As defined by the American Mead Makers Association: Mead is a wine from other agricultural products or a malt beverage derived (1) from honey and water, OR (2) from a mixture of honey and water with hops, fruit, spices, grain, or other agricultural products or flavors allowed in the production in wine, in which honey represents the largest percentage of the starting fermentable sugars by weight of the finished product, and having the taste, aroma, and characteristics generally attributed to mead, and sold or offered for sale as mead.

Source: http://mead-makers.org/

A Bit of History

Evidence in archaeological digs have shown there have been mead-like beverages since around 8000 years ago! Civilizations in China, Africa, Scandinavia and many more all have some form of mead that has shown up in their culture. This beverage predates both beer and wine but is not as popular…..but that is changing…

Story

The world’s oldest fermented beverage – every society has had mead in one shape or form. Commonly called the drink of the God’s. Egyptians and Greeks, Kings of England, and Vikings.

The term honeymoon – comes from Tradition for the betrothed couple to be presented with a moon cycle’s month of mead to promote a fruitful union and produce offspring. Serving and consuming mead is a wedding ritual – long life, good health, fertility

Types of Honey

Honey is the main ingredient in Mead. It is what makes Mead…well…Mead! But did you know that there are over 300 different types of honey in the United States alone!?

Each different type of honey imparts different flavors and aroma to the mead.

Check out this guide for more info on varietals of honey: https://www.bjcp.org/mead/varietalguide.pdf and this one for more info on the sensory descriptions of those varietals: https://www.bjcp.org/mead/sensory.pdf

What’s in it?

Traditional mead is made with three simple ingredients: water, yeast (and most importantly!) honey. There are many different variants on those ingredients that make up different types of mead. As you can imagine, with the different types of honey combined with the variety of hops, fruit, spices, grain, or other agricultural products in conjunction with various yeast strains can produce some interesting and truly wonderful meads. Mead can be sparkling (full carbonated), petillant (low carbonation) or still (no carbonation).

Source: Argis.com