Mead: Anyone like it?

[saltypete]

Over the last 12 months I have developed a real affection for Mead. I have tried a Welsh variety but have found a really good brand made right here in Oz. The basic honey mead is a great summer drink when served chilled while the spiced and liquer varieties are great for after dinner and go really well with cheese and a cigar.
I know a Welsh guy that just can't touch the stuff because as a young bloke he used to drink it as a chaser with his pint and it evokes bad memories in him. Does anyone here have a love/hate or opinion on this particular libation? I'd be interested to know.

Pete

 

[philipfromga]

I think its quite good and pretty potent. Of course I have only had it in the bowels of a pub that used to be a dungeon for the King of Sweden with several other Swedes singing Viking drinking songs and watching soccer but boy I sure enjoyed it and the fire breathing waitress was cool too.

 

[soapbox]

I made some (I used champagne yeast and some malt, so it was not the usual wine variety, but more of a beer) once, and it tipped the scales at 10.5% alcohol. It was smooth, dry, and exceptionally alcoholic. It was a crisp beer. I should dig up that recipe again, but it wasn't something that would appeal to people like a summer white beer would. Still, I remember liking it a lot.

 

[BigFish]

I like it and used to make some occasionally. I can find it at wineries around here sometimes.

 

[syzygy]

Wonderful stuff. There is a Meadery outside Sooke on Vancouver Island that is called Tugwell Creek and they have some meads of exceptional quality and worth a visit.

 

[scoof]

Over the last 12 months I have developed a real affection for Mead. I have tried a Welsh variety but have found a really good brand made right here in Oz. The basic honey mead is a great summer drink when served chilled while the spiced and liquer varieties are great for after dinner and go really well with cheese and a cigar.

I have the good fortune of knowing an excellent mead-maker in the US (he's just won the NHC meadmaker of the year award), and I'm a sucker for his orange blossom and his chipotle meads.
The good thing is that he lives in the US, and have access to all the different kinds of honey and fruit. The bad thing is that he lives in the US, so I can't taste it that often. Also, for anybody in the vicinity, I can recommend a visit to White Winter Winery, Iron River, WI: http://www.whitewinter.com/ - taste their bracket if you haven't tried the stuff.

 

[Jethro1984]

I thought you were talking about the paper......

I've never had this "mead" you speak of.....perhaps I shall try it.

 

[Bushranger]

i've not had it for an age....don't know where to find it.

 

[Not A Nice Person]

I brew my own---current bottling is a Horny Goat Weed Metheglin that came out exceptionally well.

+1 on White Winter meads, though. Tasty, tasty, tasty. Rocky Mountain Meadery and Scarboroughs are both good too.

Avoid Chaucer's at all costs.

NANP™

 

[fivefifty]

When I go to the Ren-Faire it's all I drink. ohhhhh what a bad hangover, but in modoration very tasty the faire serves Carroll's mead
when I hear see or taste mead I think of this

 

[soapbox]

Ren-faires have improved markedly since I was younger.

 

[The Nid Hog]

I like the idea of mead better than its taste. I guess that if I were to join my ancestors in a mead hall after a long campaign of coastal raiding, I'd be hoping that we had captured a couple of barrels of ale of maybe a nice cask of wine.

 

[blackfoot]

Ren-faires have improved markedly since I was younger.

I have been wanting to try mead. I know a guy that makes his own. I will have to see if I can get some from him.

 

[Doc4]

Ren-faires have improved markedly since I was younger.

Mead-goggles dude, mead-goggles.









On a more serious note, I got some honey-wine here http://www.bbwinery.com/index.htm which I suppose is pretty close in some respects to mead. It was actually like an off-dry white wine, in performance, but honey-ish.

 

[Emmett]

I love it, but as a treat (I favor the sweeter varieties like Danish and Polish meads). Usually I stick to beer.

 

[BobS]

I have had honey wine in an Ethopian restaurant that was nice, but not something I would go looking for.

I am not entirely if that qualifies as mead or not...?

 

[saltypete]

i've not had it for an age....don't know where to find it.

You can find it at Dan Murphy's. Maxwell is the brand and they make honey, spiced and liquer varieties. The bottles are not much to look at, but the mead tastes amazing. At about $13 AUD a bottle, you can't go wrong.

Pete

 

[pal]

I made some coffee mead one time and I just couldn't drink it. One of the worst things I have ever tasted. Maybe I should revisit this Mead thing. This time I'll get some honey Mead made by professionals.

 

[pmast]

I made some a long time ago when I was making ales. I had some friends who were bee keepers and they gave me a bunch of honey. I only used honey, water, gypsum and Eu de Vie yeast. It took about a year to mellow, but once it had, it was lightly sweet with honey and a suprizingly strong vanilla aroma. Not sure what the real stuff tastes like, but my simple homemade stuff would best be compared to asti spumanti. Alcohol content was high, but I didn't check the SG.

 

[jeffmeit]

I had some 15 years ago at the Samuel Adams brew pub in Philly. I asked for a glass and the waitress said "I'll bring you a sample". The stuff was awful, tasked like really bad cough syrup. The waitress was right about the sample, that's all I needed.

Maybe they just made a bad one.