Latest Buzz in the World of Mead, Vol. 01, Issue 06

In this Latest Buzz, we are talking about Unpossible Mead, Galena Cellars, Wyldewood Cellars Illinois, Wilderbee Farm, Superstition Meadery, Arizona Mead Company, Annapurna Mead, and Norse Nectar Meadery.

                                                                                                                              

Unpossible Mead wins multiple awards at 2022 Illinois State Fair Wine Competition

 

Dwight, Illinois’ Unpossible Mead captured several awards at the recent Illinois State Fair Wine Competition including Best of Class and Gold for their Mega Meme. Other meads from Unpossible Mead winning awards were Cherry Bomber, Love Apple, and Marshmallow Fields all taking home Silver.

Also taking home awards this year were Galena Cellars scoring a Silver for their Honey Mead and Wyldewood Cellars Illinois landed a Silver for their Elderberry Blackberry Mead. On the amatuer side of production, Paul Butler snagged for awards with his 2021 Spring Hibiscus Mead, 2021 Fall Hibiscus Mead, and 2021 Bees on the Beach Spring Mead winning Silvers while his 2021 Traditional Mead took home a Bronze.

For a complete list of 2022 Illinois State Fair Wine Competition winners, click here.

                                                                                                                             

Wilderbee Farm Announces New Mead Release

 From Wilderbee's website:

"Mango! Mango! Mango! is back! You may remember the crisp, dry mead infused with refreshing fruity mango that we served up as a trial tasting. Customer consensus was thumbs-up, so we crafted a small batch of 100 bottles and it's ready to release. Available for tastes, pours, and bottle purchase."

Visit Wilderbee Farm for more information.

                                                                                                                             

Superstition Meadery Releases Velocity Raptor

A collaboration with Movement Brewing out of Rancho Cordova, CA, this wildflower honey mead was fermented with a bunch of mandarins, blood oranges, and navel oranges, along with plum and almonds! It is beautifully floral, with big notes of citrus, plum and marzipan!

Velocity Raptor (12% ABV / $36 375 ml) is available at Superstition Downtown and the Prescott Tasting Room now. It will be available on the Webstore on Tuesday, July 12th at 11am (10am for Guild Members).

                                                                                                                            

Did You Know About Chandler's Secret Meadery? Now You Do

Metro Phoenix's secret meadery is just 700 square feet, open a mere two days a week, and hidden away in an industrial park in Chandler.

Visiting Arizona Mead Company is like being in your homebrewer friend's basement. It’s comfortable. There are games to play. The space only fits some 35 people. And on the walls are paintings of Vikings.

Read the full story from Phoenix New Times here.

                                                                                                                           

Annapurna Mead Wants to Be Your Next Canned Beverage

Patrick Dobbins is giving the world’s oldest alcoholic drink a makeover. The mead maker and owner of Colorado’s Annapurna Mead is doing two things to reach a wider audience: He's ditching bottles for cans and making a dry mead that’s relatively low in alcohol.

Read the full story on Westword here.

                                                                                                                           

Norse Nectar Meadery's Loki is back!!!

 

Kalamazoo, Michigan's Norse Nectar Meadery announced that "Loki has been brewing for the past couple of months and is back on tap."

Loki is a traditional, semi-sweet, still, barrel-aged mead. It has a honey aroma and blueberry sweetness upfront and an apple barrel char finish.

Find more information on Loki here.

                                                                                                                           

Latest Buzz in the World of Mead, Vol. 1, Issue 2

Arizona Daily Sun features Drinking Horn Meadery co-founder in 20 Under 40

Flagstaff, Arizona's Drinking Horn Meadery co-founder, Evan Anderson (alongside wife Kelly), was featured in the Arizona Daily Sun's "20 Under 40" article on Mar 20, 2022. You can read the brief interview here.

