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.

Competition - Entering The Mazer Cup International

We finished up bottling and labeling our entries for competition today. Jon hasn't entered a mead competition since 2007 and we are feeling the need for feedback and constructive criticism on some of our favorite meads. We've decided to enter eight meads into The Mazer Cup International a mead competition sponsored by the awesome and very informative Got Mead?. The Mazer Cup takes place in Boulder, Colorado April 1-2, 2011. The competition is judged using the Beer Judge Certification Guidelines for mead. We are hoping to win some medals and score highly in each style we've entered our meads, but the notes on improvement and taste will be helpful as we move on to becoming commercial. The eight meads we have entered are:

Audhumla - Traditional Buckwheat honey mead
Ravenberry - Melomel with Elderberry, Blueberry, & Blackberry
Sleipnir's Breath - Metheglin with assorted Fresh Mint & Lemon Zest
Summer Rose - Metheglin (technically a Rhodomel) with Red Rose Petals
Basilisk - Metheglin with Sweet Basil  & Lime Basil
Feathered Serpent - Open category with Agave Nectar, Cocoa Nibs, Ancho Chillies, Vanilla Bean, & Annato Seed
Holda's Cyser - Open category with Apple, Meadowsweet Flowers, & Chamomile Flowers
Four Dwarves in Cider - Open category with Apple, Peach, Apricot & Orange Blossom Honey

We'll find out in about a month and a half how we did! Cheer for us!

Education - What is Mead?

Mead may be one of the world's oldest fermented beverages, with Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat saying, "It can be regarded as the ancestor of all fermented drinks, antedating the cultivation of the soil," but it is also the one with the least known about it.This means  that starting a meadery with the purpose of selling to the general populous means educating the public in mead with all of it's new terms, flavors, and intricacies. With that in mind, we will try to do an educational blog post weekly about everything mead. For this first post, we'll start with the basics: what exactly is mead and what the basic varieties of mead are.

Mead is an alcoholic beverage (according to the TTB, a 'honey-wine') made by fermenting (not brewing but that's another post) a solution of honey and water. Mead can fall into a large range of alcohol content from the low end to extremely high and can run the gamut from dry to sweet, still to sparkling. Archaeological evidence for the earliest production of mead dates to around 7000 BC.

The most common types of mead are:
Traditional: Honey, water, and yeast
Melomel: Honey, water, yeast, and any fruit besides apple or grape
Cyser: Honey, water, yeast, and apple
Pyment: Honey, water, yeast, and grape
Metheglin: Honey, water, yeast, and herbs/spices

Other mead types you may come across:
Rhodomel: Honey, water, yeast, and rose hips/ rose petals
Sack Mead: Traditional mead made with a large amount of honey - retaining a very sweet flavor
Hydromel: A low alcohol mead
Bochet: Carmelized honey, water, and yeast
Braggot: Honey, water, yeast, hops, and malt
Acerglyn: Honey, maple syrup, water, and yeast
Capsicumel: Honey, water, yeast, and chili peppers

Types of mead associated with world regions:
Sima: Finnish mead, quickly fermented, flavored with lemons, carbonated
Tej: Ethopian mead, usually fermented with wild yeast and having gesho as an addition
Czwórniak: Polish mead with a 3:1 ratio of water to honey
Trójniak: Polish mead with a 2:1 ratio of water to honey
Dwójniak: Polish mead with a 1:1 ratio of water to honey
Półtorak: Polish mead with a 1:2 ratio of water to honey
Pitarrilla: Mayan mead using wild honey and balché tree bark
Dandaghare: Nepalese mead combining honey with Himalayan herbs and spices

That's it for now! Please comment with any questions you may have and we'll try to answer them to the best of our ability!

Who is the Brimming Horn?

The Brimming Horn is a meadery with a lifestyle attached - our name and the names of our meads are more than a theme. Since mead is a drink linked to the Northern European peoples, most often, most of our meads are named after Northern European gods and goddesses and beings found in the mythologies of those peoples. The symbol for our meadery itself is a horn overflowing with mead. A brimming horn would be passed amongst friends and kinsmen to drink, toast, boast, oath, and bond people together. We hope our mead will be able to do just that amongst everyone drinking it.

The Brimming Horn Meadery is Jon's dream. He has been making/producing mead for 15 years with the intent to take his wares commercial and share the golden (in some cases) deliciousness with everyone. Friends, family, and the Heathen and pagan communities have all been able to taste his wares and all have told him he makes the best mead they have ever tasted. Honestly, after trying a few other commercial meads, which were good but they never add up to the amazing taste that is Jon's mead. Jon has been a homebrewer for 15+ years and has worked at commercial wineries, and currently is a Brewer with Dogfish Head Brewery. Large batches, interesting combinations of flavors, and pushing mead to new and uncharted taste varieties are things he loves to test and play with.

 While Jon is the craftsman and artist at the meadery, I guess you could say I'm the organizational genius. By day I'm an assistant, where I do a ton of paperwork, and at night I'm an artist and master planner. I'm beginning to wade into the murky waters of licenses, zoning, and paperwork to make this dream come true. While I wouldn't say it is my favorite thing to do, the process is interesting, puzzling, and challenging. That is why we have started this blog - to write about the process of beginning a commercial meadery, to rant about things that may annoy us, to market our mead ;), and in the end to entertain you with stories of the craziness of this process. So please, sit back, grab a glass of well crafted mead/beer/wine and enjoy our stories.