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MEAD
Mead Reviews
These mead reviews are primarily from the MEad First event held August 15, 2006, though addittional reviews will be added as time, memory and opportunity permits.
From “Life Force” to “Camelot” meads are plagued with stupid names. Names have nothing to do with flavor. Neither do descriptions from the bottles, which are often hard to read.
Bunratty Mead and Liquer CO. Ltd.
Bunratty Meade
Not really a mead at all, but "A white wine flavored with honey and herbs." This kind of beverage is also known as “Hippocras”. The taste of raw honey is pretty strong, easily overpowering the wine flavor. It’s a screwtop, and it is from Ireland. This was Scott’s favorite of the ones he tried. It’s tasty, but it’s not mead, and I always feel somewhat guilty about how much I like it.
Earle Estates Meadery
Honey Mead – Contemporary
Honey Mead – Traditional
Earle Estates Contemporary and Traditional meads were very similar, but there were some differences. They were not very smooth, and not high on the list of “must have” for any of the participants. At this point I can’t remember if I liked the Contemporary or Traditional mead best. We had these cold, and really they might have been better served warm. Also I suspect these were handicapped by coming after a sweeter mead, so may not have had a fair shake. I'll update this as I try it again.
Blueberry Bounty (Honey Mead mixed with blueberry wine)
I really like Blueberry Bounty, it has an amazing sweet blueberry flavor. Is it really mead? Who cares?
Pear Mead
This was a brightly sweet mead that was pretty tasty. Not as sweet as their blueberry mead, but a very nice dessert wine. Definitely worth a try if you like pears.
Crusin Cranberry
The sharp tart cranberry flavor goes well with the honey undertones. I like this, and I’d certainly buy it again (I’m a nut for cranberry) but the super sweet blueberry is still my fav, I’d like to mix any Earle Estate fruit meads into some homemade ice cream.
Honeyrun Mead
Ragnar's Reserve
Scott brought this one back from a trip, and I was pretty excited about it. The bottle proudly proclaims it’s preservative free. Maybe they made the wrong choice, or maybe I just kept it past its prime. It had a LOT of sediment and the cork was somewhat questionable. I didn’t appreciate it, but I’d like to try another bottle and see if it tastes less like cork.
Chateau Lorane
Life Force Mead
Sweet and smooth, this was popular. I liked this mead back when I lived in Charlottesville, and it was probably my favorite at the tasting. If I’d taken notes at the time I’d be able to say for sure. It looks like their site just calls it Honey Mead, and it is listed under fruit meads. This is one of the two meads I picked up in Charlottsville during spring break.
Oliver
Camelot Mead
This one had a wax plug at the top of the cork, and it looked like they went all out on the bottle. It was very tasty, and pretty similar to the Life Force Mead. I think it was a winner as well. I picked this one up in Charlottesville when I was there over spring break in 2006.
It is very inexpensive on the site, about $5.00 less than I paid. If I could get this at the rice on the site locally, I'd buy this on a weekly basis.
Redstone Meadery
Traditional Mountain Honey Wine
The label on this has the production (born on date) and proudly proclaims it has no fruit, herbs or spices added. It even advises the KIND of honeys used (orange blossom and wildflower.) This stuff was seriously good, I would drink it on a regular basis. Yes it was probably pricey, but I think it is probably worth it.
Bargetto
Chaucers
This is the mead I’ve had the most of in my life. It is the only nationally distributed mead I’ve found everywhere I’ve ever put forth effort to finding mead. Smooth and mild it has all the hallmarks of a beverage designed to not alienate the most possible people. In the winter it often comes with a bag of spices that it suggests brewing in the mead, and then serving the mead warm. It makes me want to have a warm mead tasting at some point. It actually stood up better against the other meads than I expected.
Joe’s Home Brew.
Joe brought his own homemade mead. It was drier than most of the ones we had, and it was flavored with some fruit. (Cranberries or currants I think.) The night of the tasting it suffered from being a dry mead right after a sweet mead, so I did not appreciate it as much as I should have. (The look of horror on his face when I mixed it with another sweet mead was great! And the mixed mead was super tasty.) I split another bottle with him on Wednesday, and it was pretty darned good. It was also the strongest AC of any we had.
