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7-27-21 Tonight we’re back across the pond and hanging out with Danique Staal, owner of De Noordelijke Mederij (The Northern Meadery). Danique makes some very interesting meads, including a Stroopwafel mead that took gold and Best in Show at the European Mead Makers Kings of Mead Competition Mead Madness Cup in 2020, the largest mead competition in Europe.

Danique got interested in mead at an early age, he was always interested in the old sagas, myths and legends. There was a lot about mead in those stories, and he only really knew it was made from honey.

Life goes on, and after high school, Danique joined the military, and after his service became a police officer. And as a police officer, he realized after a traffic accident that he couldn’t help out the injured people, and decided to study nursing. Whew! Busy man!! Once he completed his nursing studies and was working as a nurse, he picked up various activities, like doing national strongman competitions…..and making mead.

Making mead became his passion. While he was doing an international internship for nursing, he was invited to a Medieval festival, where he was given a horn of mead. And he was off and running. He decided to make mead for himself, and when he got home to the Netherlands, he dug up an online mead recipe, and proceed to make a really bad mead. Everything he could do wrong, he did wrong. (Don’t we all? LOL)

A few years later he went to another Medieval festival, and had more horns of mead. He decided to try again. One carboy became two, which became four, and before he knew it, he’d taken over an entire room of his house with buckets of mead. He was taking it to parties, and his friends starting ‘paying for supplies’ and he was breaking even. This was looking good, so he applied for the licenses, got a location, and opened Northern Mead.

He was in the process at the time of switching from handicapped healthcare to forensic nursing, and when he asked for a day a week to work on the meadery from his job, they said no, then he took a gold and two silver medals at the Mead Madness Cup and his decision on what to do was made for him. Danique quit nursing, and jumped into meadmaking full time professionally.

Now Danique is bringing mead to the larger public. People were confused with what mead really is, since it’s ‘new’ to so many. He changed his meadery name to ‘De Noordelijke Mederij’ (The Northern Meadery) where he makes regular mead (Northern Mead), braggots (Viking Mjød) and session mead (Nord Mead). This way, people can differentiate between the different products and they don’t have problems with the pronunciation of the meadery itself. Danique won 3 bronze medals at the Mazer Cup last year and 1 gold medal, 2 silver medals and Grand Champion of 2020 at the Mead Madness Cup. But the most important thing for him is to share my passion with everyone.

Join us tonight at 9PM EST to talk mead with Danique!

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If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we’ll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let’s talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you’re a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow.

Upcoming Shows
  • July 27 – Danique Staal- De Noordelijke Mederij, Netherlands
  • August 17 – Gordon Baron – Lancashire Mead, Great Britain
  • August 31 – Tom Gosnell – Gosnell’s Mead, Great Britain (recorded episode)

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Vicky Rowe
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