I had my first glass of mead at a public house in the Portland, OR area. It was nice.

I'd like to pick up a bottle locally. Any recommendation on a brand or what to buy in a store?

I know nothing about mead. I usually buy port or other dessert wine. I've never bought mead before.

You may not have many options anyway. I remember trying to find some about 10 years ago and even at a specialty store they only had one type. Maybe better selection with the boom of smaller companies.

Mead can be tricky. Be warned. There is really good mead out there, and not so good mead.

I've made both at home. The not so good mead can be described as Thor's hammer when it comes to the hangover. Tread lightly.

The main problem w/ honey wine is there is no natural nutrition for the yeast during the ferment like there is w/ grape wine (fruit) or beer (barley). Nutrition has to be added multiple times during the ferment to keep the yeast happy and to keep them from making harsh alcohols.

Having said that, my passion for mead is meadiocre (see what I did there?) Mead can be very sweet to very dry. The dry being almost like a regular grape white wine. I made a dry blueberry mead that ended up tasting not unlike a merlot.
The sweet meads are wonderful too. And then there is everything inbetween.

It's been several years since I pursued mead but if I was to seek large commercial examples, two I might look into would be:
https://whitewinter.com/
http://rabbitsfootmeadery.com/

Otherwise keep seeking out the smaller little secrets that keep popping up.
If you want inspiration to try it at home, maybe view this:
https://vimeo.com/15630991

Vikings blood is a good mead.

Did you mull it with spices, or right out of the bottle?


Chaucers seems to be the only mead that is local to me.

https://www.amazon.com/Chaucer...-750ml/dp/B0026FDE78

My wife and I are members of a home brew club in Orlando. We have never had to buy Mead so I cant make a recommendations.
Our club has a large number of Mead makers. We have tried many types of Mead and I like sweet fruit type Mead's.
We have one of the larges Mead only competitions in the country that I know of.
Be careful Mead is easy to drink and it will mess you up quickly trust me I know.
Mead is not difficult to make compared to beer but finishing time can be long. Find a home brew club near you and see if they have Mead makers as members and talk to them. They may even have samples at a meeting to try our club does.

Where are you located?

I really like Chaucers Mead from California.

http://chaucerswine.com/our-story/our-wines-2/


The King's Mead from Hidden Legend Winery is also very good.
https://www.hiddenlegendwinery...duct/the-kings-mead/

Both of the above are sweet meads. Hidden Legend also has a natural mead which is drier and not as sweet. Their dark mead is not as tasty to me but does have a kind of dry sherry like note.

Mead tends to get better with age if stored in a cool dark place. Fresh batches that have not been aged enough may have nasty flavors (acetone like). The nastiness tends to mellow away if you leave the stuff alone for about a year. One of the secrets to good mead is to let it age sufficiently.

Just my $0.02,

Mike (Beer Geek but I love mead too!)

My wife has been making mead for about 4 years now. Her best showing so far was a third place ribbon at our county fair.

Despite their honey base, not all mead is sweet.

Her best tasting so far was made with dandelion syrup. I suspect the sugar syrup gave more food for the yeast.

Sorry I don't have any suggestions for a commercial one.

Monk's mead made here in Atlanta is a sparkling variety, very easy to drink.

Moonlight meadery makes many good choices too, they are the sweet fruity kind.

I like mead, but like wine, it makes me sleepy.

http://www.bnektar.com/

B. Nektar Meadery out of MI has a good variety of meads and a sense of humor in product naming.

quote:

Mead can be very sweet to very dry.

And then there's still vs. carbonated varieties!

Thanks guys -- I'll look for the suggestions locally.

Assuming straight up mead, not flavored ones, I assume that (upon thinking about it more), that mead flavor will vary not only by the fermentation method but also by the starting honey type? For example, clover (which I don't like) will be different from orange blossom, tupelo, black locust/acacia, etc?

Is this factored into the mead (similar to wines by grape type)? Or is mead agnostic to the honey type being used? I like sweet wines like Rieslings and Gerw's and meads seem interesting.

Of course to drink mead properly, you need the proper vessel:
https://www.amazon.com/AleHorn...2KRFV34DFZJ1D13ZKKNW

I have 3 gallons of mead fermenting as we speak.

Just water, honey, and yeast. It's my first batch. I'm using a yeast that is supposed to attenuate at about 11%. Once I get the hang of the process I'll start experimenting.

Yea, your type of honey will have an effect on the taste.

There is a Meadery in Vermont with a Youtube channel that has a wealth of information and the host is a funny guy. It's called Groennfell Meadery.

I made a raspberry mead once that was so awesome we drank all of it before it even got a chance to properly age. Then when we moved to a new house, I lost my folder that had my recipes in it, and I've never been able to recreate what I made that first time.... Makes me sad. Some of my later attempts were barely drinkable...

It's a tough brew to get right.