"What did you say.... Meat?," she asked with a confused look on her face.

"No, mead," I replied from behind the counter.

My response didn't quell the confused look on her face. 

I decided to take a different approach.  "It's a wine made with honey," I said.

"Oh!," she replied as her face grew from one of slight disgust to that of interest and intrigue. "Yeah, I'll try that!"

After serving hundreds of guests over the years, the meat response is one that I still hear a lot.  If your a seasoned mead drinker, you might hear the "meat" response a lot too.  If you've never tried this drink before, you may be as confused as most new mead-drinkers are.  So what exactly is mead?  Is it a wine?  A beer?  Some cross between the two?  Let's dive into what mead is, how it's made, and why it's the oldest alcoholic beverage in human history, and yet, still enjoyed today!

IS MEAD A WINE OR BEER?

Technically, it's neither!  By definition, beer is made by fermenting sugars taken from malted grains while wine is made by fermenting sugars taken from fruits.  In contrast, mead is made by fermenting the sugars in honey.  Since honey is neither a grain nor a fruit, mead does not fall into the categories of beer or wine.  It is a separate category all together!

So why all the confusion?  Up until recently, mead was only made sparingly in the USA by a few wineries.  It wasn't until 1995 that the US had it's first truly dedicated meadery, Rabbit's Foot Meadery, out of Sunnyvale, CA.  In the 2000's mead's popularity grew as the craft beer movement grew.  As with most new items, the federal government was slow to respond and confused as to how it should be categorized.  Instead of making a new alcohol category, the federal government lumped mead into the wine category.  In addition to this designation, mead had to be labeled as "honey wine" on the bottle.  Yep, you read that right.  Mead couldn't be called mead because calling mead, mead would be confusing to the consumer... confused yet?  It wasn't until 2016 that the term "mead" could legally be applied to a bottle of mead.  Even to this day, mead is still legally defined as wine according to the TTB which adds a lot of confusion and frustration to consumers and meadmakers alike (but that's a rant for another time!).

HOW IT'S MADE.

In the simplest way, honey is mixed with water to dilute the natural sugars and yeast is added to allow the mixture to ferment.  In addition to honey, fruits and/or spices can also be added either before, during, or after fermentation is complete.  On a more complex level of meadmaking, yeast nutrients are added to the mixture, oxygen levels are monitored and adjusted, the water chemistry is changed, the pH of the solution is monitored and adjusted, and the finished product can be fined and/or filtered, just to name a few manipulations.

DOES IT HAVE TO BE SWEET?

Honey contains the simple sugars, fructose and glucose which are fully fermentable sugars.  This means that if used in low enough concentrations, mead will ferment completely dry!  In fact, in order to have residual sugars in a mead, some method has to be performed that will leave sugars in the finished product.  Typically this is done in one of three ways:

1. Enough honey is added at the beginning of fermentation so that the yeast can't eat through it all.
2. Honey is added after fermentation is complete in a process called back-sweetening.
3. The fermentation process is halted before all the sugar is gone with a technique such as cold-crashing.

THE WORLD'S MOST VERSATILE DRINK.

At Rebel Hive, we truly believe mead is the world's most versatile drink.  There are thousands of different honey varieties around the world, hundreds of different yeasts, and countless amounts of fruits and spices.  These variables can be used in almost infinite combinations!  Moreover, mead can be aged in oak or liquor barrels.  It can be still or carbonated, high or low alcohol, served chilled or warmed, drank straight, mixed in a cocktail, or used in your favorite food recipe.  The world of mead is vast and limitless and we've only began to explore it's possibilities! 

Whether it's dry, sweet, a traditional, or flavored with some fruits and spices, and whether you call it mead or honey wine, one thing is for sure, this drink is here to stay!