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Redstone Meadery : Just Like Honey, Mead emerges from the Dark Ages
| Just Like Honey, Mead emerges from the Dark Ages |
Beverage World, "Just Like Honey"
| Just like honey Mead
emerges from the Dark Ages. |
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The word "mead" generally evokes
images of Chaucer, Beowulf and the friendly neighborhood Renaissance
Fair, but the rapidly increasing number of mead makers in the US and
abroad are hoping to make it more mainstream than medieval. The word
"mead" generally evokes images of Chaucer, Beowulf and the friendly
neighborhood Renaissance Fair, but the rapidly increasing number of
mead makers in the US and abroad are hoping to make it more mainstream
than medieval.
"We always refer to it as the oldest beverage no one's ever heard of,"
says David Myers, "chairman of the mead" at Boulder, CO, USA-based
Redstone Meadery.
Slowly but surely that's been changing, thanks to the efforts of
Redstone, which founded the International Mead Association (IMA), also
based in Boulder.
According to the association, to be defined as mead, the product must
be fermented from at least 51 percent honey. After that mead makers can
add fruits, herbs and spices either during fermentation or after.
IMA estimates there are at least 200 meaderies worldwide and
approximately 60 in the United States. IMA expects to get more concrete
numbers after it completes its first formal meadery survey.
"At least 50 percent of those have opened in the past five to seven
years," believes Julia Herz, a spokesperson for the association.
Why the relatively sudden interest? Mostly, she says, meaderies have
the beverage drinking public to thank. "Right now this is a very
experimental time for consumers," she explains. "They're willing to
taste hard cider, sake is growing right now, as are all of the wine
varietals. All of that shows that there's a much more progressive
palate out there where people are much more open-minded than they were
before the mid-80s."
There are, of course, those she feels aren't quite as open-minded as
she'd like.
"The demographic for mead drinkers is everyone but wine snobs," she
bluntly notes. "And those may be fighting words — we respect people who
are well-schooled in grape wine — but we want people who are open to
new things."
Aficionados of craft brews, imports, hard cider and sake tend to be the
easiest converts, she suggests.
The organization sponsors the annual International Mead Festival in
Boulder (though the inaugural event was in Chicago), which has
introduced a new crop of consumers to the diverse product lines since
2002. Last year more than 700 consumers had the chance to sample more
than 80 commercially available meads.
Those included a number of Redstone products, such as its Nectar and
Mountain Honey Wine line. The 8-percent ABV Nectars, which include
Blackberry Nectar and the apricot-infused Sunshine Nectar, are
characterized by their fruitiness and are more cider and beer-like in
their approach. The 12-percent ABV Mountain Honey Wines, on the other
hand, tend to be a bit more wine-like. Redstone also markets a Reserve
line, which range between 14 and 16 percent ABV and are most closely
akin to ports and sherries. "The great thing about mead is that it can
be a wonderfully diverse product," Myers raves. "Just like wine is a
huge category, mead is a very large category, in terms of variety. We
try to reflect that in everything we make."
Pomegranate is the fruit of choice for Fresno, CA, USA-based Full
Circle Brewing Company. The brewer markets Pomegranate Mead, as well as
a traditional mead offering and Orange Blossom Special, under the Los
Californios label.
Full Circle, according to IMA's preliminary estimates, is one of about
30 craft brewers or wineries in the US that also produce mead. Like
many in the commercial craft brewing business, mead making has grown
out of a home-based hobby.
"I think the home brewing community in general has been helpful in
making [mead] more popular," offers Full Circle's owner and business
manager, Don Anderson. "People who are interested in making beer are
more interested in making different, exotic things and they eventually
stumble on to meads."
The Desi Dew Meadery (Rougemont, NC, USA) owes its start to a
combination of home brewing and the toils of the computer software
industry. "In my earlier life, I was a software developer and one of
the other developers was a home brewer," recalls Bill Bailey, president
and owner of Desi Dew. "He had made some mead and a remarkably good
sparkling mead, so I gave it a try. The combination of getting really
burned out on software and looking for something that I thought would
be up-and-coming made me decide to try it commercially."
Bailey's products include Royal Table Sweet Mead (a traditional
offering), Royal Table Dry Mead, Desi's Wildflower Sparkling Mead,
Desi's Raspberry Sparkling Mead and Jack's Blackberry Mead (named for
the local beekeeper who supplies the honey). The company recently
launched Tupelo Jubilee, which uses the popular honey of the same name.
"[Tupelo honey] has a very unique flavor; I can't explain it," Bailey
says.
Saint-Benoit, Quebec, Canada-based Intermiel is all about the honey. In
addition to making and selling about 20,000 gallons of eight different
varieties of mead each year (which actually is on the high side among
North American meaderies), it also operates one of the largest
honey-producing bee farms in all of Quebec. Its apiary activities began
about 30 years ago, about 15 years before it started producing mead.
Mead awareness in that region is somewhat ahead of that in the US, but
that's a fairly recent phenomenon.
"Much has changed in 30 years," observes Andre Abi Raad, production
engineer and oenologue at Intermiel. "Thirty years ago, if you talked
to 10 people in Quebec, there were nine who didn't know mead and one
who did. Now, it's almost the inverse. About 75 percent of the people
know about mead now or have tasted it somewhere."
Intermiel meads are available in 400 stores operated by the province's
alcohol control board and the company is expanding into the European,
US and Asian markets.
However, despite such successes, mead's distribution remains a mostly
DIY affair.
Desi Dew's Bailey has brought retailers on board by going store to
store and exhibiting at wine shows. The meadery also has a Web site and
direct ships to the states that allow it. "I do my own marketing,
distribution, shipping and sales," Bailey notes.
Last year, Redstone Meadery managed to hook up with Austin, Texas
USA-based Manneken Brussel Imports, which has helped get its products
in nine states outside its Colorado base: California, Oregon, Alaska,
Arizona, Wyoming, Texas, North Carolina, Michigan and Florida. Redstone
is only one of two US-based companies represented by Manneken Brussel,
which markets Chimay throughout the Western US and other Belgian lines
across the entire country. "Working with [Manneken Brussel] has allowed
us to have better access to distributors," says Redstone's Myers. "And
we're very proud to get the chance to partner around with such a fine
product as Chimay."
And then, of course, there are the aforementioned Renaissance Fairs,
which can be a mixed blessing for meaderies. On one hand they can
introduce new generations of curious consumers to the classic beverage.
On the other hand they could take such a narrow approach to the product
that consumers might not be able to experience its versatility.
"Renaissance Fairs need to think of mead as a diverse beverage,"
suggests IMA's Herz. "If you go to the fairs, there are usually four or
five beers available for purchase, but there is only one mead, the one
they sell through an exclusivity agreement with a single meadery.
That's not the way to approach it. People want selection, just like
they want selection of beers and the Renaissance Fairs could do a
better job of catapulting mead into mainstream consciousness."
IMA's next effort to expand mead consciousness will be in February 2006
at the Fourth Annual International Mead Festival in Boulder, CO, US.
For more info, visit www.meadfest.com.
—Jeff Cioletti
www.desidew.com * www.fullcirclebrewing.com
www.intermiel.com • www.meadfest.com
redstonemeadery.com |
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