I had the distinct pleasure of sitting on the BOS panel this year. I
have never tasted a better set of meads. The winners should all be
extremely proud of their efforts.

: Buckwheat Show Mead-Brian Ehlert (BOS winner)

I had never tasted a buckwheat mead before, although I have seen
recommendations in this forum *against* trying it. This one was
wonderfully balanced, with a good floral/honey aroma, intense
sweetness, and no off-flavors or aromas at all.

: Traditional – Dave West

This one missed BOS by a whisker. We spent quite some time debating.
As one judge said afterwards "this is a 47.5 and the winner is a 48!"
Drinking this mead was like walking through a summer meadow. It had a
wonderfully complex floral nose. The spices were not individually
detectable (i.e., it's not a misplaced metheglin).

: Metheglyn-Brian Ehlert

Yow! Ow! Honey at the beginning, then HOT! Good pepper flavor, but
hard to drink much.

=Spencer Thomas in Ann Arbor, MI (spencer@umich.edu)

If any of you are interested, the AHA's 1995 National Homebrew
Competition results are available by sending e-mail to info@aob.org and
including the key word "WINNERS" somewhere in the text.

• – shawn

Shawn Steele
Information Systems Administrator
Association of Brewers (303) 447-0816 x 118 (voice)
736 Pearl Street (303) 447-2825 (fax)
PO Box 1679 shawn@aob.org (e-mail)
Boulder, CO 80306-1679 info@aob.org (aob info)
U.S.A. http://www.aob.org/aob (web)

Note: When replying to my messages, please include enough of my
message so that I know what you're replying to! 🙂

An acquaintance has asked me if the fruit in a fruit mead can "go bad" while
in the mead. I assured him that the alcohol levels would prevent this
(assuming you wait until the S.G. has dropped before adding the fruit), but
then I admitted I don't know *everything*. <g>

Can anyone comment on how fruit might "go bad" in a mead, such as "only if you
leave it in for the full year" or "only if you add it a week before the
yeast" or "only if it gets in the bottle" or whatever?

Thanks.

John DeCarlo, MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA–My views are my own
Fidonet: 1:109/131 Internet: jdecarlo@mitre.org

I was in Daytona Beach, Florida recently and picked up #6 of Tupelo honey.
I was wondering if anyone could reccomend a recipe to me.

I am planning on making 2 1 gal. batches. One traditional, with just honey,
and the other ???

Thanks for the input.

(PS. I am the guy that asked what Tupelo honey was a few weeks ago.)

Sam

The Rocky Mountain Meadery opened about a month ago in Palisade, Colorado.
I visited them last weekend…herewith, such notes as I was able to gather
about their operation. Apology for the length, but I figured it would be
better to set it all down since there are so few commercial meaderies.

It's worth a visit if you're going to be anywhere in the area. Their
"grand opening" celebration is supposed to be this coming (long holiday)
weekend.

The whole operation is brand-new; they broke ground for the building last
October. They've got 5 meads now: 3 traditional (medium-dry, semi-sweet,
sweet) and two fruit (raspberry and blackberry). The fruit meads are
slightly sweet. All are still. They're bottled in 750 ml clear wine
bottles "corked"–with a newfangled plastic cork. Prices are reasonable–
$8 for traditional, $9 for fruit. Supposedly they'll be able to ship out
of state (to the usual dozen or so states that don't have unconstitutional
restrictions on this sort of interstate trade).

Said to be coming soon: a dry traditional and a cherry. They're looking
at what other fruits they might use as the seasons roll on…Palisade is
one of the two centers of fruit-growing in Colorado. They mentioned the
possibility of apricot or peach. The fruit for the current berry meads
came from the Northwest. (It's hard to grow a lot of raspberries, let
alone blackberries, in Colorado.) Cherries could be local; peaches and
apricots surely would be.

They don't call the fruit meads "melomel" or even "mead"…it's honey wine
with fruit wine, and a product name of e.g. "Raspberries 'n Honey". I
suspect this has to do with the BATF, which [as far as I know] still
doesn't even recognize the word "mead" as a legal description, although it
will allow it on a bottle. But I digress… The fruit meads are made by
making a straight mead and a fruit wine separately, then blending them.
I believe that the fruit wine is actually made up with sugar–as you'd
normally make a wine since the fruit itself doesn't have enough sugar.

Honey for all the meads is orange blossom from Patagonia in Chandler Hts,
AZ. They ferment with the honey as received (minimally processed), then
filter after fermentation. Fermentation is done in 1000-gallon plastic
tanks–tall cylindrical affairs.

The final filter is one of their prides–it lets them filter to a brilliant-
ly clear mead, and it's said that this is what allows them to turn out
meads in a relatively short period of time. I know what the traditional-
ists are thinking, but keep in mind that the time from start of production
to sale of product affects profit from several aspects. I'm also thinking
about that comment from a mead judging about a too-clean mead–"needs some
bugs and dirt!" This could lead to an interesting side-topic: How much
filtering (fining, clarifying, etc.) is too much? Anyway, the filtering
seems to be a two-step process, the first involving rice hulls. (This is
really just an educated guess, based on a large sack of rice hulls sitting
on a big stainless filter/tank-like apparatus.) The final filter uses
"porous hollow tubes"–two clear columns several feet high filled with what
looks like large spaghetti, the actual filter medium. I've seen this same
design on a smaller scale in medical equipment, in a plasmapheresis
(blood-filtering) setup. The overall approach of the meadery seems
eclectic–traditional oak barrels, unprocessed honey, high-tech filter,
plastic-cork…if it works, use it.

The meads are all very clean-tasting; the fruit comes through fresh and
true. They're a bit light for my taste. Knowing about the filtering, it's
tempting to attribute this to over-filtration…but it's more likely just
a bias on my part toward slightly less refined meads. Alcohol content of
all is 12% (bottle marking, so subject to the usual +/- 0.5% allowance).

The latest edition of _Inside_Mead!_ (journal of AMA, just re-appeared
after a hiatus) has an article on the new meadery.

Where: 3701 G Rd, Palisade, CO (970)464-7899

• —

Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com -or- raven!rcd Boulder, Colorado USA

…Simpler is better.

Since the weather has finally turned to summer, it's time for me to
brew my first batches of mead!!!! I recently purchased a couple of
books and saw an interesting recipe for Lychee Melomel — have any
of you out there ever use lychee??? Any helpful hints, recipes, ideas
would be appreciated……Karen