Mead is an alcoholic beverage that is made from fermented honey. It generally has a higher alcohol content than beer, usually around 10%.
The first meads were most likely made simply by taking honey and water and letting them ferment with the naturally occurring yeasts found in the honey. Evidence of early meads has been found in Egypt and on the island of Crete, and it was drunk in Greece throughout the Golden Age. In many early cultures, bee goddesses held central roles in the pantheon, and many have postulated that this was because of the intoxicating effects of mead harvested from local bee hives.
There are three main classes of mead, with many variations on each. Traditional meads are made using only honey, water, and yeast. Metheglin mead is made in the same way as traditional mead, but has various spices – such as cinnamon or vanilla – added. Melomel mead is similar, but has fruit added as well. Various types of melomel include mead with mulberries, known as morat; mead with pears, known as perry; mead with apple juice, known as cyser; and mead with grapes, known as pyment.
Mead retained its place of honor as a highly valued drink in many cultures until the introduction of wine. As wine became a mark of wealth and prestige, many lords began turning from the consumption of mead to wine. The peasantry continued to enjoy mead, as it could be easily made from ingredients they could get their hands on and didn’t require special storage. Over time, however, beer replaced mead in the lives of the commoners, and mead became a drink set aside for special occasions.
Many people trace the English word honeymoon to a practice of fathers to supply their daughters with enough mead to last a month as a dowry. Drinking this mead throughout the first month of marriage was meant to ensure that the firstborn child would be a male. Other holidays, such as the Yule festivals, also included drinking mead as part of the festivities.
Mead is still a regular part of the Ethiopian tradition, where it is known as tej. Ethiopian mead has the bark of a plant called gesho added to it, giving it a somewhat hoppy taste and making it similar to the beer-like mead known as braggot. Ethiopian mead varies in alcohol content and sweetness, with some being quite potent, and others, such as the variety known as berz, having a low alcohol content.
Types of Mead
Braggot is an ale and a mead combined. Or ale brewed with more than 50% of the fermentables coming from honey.
Melomel is mead fermented with fruit.
Cyser is a blend of honey and apple juice fermented together.
Pyment is mead fermented with grapes.
Metheglin is mead fermented with herbs or spices.
Hippocras is spiced pyment.
The Process
External Links
- Eoin O'Seaghdha mead page Making your first mead
- East Cowdry Bootleggers A short history & home-brewing recipes
- Gotmead.com A large site with over 1200 pages of mead-related info
- MeadWorks.ca A Canadian-based mead brewing club, resource, and Ezine
- RealBeer.com Mead resources
- Mead Lovers Digest
- Aboutmead.com Mead resource, tasting notes and a searchable archive of the Mead Lovers Digest
