Mead - Alcohol

[Iasin the Steward]

Mead is a fermented alcoholic beverage made of honey, water, and yeast. It is generally pronounced "meed" (IPA: /mi¢°d/), though South Africans usually pronounce it "med", to rhyme with "red" (IPA: /mɛd/). Meadhing (pronounced meth' ing) is the practice of brewing honey. Mead is also known as "honey wine," although this is inaccurate. Mead is a separate and distinct family of alcoholic beverages, completely apart from beer, wine, liqueur, and distilled liquor.

In Norse mythology, mead was the favorite drink of the Norse gods and heroes, e.g. in Valhalla, and the mead of Suttung, made from the blood of Kvasir, was the source of wisdom and poetry. The nectar and ambrosia of the Greek gods are often thought of as draughts of fermented honey.

A mead that also contains spices (like cloves, cinnamon or nutmeg) or herbs (such as oregano or even lavender or chamomile) is called metheglin. The etymon of this word is the Welsh word meddyglyn, meaning "medicinal liquor", as healing herbs were often stored as metheglin so they would be available over the winter (as well as making them much easier to swallow). Slavic miod/med, which means "honey", derives from the same Proto-Indo-European root.

A mead that contains fruit (such as strawberry, blackcurrant or even rose-hips) is called melomel and was also used as a delicious way to "store" summer produce for the winter.

Mulled mead is a popular winter holiday drink, where mead is flavoured with spices and warmed, traditionally by having a hot poker plunged into it.

Hippocras is spiced grape wine sweetened with honey. A grape-based wine with added honey, or a wine made by fermenting grape juice and honey together, is called a pyment.

Cyser is made with (hard) apple cider and honey; braggot or bracket is made with malted barley and honey.

[Iasin the Steward]

History of mead
The history of mead goes back more than 8,000 years. The oldest known meads were created on the Island of Crete; fermented honey was seen as an entheogen and bees were sacred to Demeter. Wine had not yet been created. Mead was the drink of the Age of Gold, and the word for drunk in classical Greek remained "honey-intoxicated." (Kerenyi 1976 pp 35ff).

Mead was once very popular in Northern Europe, often produced by monks in monasteries in areas where grapes could not be grown. It faded in popularity, however, once wine imports became economical. Especially partial to it were the Slavs. In Polish it is called miód (pronounced [mjut]), meaning "honey." Mead was a favored drink among the Polish szlachta (nobility). During the Crusades, Polish Prince Leszek I the White explained to the Pope that Polish knights could not participate in the Crusades because there was no mead in Palestine.

In Finland, a sweet mead called Sima (cognate with zymurgy), is still an essential seasonal brew connected with the Finnish Vappu festival. It is usually spiced by adding both the flesh and rind of a lemon. During secondary fermentation raisins are added to control the amount of sugars and to act as an indicator of readiness for consumption — they will rise to the top of the bottle when the drink is ready.

Ethiopian mead is called tej and is usually home-made. It is flavored with the powdered leaves and bark of gesho, a hops-like bittering agent which is a species of buckthorn. A sweeter, less-alcoholic version called berz, aged for a shorter time, is also made. The traditional vessel for drinking tej is a rounded vase-shaped container called a berele.

Mead is also mentioned in many old north Anglo-Saxon stories, including in the epic poem Beowulf.

[Iasin the Steward]

Varieties of mead
Mead can have a wide range of flavors, depending on the source of the honey, additives called "adjuncts" or "gruit" (including fruit and spices), yeast employed during fermentation, and aging procedure. Mead can be difficult to find commercially, though some producers have been successful marketing it.

Some meads retain some measure of the sweetness of the original honey, and some can even be considered as dessert wines. Drier meads are also available, and some producers offer sparkling meads, which (like champagne) can make for a delightful celebratory toast. There are a number of faux-meads, which are actually cheap wines with large amounts of honey added, to produce a cloyingly sweet liqueur. It has been said that "a mead that tastes of honey is as good as a wine that still tastes of grape".

Historically, meads would have been fermented by wild yeasts residing on the skins of the fruit or within the honey itself. Wild yeasts generally result in a high alcohol content and some interesting by-flavors. As commercial brewing interests 'tamed' the yeasts into the strains we recognize now, certain strains became associated with certain styles of mead. Mostly, these are strains that are also used in beer or wine production. Several commercial labs, such as White Labs, WYeast, Vierka, and others have gone so far as to develop strains specifically for mead.

Mead can also be distilled to a brandy or liqueur strength. Krupnik is a sweet Polish liqueur made through just such a process.

Different types of mead include, but are not limited to:

Cyser - Cyser is a combination of honey and apple cider.

Pyment - Pyment blends honey and grapes.

Melomel - Melomel is made from honey and any fruit other than grapes or apples.

Metheglin - Metheglin starts with traditional mead but has herbs and spices added.

Hippocras - Hippocras is a combination of Pyment and spices.

Braggot - Braggot (also called bracket or brackett) marks the invention of Ale. Originally brewed with honey and hops, later with honey and malt - with or without hops added.

[Lord Reilloc Kram]

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