next big thing? I couldn’t wait to find out.

Stoneforge Mead, £2.79, 330ml bottle, 5% ABV

SPARKLING mead made with raw honey, yeast and water, this one looks just like a bottle of beer.

The name Stoneforge is reminiscent of a Seventies heavy metal band.

Nice liquid, though, much like a sweet cider. It’s crisp and refreshing.

VERDICT: Stoneforge would be good as an accompaniment to a pudding.

Afon Mel Sparkling Mead Moon Juice, £2.95, 330ml, 5% ABV

TECHNICALLY a cyser – a blend of cider and mead – Moon Juice tastes of apples and honey.

This mead would be just epic in summer served ice cold, with ice cubes in a glass that has been chilled in a freezer.

VERDICT: Good with piping hot apple crumble and clotted cream.

The Rookery Spruce Mead, £25, 70cl, 17% ABV

PREMIUM presentation – it looks like a bottle of Scotch and the taste is reminiscent of a good, sweet sherry.

Made with spruce tips and packing quite a punch at 17% ABV.

VERDICT: I can see my mum and mother-in-law getting stuck right in to this gear.

Gosnells Hopped Sparkling Mead, £28, 12 x 330ml cans, 4% ABV

MADE from water, honey and New World hops, it is extremely quaffable and tastes just like a lager top (lager with a dash of lemonade), one of my all-time favourite tipples.

VERDICT: This would be great with a hot curry or could work as a hangover cure – it would soon have you back on your feet.

Wye Valley Honey & Rhubarb Sparkling Mead, £3.50, 330ml bottle, 4% ABV

HAS a wonderful pink colour. It is made from honey and rhubarb juice and I’ve never tasted anything like it.

The sourness that can make rhubarb unpleasant is masked by the honey, so you can savour the wonderful, delicate notes of rhubarb.

About as British as it gets.

VERDICT: A knockout with bangers and mash.

Kinsale Wild Red Mead, £25, 70cl, 11% ABV

A PLEASINGLY fruity concoction with dark cherry, blackcurrants and pure honey, it is bursting with zesty acidity that counteracts its sweetness.

Very sippable Ribena for grown-ups, basically.

VERDICT: A small glug in a glass of prosecco, Champagne or English fizz would hit the spot.

Lyme Bay Black Cherry, £9.99, 75cl, 11% ABV

THIS is delicious, but then it’s made with honey and black cherries, and I’m a sucker for black cherries.

It shows how well mead can take other flavours. A perfect combination.

VERDICT: With a bit of fizzy water this would make a fine aperitif.

Great for a burst of cherry flavour in cooking, too – put a splash in the gravy for the Sunday roast.

Afon Mel Traditional Heather Mead, £25, 75cl, 13% ABV

LOOKS more like a bottle of wine but tastes more like tawny port.

Made with heather honey by beekeepers, it has an intensely sweet flavour but is not at all unpleasant.

VERDICT: A mead that goes very well with cheese, strawberries and cream or as the secret ingredient in a hot toddy.

Gosnells Citra Sea Sparkling Mead, £28, 12 x 330ml cans, 4% ABV

MADE from honey, lemon, salt, water, hops and tarragon.

The addition of hops takes this towards lager territory – light, fizzy and refreshing. I like it and think wifey would too.

VERDICT: This one would be great on a picnic, served like a Pimm’s with a chunk of cucumber and some fresh minty sprigs.

Wye Valley Hive Mind Honey Beer Golden Hour, £2.50, 330ml, 4.5% ABV

A “HONEY ale” that comes in a cute little brown bottle like the one my grandad used to drink from while watching Match Of The Day with me.

Made from malted barley, heather honey, hops and yeast, it was the least sweet of all the meads I tried.

Full of malt and hoppy flavours. Very warming and pleasing.

VERDICT: One for the footie.

Lindisfarne Spiced Mead, £10.49, 70cl, 14.5% ABV

LINDISFARNE were a Seventies band whose style was a unique blend of rock and folk.

This bottle is a unique blend too – of mead and spices blended with herbs and fermented grape juice.

And the tipple tastes just like mince pies.

Whatever next?

VERDICT: Choose this as a real winter warmer.

Lancashire Mead Company Jarl’s Mead, £25, 70cl, 14.5% ABV

THIS has the snazziest presentation of the bunch, like a huge bottle of perfume.

The taste is reminiscent of sherry and the chilli flavour works surprisingly well and is not too overpowering.

Saturday, 21 September 2019

Miracle Stag Meadery Highlights Local Honey in Loveland, Colorado

From westword.com

Arpad László Kovacs combined his desire to make wine with his family’s experience in bee keeping to open Miracle Stag Meadery in Loveland, where he creates a wide variety of meads with Rocky Mountain water and local wildflower honey. “Honey is obviously the most important part of the product,” he explains, so he uses natural and organic ingredients, with no preservatives, whenever available.

One of his most popular small-batch meads, Dragonblood, is inspired by Game of Thrones. “It gets its wonderful red colour from cherries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries,” Kovacs notes, adding that Dragonblood has a rounded character from oak aging, but the fruitiness still comes through in the finish.

