Education - Brewing vs. Fermentation/Making

A common misconception around those who are just starting down the mead-making path is the use of the word brew when talking about making mead. We will start out with the definitions for brew, ferment, and make:

brew:  verb. 1. to make (beer, ale, etc.) by steeping, boiling, and fermenting malt and hops. 2. to make or prepare (a beverage, as tea) by mixing, steeping, soaking, or boiling a solid in water. 3. to make a fermented alcoholic malt beverage, as beer or ale. 4. to boil, steep, soak, or cook. noun. 5. a quantity brewed in a single process. 6. a particular brewing or variety of malt liquor.

ferment:  verb. 1. to act upon as a ferment. 2. to cause to undergo fermentation. noun. 3. the act or process of fermenting. 4. a change brought about by a ferment, as yeast enzymes, which convert grape sugar into ethyl alcohol.

make: verb. 1. to bring into existence by shaping or changing material, combining parts, etc. 2. to produce; cause to exist or happen; bring about. 3. to cause to be or become; render. 4. to bring into a certain form. 5. to convert from one state, condition, category, etc., to another.

As you can see, the term brew refers to things which are specifically steeped - tea, coffee, and beer (Isn't that a grand trilogy!). These beverages all steep the ingredients in hot water producing their respective flavors, then remove and throw away the flavor producing ingredients. Mead, wine, and cider are not brewed for this reason. Wine and cider are vinted - meaning the fruit is pressed and juice used for flavoring and mead is made or fermented because the honey is used in entirety NOT steeped and then thrown away.

Mead is also higher in alcohol content than beer, and generally wine/champagne/sherry yeast is used when making it. Mead itself does not need to be boiled, cooked, or pasteurized. Most mead makers coming from a wine making background will not cook the must (honey/water mixture) before fermentation, as it will kill off the delicate honey flavors and it just plain isn't necessary. Winemakers do not heat their grape juice before fermentation and cider makers do not heat their apple juice before fermenting, it just isn't necessary to start the fermenting process in these types of beverages.

Finally, for our purposes in the process of becoming a commercial meadery, brewing as a term when in combination with mead is a big NO-NO. Once again, the TTB classifies mead as wine, specifically a honey-wine, thus if you use the term 'brewing' in your application for a license IT WILL BE TURNED DOWN and you'll be out all that money. So wizen up and use the right terminology!

 So I guess to sum up this whole post: Brewing + Mead = NO; Making/Fermenting + Mead = YES.