Mead ... is it good?

Nords in ESO always drink meads, they made me gather the ingredients etc. The food buff also has mead.

I'm really curious with the taste because of these Nords lol.

Any popular brand that I can easily find? I'm a bit curious with the taste.

Thanks

In real life, there are tons of meads-  sweet, semi-sweet to dry.  My friends make them.  I've had peach, raspberry, cherry, and jalapeno flavored mead (as well as traditional honey.) I like most all of what I've tried. I'd recommend some brands, but I don't buy them.  I do like semi-sweet or sweet meads.  Try going to a small wine shop and asking them for some recommendations.  I guess they are super fun to make.  Especially if you can get a good deal on honey.

I use to drink mead as my only alcoholic beverage - Chaucer's Mead was the brand and it was sweet and mellow.  I really liked it but it did run about $15 a bottle so it isn't exactly cheap.  I did prefer it over any wine that I ever drank of the equivalent price or lower.  I have heard that if you can get a deal on honey that it isn't that hard to make; I know there are recipes on the internet.

Mead varies much like anything else.  Small wine shops or local brew shops (like a local restaurant that serves micro-brews) will likely know best if there are any local companies that brew mead, and what type/quality you would get.  There are a number of other options, like www.hiddenlegendwinery.com or www.redstonemeadery.com offer quality selections, some of which are seasonal.

You may also look for any festivals that serve mead, whether Nordic or Medieval in theme.  While the quality may not be as high, it is also usually not too pricey to try a glass, and that can help you know if you are interested or not.

As for crafting, you either must get a drinking grade alcohol to mix with, or distill yourself... which is more work than most people seem to realize.  Anything with a pre-distilled alcohol will be of lower maximum quality (but better than a poor job of distilling at home,) and the flavors will need time to settle, so don't expect either option to be an overnight deal.

» Edited on: 2014-04-24 22:02:52

Mead can be absolutely delicious.  It is a honey wine.  A pure sweet mead will taste of sweetness and contain characteristics of the honey(s) used and generally have a refreshing quality to it.  The drier meads will have a crisper and less sweet character to them.

You can also, during fermentation, mix different fruits or berries (or really whatever you like, but generally fruits or berries complement best) to give it differing flavors.  These kinds of fruit meads are called melomel.

Mixing primarily with herbs and spices produces a mead called a metheglin.  Ginger metheglins and cinammon and clove metheglins are regularly produced around here during the winter festive season (ditto for ciders, but we are talking about meads in this thread).

Mixing mead with beer is called braggot.  However, if you have a small amount of honey and a lot of beer you instead have a honey beer.

If you look around you should be able to find different kinds of meads sold in your locality.  There is very little of any kind sold nationally, although increased interest is changing this somewhat.  If you have difficulty locating any, ask a few local microbreweries or brew pubs.  Even though mead is a kind of wine, its chief enthusiasts are amongst the craft beer nuts (guilty!).  Local cider houses and breweries tend to ferment at least one mead or at least a honey beer in smallish batches to be sold locally.

It is pretty easy to make mead yourself.  Even easier than beer.  I plan on trying my hand at it sometime this summer.

I've had some meads that I like, most of them homebrews. I always found Chaucer's to be mediocre and distinctly not a sweet mead, but it is usually the most readily available.

I have it all the time at the Renaissance Fair. its delicious 

I've had some awesome homebrews along with ones you can find out there.  Just haven't had any in awhile.  Liked some of the homebrews I got better than anything, but unfortunately I don't live and/or see the friends that I had while LARPing that brewed.  My stepson usually does beers, not meads when he homebrews, but he works at the Brewer's Association so I bet I can get some info out of him if you want to know more.  There are magazines they put out for home brewers and micro to small brewers.  

I prefer home brew over most brands that I can find in Florida and making your own mead is extremely easy, but the fermentation takes a while.

I normally make a straight mead first and on the second fermentation, I add 1/3 apple juice which normally is just replacing the volume lost when tapping from one carboy to another.   I normally with my small setup fill 24 regular wine bottles at each batch.

 there are lots of diff meads , Rabbitfoot meadery is pretty good  they make some nice stuff , and   for a fruit type  Blackberry/rasberry mead from Redstone is ok as well .  

 I didn`t like the junpiner berry mead or the  vanilla/cinamon ,  and i have never found anything from Bunnratty  that i liked  .