Kegged a nice sweet mead tonight. Anyone else make mead?

Mead (pronounced /?mi?d/) is an alcoholic beverage, made from honey and water via fermentation with yeast. Its alcoholic content may range from that of a mild ale to that of a strong wine. It may be still, carbonated, or sparkling. It may be dry, semi-sweet, or sweet. While it is often referred to as "honey wine",[1] technically mead is not a wine.

Depending on local traditions and specific recipes, it may be brewed with spices, fruits, or grain mash. It may be produced by fermentation of honey with grain mash;[2] mead may also, like beer, be flavored with hops[3] to produce a bitter, beer-like flavor.

Mead is independently multicultural. It is known from many sources of ancient history throughout Europe, Africa and Asia, although archaeological evidence of it is ambiguous.[4] Its origins are lost in prehistory; "it can be regarded as the ancestor of all fermented drinks," Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat has observed, "antedating the cultivation of the soil."[5] Claude Lévi-Strauss makes a case for the invention of mead as a marker of the passage "from nature to culture".[6]

Wikipedia

Nope. I don't like the flavor of mead but I have had a couple of melomel's that I liked. The ones I've liked had some age on them.

Would love to try making that stuff,,takes quite a spell to finish the product before kegging doesn't it?

I've finished mead, and before kegging added ginger flavor. Nice combo.

Not a big fan of mead but a local winery makes it. Then they serve it warm with spices in it.

We do. Mr.Beez bottled a huckleberry and a chokecherry mead/melomel a couple years ago that took ribbons two years in a row at the state fair (Eastern Idaho - woo hoo, the bigtime! LOL!). We need to put up more of both this year. The elderberries are looking promising, and our peach and apricot trees are LOADED, so I want to try some elderberry, apricot and a peach-ginger this year. If I can find a press, I'd also like to try a pear cider.

What kind did you make? Just straight honey mead? That stuff is better than port for a dessert wine, IMO.

peach-ginger should've been pear-ginger. Whoops.

^OMGoodness that sounds goooood

^^doesn't it? The mead that beat out the huckleberry was a ginger (I think that makes it a metheglin...) and it got me thinking how GOOD that would be with the pear....

Won't know till we try!

state ribbons is a really big deal.

I've never tried mead, but I suspect I would not care for the sweet.

Is it served as a dessert drink, an aperitif, or warmed and served on a cold night?

^^Ours is usually on the dry side, mostly because neither of us cares much for sweet wines. However, I've had sweet honey mead warmed with a cinnamon stick in it that was VERY good, and chilled it makes a wonderful dessert wine - especially if you serve it with strawberries or soft cheese & crackers. Just my opinion, though.

It has been a long time since I made any Mead. I made a melomel, back in college, that I flavored with blueberries and ginger, that was amazing. Like a dry ginger ale, with a rush of blueberries on the finish.

Dave (A.K.A. Homebrew)

I'll be back in a while, I'm going to Mr.and Mrs. Beez now!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, I have "tried" mead, just a little. It was interesting. I am a beer (good beer) guy, but the mead sounds awesome.

LOL @ Wes! You make it out here to the middle of nowhere and I'll DEFINITELY hook you up!

Re: 11

It can be sweet but it can also be semi-sweet to dry. Huge range of flavors and tastes. Mead can be mixed or brewed with fruit, spices, beer, and wine. It is good stuff.

I will have to try adding ginger to a batch of mead, it sounds delicious.

My meads took 1st and 2nd Best-in-Show./brag

They're pretty big at 14% alcohol, too. Really smooth-they sneak up on you. You sit there thinking how nice it is until you notice you can't feel your toes...or nose...and you can't get up to get another one. ;-}

Beez

That is the fun part about mead, it can taste as sweet as honey (since you know, it is honey and all) but put your on your arse.