According to Drinking Horn's website, "Drinking Horn Meadery was born in the pines of Flagstaff, Arizona in 2014. The mead is inspired by a desire to live, and drink more simply and environmentally responsible. Created in small batches using only the best ingredients, Drinking Horn's authentic recipes strive to get back to the roots of one of human kind's earliest libations." You can explore the meadery's mead selection here and see their buy their mead online here.

                                                                                                                                                                

 Folklore Brewing and Meadery Participates in The Taste of Pelham

According to an article in the Shelby County Reporter, Dothan, AL based Folklore Brewing and Meadery participated in The Taste of Pelham last Tuesday evening, March 15. The event highlights the best local restaurants around town.

For background, I consulted Folklore's website and found, "Folklore Brewing & Meadery became the first “packaging brewery” in Dothan since the Prohibition era. Jeremy Pate and his family started brewing beer as a pastime, but the concept of doing it for a living quickly became their dream. The tasting room has over 14 varieties of beer and 8 or more house-made meads to sample and order a glass of. Growlers can be filled and 6-packs can be purchased, both for off-premise consumption. Check back with Facebook often for current events, beer releases and live entertainment schedules."

Their mead list can be found here and their address/operating hours can be found here.

                                                                                                                                                                

 

Lost Cause Meadery Announces First Release of 2022

Lost Cause Meadery announced their first bottle release of the year and it's a double! This Friday, March 25, at 10 am PT, Lost Cause will release Ride or Chai and Cobblered to Death. Information on the bottles is as follows.

Rum Barrel-Aged Ride or Chai

14% ABV | $32

Chai mead w/ wildflower honey, chai tea & vanilla, aged in rum barrels for 22 months.

Meadmaker's Notes: This is a quite a sipper. Sweet, decadent with a warming spice kick and noticeable rum presence. Notes of cinnamon, cardamom, caramel, black tea, butterscotch and subtle tobacco all play together and change with each taste. The finish is almost buttery from the rum barrels and the tannins balance a deceivingly sweet dessert mead. I can't wait to see how this keeps integrating with age.

BBA Cobblered to Death

13% ABV | $32

Peach bochet w/ caramelized wildflower honey, peaches, cinnamon and vanilla, aged 22 months in bourbon barrels.

Meadmaker's Notes: Similar to the original Cobblered To Death mead but boozier and broodier, with a level of depth and complexity not often found in dessert-inspired meads. Starts with notes of stone fruit and cinnamon, then leads to warm vanilla, pie crust and apricot jam with a wonderfully boozy bourbon finish. A much different experience as it goes from chilled to room temp. Should age wonderfully for years.

 

Release Details

• Online Release: Friday 3/25 @ 10 am PT
• Local pickup: use OZNR app
• Shipping: purchase on Lost Cause website
• OZNR pick-up orders at Bay Park only starting Friday @ 4pm PT
• Available on tap and for in-person purchase at Bay Park starting Friday @ 4pm PT
• Proxies OK: once purchased via OZNR you can add a proxy from the app

For more information, please visit Lost Cause's website.

                                                                                                                                                                

Superstition Meadery releasing 4 new meads

Prescott, Arizona-based Superstition Meadery has just announced, via email, the upcoming release of four brand new meads. 

First is Electric Sunrise, which is a pyment made with Sangiovese grapes and wildflower honey. This is only the second canned session mead for Superstition and will basically be a one-off for when it’s gone, they will not make more. This carbonated mead comes in 16 ounce cans and is packaged at 6.5% ABV. 

Secondly, Superstition announced the first release of their brand new Contingency Series. Le Fey, a hopped pyment is bottled at 16% ABV in 500 ml bottles. Le Fey combines Arizona wildflower honey, white Zinfandel grapes and Barbe Rouge hops. As previously stated, this is the first release in Superstition’s new Contingency Series which continue monthly and “will be releasing small-batch products of curated creativity direct from the imaginations of [their] Superstition Mazers!”

