What Is Mead? Honey Wine Explained
Mead is honey, water and yeast, given time. That’s all it takes to make one of the oldest drinks in the world. It shows up in Norse sagas, Lithuanian weddings and Polish monasteries, and today it’s being brewed again in craft meaderies across America.
Quick answer: Mead is an alcoholic drink made by fermenting honey and water, sometimes with fruit, spices or grain. It’s often called honey wine and usually ranges from about 6% to 20% alcohol, from dry to very sweet, still or sparkling. Chemical traces in 9,000-year-old pottery from Jiahu, China, show a fermented drink of rice, honey and fruit, making mead-like drinks among the oldest known. A gallon of mead takes about 2.5 to 4 pounds of honey.
What does mead taste like?
It depends on the honey and the style. A dry mead can taste crisp and floral, like a white wine with honey on the nose. A sweet mead is rich and dessert-like. The honey’s flower matters: an orange-blossom mead tastes citrusy, a buckwheat mead dark and earthy. Fruit and spices add more. Mead usually doesn’t taste like straight honey, because yeast eats most of the sugar.
What are the types of mead?
| Style | Made with | Flavor |
|---|---|---|
| Traditional (show) mead | Honey, water, yeast | Honey’s own floral character |
| Melomel | Honey plus fruit | Fruity; e.g. raspberry or cranberry mead |
| Cyser | Honey plus apple juice or cider | Apple and honey |
| Pyment | Honey plus grapes or grape juice | Wine-like |
| Metheglin | Honey plus spices or herbs | Warm, spiced; e.g. cinnamon, ginger |
| Braggot | Honey plus malted grain | Somewhere between mead and beer |
| Session or hydromel | Less honey, lower alcohol | Light, often sparkling |
| Sack mead | Extra honey | Strong and sweet |
How old is mead?
Very old. In 2004, chemist Patrick McGovern and colleagues analyzed residues in pottery jars from the Neolithic village of Jiahu in China, about 9,000 years old, and found traces of a fermented drink made from rice, honey and fruit (published in PNAS). Honey ferments easily once diluted with water, so people likely discovered mead by accident many times in many places.
Mead appears in ancient Greek and Celtic traditions, the Norse sagas and the Old English poem Beowulf, whose great hall is a mead hall. In Lithuania and Poland, mead (Lithuanian midus, Polish miód pitny) has been brewed for centuries and is still made today. Read more in Lithuanian beekeeping traditions and the history of beekeeping.
How is mead made?
In outline:
- Mix honey and water (the mixture is called must). Roughly 2.5 to 3 pounds of honey per gallon makes a dry to medium mead; 3.5 to 4 or more makes it sweet.
- Add yeast, usually a wine yeast, and yeast nutrients, since honey is low in the nitrogen yeast needs.
- Ferment for a few weeks to a few months, in a clean vessel with an airlock.
- Rack (siphon off the sediment) and let it age, often for months. Mead improves with time.
- Bottle.
Many mead makers prefer raw, unheated honey because it keeps more of its floral aroma. If you’re brewing at home, a homebrew shop or the American Homebrewers Association has detailed guides. In the U.S., adults can legally make up to 100 gallons of wine, including mead, a year for personal use (200 for a household of two or more adults), subject to state law.
What honey is best for mead?
Any good honey makes mead, but the honey shapes the flavor. Light, floral honeys like orange blossom, clover and wildflower make classic traditional meads. Darker honeys like buckwheat make bold, earthy meads that need longer aging. Fruit-forward local honeys, like cranberry honey, pair well with fruit meads. We supply honey to meaderies; see buying honey in bulk and bulk honey sales.
Frequently asked questions
Is mead wine or beer?
Mead is its own category, but it’s closer to wine: it’s fermented from sugar (honey) rather than grain, and it’s often called honey wine. Braggots, made with malt, blur the line with beer.
How strong is mead?
Most meads are about 6% to 14% alcohol; strong sack meads can reach 18% to 20%. Session meads are lighter.
Is mead gluten-free?
Traditional mead, made with honey, water and yeast, is naturally gluten-free. Braggots, made with malted grain, are not.
Does mead go bad?
Bottled mead keeps for years, and many improve with age. Once opened, still mead keeps a few weeks in the fridge, like wine.
Why is mead called the drink of the gods?
Many mythologies linked it with gods and heroes. In Norse myth, the “mead of poetry” gave wisdom to whoever drank it.
Sources
- McGovern PE et al. “Fermented beverages of pre- and proto-historic China.” PNAS, 2004. PubMed
- Schramm K. The Compleat Meadmaker. Brewers Publications, 2003.
- Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, home production of wine (27 CFR 24.75).
A glass of mead is a taste of honey transformed, and of thousands of years of people raising a cup. Ours makes a fine start for your own batch.
