What is Mead?
Just about every mead maker, from home brewers to commercial makers, when mentioning that they make mead, has heard in response, “You make meat?” So, it is the job of every mead maker and enthusiast, on every level to help others understand the joy of mead in all of its simplicities and its complexities. In this blog, we’ll discuss a bit of both.
What exactly is mead? Simply stated, it is the fermentation of honey and water. “But is it more like a beer or a wine?” Good question. Let’s consider four types of alcoholic beverages: beer, wine, cider and mead. All four undergo a fermentation process at some point in their creation. But they are definitely not the same. For our discussion, fermentation is the breaking down of sugars by yeast into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Beer (short version) uses a mixture of cracked grains mixed with hot water called the “mash.” The enzymes in the grains can then convert the starches in the grains into sugar, after which the grains are separated from the liquid “wort”. The others do not need these steps. Wine gets its sugar from pressed grapes, cider from pressed apples, and mead from honey, which are mixed with water, then called “must.”
The sugars in each of these beverages are all from different sources, different climates, different environments, which allow them to provide their own characteristics. Grains, grapes, apples and honey all have hundreds and thousands of options, whether it is a choice of locally, regionally or internationally sourced, varietals uncounted, as well as any blending options. (We’ll delve into honey varietals another time.) Once you have this “sugar water,” if you will, mixed and at an appropriate temperature, you can add yeast.
Having made your choice of sugar source, you get to choose from literally hundreds of yeast strains. Beer essentially falls into two categories: ales and lagers. This is due to the type of yeast used - ale yeast or lager yeast - each of which have hundreds of strains, as does wine yeast. Mead and cider producers will generally choose from a selection of wine yeasts, although brewer’s yeast is also an option as well. Each strain of yeast reacts differently in various situations (temperature, sugar source and amount, other nutrients, etc.), and provides its own flavor profile.
Once the type of honey, the strain of yeast and the water source (a topic in and of itself) have been chosen, other additions push beyond the traditional (honey, water, yeast) style of meads. A single fruit addition can create a wonderful berry mead. A blend of herbs and spices may give your mead a bit of a kick. Tea, aging on oak, virtually any combination of whatever one’s imagination can design all fall into different categories of mead. For instance, adding apples to mead creates a Cyser, add grapes to your mead and you have a Pyment, grains/malt gives you a Braggot. All of this together with the choice of level of sweetness, carbonation and strength (see previous blog post) and you have a virtual artist’s palette of options from which to choose. (See https://www.bjcp.org/style/2015/mead/ for a complete list of mead styles.)
We’ll leave fermentation time and temperature, storage and aging practices and other topics for a later post.
Whew! When all is said and done, fermenting honey and water in a clean and controlled environment will produce a good, “traditional” mead. But there are a plethora of variations on that theme. Now, go find some and/or make some mead.