Arpad László Kovacs

Honeymoon, which is also oak-aged, is made with raisins and dates. “The oak flavour makes it perfect for making mixed drinks with whiskey or bourbon,” the mead maker points out. “In general, meads tend to have a bit of a sharp, boozy quality initially, which smooths out with oxygenation. It’s something not far from what you’d experience in whiskey or bourbon."

Just in time for fall, Yule Lad is spiced mead similar to apple cider. “It’s the flavours you’d find in an apple pie,” Kovacs says. Saucy Wapiti is his most classic mead style, made with just honey, water and yeast.

“People are realizing it’s another gluten-free option,” Kovacs notes of mead's recent increase in popularity. He adds that he has seen an increased interest from bars that want to offer mead to customers.

Because mead has the potential for aging well, Miracle Stag's bottles are labelled with a "born on" date, and they're also marked dry, semi-sweet or sweet to help you pick the right mead for your palate.

Currently, Miracle Stag Meadery is available by the pour at Brix Brew & Tap in Greeley, Loveland Tap & Tavern, and The Barrel and the Wapiti Colorado Pub, both in Estes Park. You can also buy it by the bottle in liquor stores throughout Northern Colorado, including Argonaut Wine & Liquor in Denver, Boulder Wine & Spirits and Wyatt’s Wet Goods in Longmont. For more information, visit miraclestagmead.com.

https://www.westword.com/restaurants/denver-best-green-chile-11483894

Tuesday, 4 June 2019

'Game of Thrones' brought an ancient drink back from the dead — here's what mead really is and how to drink it

By Tom Murray
From businessinsider.com

Mead is coming.
Thanks to the likes of "Game of Thrones" and the surge in popularity of other fantasy series, mead — the ancient alcoholic beverage made from honey — is making a comeback.
Mead, which is probably the world's oldest alcoholic drink, fell out of popularity when improved medieval farming methods produced cheaper alternatives like beer, and later when West Indian sugar imports reduced the incentives to keep bees.
Mead kept a cult following, though, thanks to its association with medieval and fantasy thematics — it's a popular choice at medieval tournaments and fayres.

King Robert Baratheon drinks from a horn in 'Game of Thrones' season one.

HBO

However, mead is not just the sickly reserve of castle gift shops. In recent years, mead has rebounded. Its affinity with "Thrones" fans and the rise of "craft" has jetpacked the beverage to lofty new heights both in terms of volume and taste.

A 2017 industry report from the American Mead Makers Association found that the number of meaderies in the US has risen from just 30 in 2003 to 300 in early 2016.
According to The Drinks Business, 67% of American meaderies have been open for less than five years.
Tom Gosnell, the founder of Gosnells of London mead, told Business Insider that sales were up 60% year on year, and that the majority of his fellow mead makers or "mazers" were seeing similar gains.

Tom Gosnell, founder of Gosnells mead. (Gosnells)

Business Insider spoke to Gosnell about why mead is more than just a novelty, and how it should be enjoyed.

Good mead is made from honey

It sounds like a no-brainer but, actually, not all meads are made from honey alone. Because honey is expensive, some producers will bulk out their liquid with apple or grape juice, which provides the sweetness without the cost.
This isn't the Gosnells way.
"We always make everything just with honey — there's nothing else in there," Gosnell told us.
"A castle gift shop mead is really sweet and really strong — [it] gives you a really thick hangover. Ours is really light, fresh, and crisp. It's quite a different drink really."
Part of the success of Gosnells mead is down to its low ABV content — 5.5%, which feeds into a larger trend as consumers look for lower alcohol options.
"It kind of reminds me of summer a bit really," Gosnell said. "You can taste the flora, you can taste the citrus, it's crisp, it's fresh, it's light, it's not heavy, it's not sweet, it's not strong."
Gosnells brews its mead by dissolving a Spanish orange blossom honey in warm water before transferring the mixture to a fermenter, where a pilsner yeast is added, and leaving it for a week.

The Gosnells mead team. (Gosnells)

Mead makes a mean cocktail

While drinking mead from an ivory horn or a flagon might seem appealing to any fans of Middle Earth and beyond, mead is actually a great lengthener and a sweetener in cocktails, Gosnell said.

While the classic way to serve mead is chilled right down, in a glass, all on its own, Gosnell has found some cocktails that mead compliments particularly well.
"We have a nice gin one, which is a play on a French 75," he said.
"It's gin, lemon juice, topped off with mead.
"Another one which is nice, is a bit like a dark and stormy with ginger, dark rum, and lime muddled together and topped up with Gosnells."

In terms of what you should eat with mead, spicy, fatty dishes are optimum, as are hard cheeses. "There's a really good northern Thai restaurant in Soho [London] that serves our mead, and it cuts through the spiciness," Gosnell said.

'We'd like to create a product that can stand on its own ... that's a lot more interesting than the 'Game of Thrones' bit'

While Gosnell is happy that the popularity of shows like 'Game of Thrones' are increasing mead awareness, he said he wants his product to be able to stand on its own "without needing that kind of baggage."
"There are a couple of entry points where people have heard about it and actually that helps people understand that it's a thing and then we can take them on this sort of honey journey, and that's a lot more interesting than the 'Game of Thrones' bit," Gosnell said.
"So it can only help in terms of giving people even just a nugget of a reference point here and there."

https://www.businessinsider.com/game-of-thrones-has-brought-mead-back-from-the-dead-2019-6?r=US&IR=T