Next is Barrel Aged Peanut Butter and Jelly Crime which will be bottled at 13% ABV in 375 ml bottles. Superstition took their Peanut Butter and Jelly Crime (blueberry mead with peanuts added) and aged it for 12 months in Double Barrel Aged Aphrodisia barrels. This is also a limited release so you need to act fast before it’s all gone.

Finally, we have Cha-Cha Shake. Bottled at 14.5% ABV in 375 ml bottles, this collaboration with Great Notion Brewing from Oregon is a mango, coconut, vanilla, and lactose mead with a silky and decadent expression of tropical flavors. 

All of these releases will be available at Superstition’s tasting room this Saturday, 2/29 (Leap Day). It appears that all but Electric Sunrise will be available in their online store on 3/3.

So make sure to swing by the tasting room or hop online and grab some of these meads while you can. Until next time, 

Caught on COLA - Mead

It’s the first week of June and the official start to summer is only a few weeks away and there’s nothing better than enjoying a refreshing mead while you relax on the patio as you watch the sunset. So, let’s take a peek at what meads we can look forward to in the coming weeks or months.

To get us started, we have two meads from Melovino Meadery. Starting off with Peanut Gallery which, reading the label, sounds like a bochet with peanuts that has been aged in oak. It is bottled at 13% ABV and comes in 500 ml bottles. As of this writing, there is no mention on their website but it shouldn’t be long before it’s available.

Melvino’s other entry is Nice as Pie. This isn’t really a new mead but just the latest batch. According to the label and Melovino’s website, this mead is “an apple pie inspired mead made with honey, apple cider, aged on fresh vanilla beans and cinnamon.” Bottled in 500 ml bottles at 14% ABV, this mead is currently available on their website. You can follow Melovino on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for more information and the latest updates.

Reading, Pennsylvania’s Rebel Hive Meadery brings us our next offering, Cherry Lee Lewis. A 9.6% ABV melomel that features both sweet and tart cherries. This release seems like it is currently available since it is shown on their website. You can follow Rebel Hive on Facebook and Instagram for more information as well.

Last time, I featured three meads from Mechalore Meadworks from Colorado. Well, in addition to Nowhere to Hide, Vol. 3, Patriots & Tyrants and Epiphany of Soliloquy, Mechalore also came out with Fed unto the Axioms. This 10.8% ABV mead made from Orange Blossom honey, mint and lime looks to me like their version of mead mojito. All the meads mentioned here should be making their way to Mechalore’s mead club members as we speak and hopefully will be available to the rest of us shortly. Don't forget to follow Mechalore Meadworks on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for the latest updates.

If you have a sweet tooth, then it looks like W.A. Meadworks’ Gloop might be for you. This 14.2% ABV semi-sweet mead is a combination of honey and cocoa nibs that give it “loads of chocolate flavor.” I couldn’t find any mention of this release on their website so I don’t have a release date yet. Besides the chocolate flavor, I would grab this just for the Willy Wonka reference in the name and on the label. Make sure you stay up to date by following W.A. Meadworks on Facebook.

Melchemy Craft Mead, from Carson, Washington, seems to be coming out with Huckleberry Mead. Containing Mountain Wildflower honey, black Huckleberries and aged in oak barrels, this somewhat dry mead is bottled at 15.5 ABV. No listing yet on their website but follow them on Facebook or Instagram for additional information and the latest news.

Our final two meads are from Moonlight Meadery in New Hampshire. The first is a special release for their Barrel Tasting event and it is called Importance. At 14% ABV, with black currants, blueberry and dark sweet cherries in the mix, this mead was then conditioned in American Port barrels.

Moonlight’s other release is called Ghosts of Wild and is bottled at 14% ABV. Like Importance, this blueberry mead is also conditioned in American Port barrels. There is no mention on the website of either release yet but if you get a chance to grab either one, Moonlight usually doesn’t disappoint.

Well my fellow meaders… um meadites? No. How about meadheads? Hmmm… um… okay folks, that’s all for this edition. Check back for more potential releases and see what’s buzzin’ in the mead universe. Until then, drink more mead!