British Commercial Mead

[Leeham991]

I noticed that a few Britons are a member here and I'd assume most of them have had at least one of Britain's commercial meads and might know a little about them.

I know it's not exactly a review, but more like asking for a review here.

In my life I've only had 4 bottles of Mead, which may make it seem a little silly that I'm in the process of making 26 bottles right now, but I don't intend to go mead free until that's ready xD

So far I've had 1 bottle of Harvest Mead from Morrisons, which is apparently discontinued because I haven't been able to find it since. It was a light coloured mead, not very aromatic, a little too sweet for me.
And 3 bottles of a mead I cannot remember the name of. I've only found this mead in museums and the only places I've bought it from is the Royal Armouries in Leeds and Yorvik Vikingr Centre in York. It's an extremely deep amber colour, strong and aromatic, not as sweet as the harvest mead, a bit harsher.

Anyway, other than these two hard to find meads I have only come across white wine flavoured with honey, which isn't true mead as far as I've ever heard and I haven't bothered paying money to drink.

I'm wondering, anyone else in the UK if they know of any commercially available Meads which are, the key thing, easy to find if you know where to look, and reasonably priced?

Ramblings
- JL

 

[Chevette Girl]

I know Moniack is good stuff. Yes, I know it's from Scotland, but I figure if I can get it, you should be able to! I had some recently and meant to write a review... pleasant, not overpoweringly sweet or cloying, although I can't remember anything distinct about the honey character (really need to write reviews with drink in hand, except by then I'd already had too many to be allowed near a keyboard!). I was told by friends that my meads are just as good.

 

[fatbloke]

Ok, so here's a link to the post I wrote on my blog, when I did a rather unscientific comparison 4 years ago.

Now I haven't tried any commercially produced meads since then, as I was rather "put off" the idea because they were all so sweet (nice tasting, just too "cloyingly" sweet). I don't believe that they must be like "watered down honey" to be marketable.

There may be newer ones available now, that are more to my liking - I like my meads at about the 1.010 to 1.020 at the highest.

I tend to ferment them dry, then back sweeten to where I like them. I try to source the darkest honey I can find (that's not to say that lighter honey isn't good).

As for where I got them from ? They were all available here, but unless you're down this way, it might be a bit far just to get them.......

 

[Leeham991]

Lyme Bay, the 3 bottles I had. I recognise it from the picture

Great info in that blog BTW!

Chevette Girl: Thanks for bringing that to my attention! Is a good £4 cheaper than the Lyme Bay mead (at least where I've gotten it from) and seems to have the same dark colour, and I'm hoping the same deep honey flavour. Will have to get myself a bottle and find out ;D

 

[wayneb]

Ok, so here's a link to the post I wrote on my blog, when I did a rather unscientific comparison 4 years ago.

Amazing how high those "final" gravities are! What passes for good examples of British commercial mead would be regarded as the products of stuck fermentations around here! ;D

 

[fatbloke]

Amazing how high those "final" gravities are! What passes for good examples of British commercial mead would be regarded as the products of stuck fermentations around here! ;D

Yeah, that's what I was thinking Wayne.

It seemed that the makers presumed that if "it" is made from honey, then it should taste like watered down honey.

don't get me wrong, the actual taste was fine on all of them, just that they also had the cloying sweetness that I don't enjoy.

I haven't looked recently to see if someones doing a medium or dry mead though (apart from what I'm making of course).

 

[Atlas]

I've only tried a couple commercial meads from cornwall, and neither were very much to my liking tbh. The cornish brand trad mead is alright, although I found it slightly too sweet and cloying, not to mention the hefty price tag they put on the bottle. The only other one i've tried I can't remember the name of; it was only a fiver in morrisson's and tasted...horrible. Really disgusting. Overly sweet, too much methanol, and tasted full of chemicals. I'll try and find out the name, but really worth avoiding.

 

[fatbloke]

I've only tried a couple commercial meads from cornwall, and neither were very much to my liking tbh. The cornish brand trad mead is alright, although I found it slightly too sweet and cloying, not to mention the hefty price tag they put on the bottle. The only other one i've tried I can't remember the name of; it was only a fiver in morrisson's and tasted...horrible. Really disgusting. Overly sweet, too much methanol, and tasted full of chemicals. I'll try and find out the name, but really worth avoiding.

Hum? probably not methanol, as that's toxic, or at least more potentially damaging at booze levels.

Don't forget, that as well as the desired ethanol/ethyl alcohol, ferments do produce other "higher" alcohols, just not usually in quantity that's likely to be an issue.

Whether the taste that you allude to was just "alcohol hot", so it was a bit young and they'd just masked it partially by back sweetening etc, or if it was made with a yeast like D47, which does make good meads, but it needs to be fermented below 70F/21C, otherwise it's known to produce higher levels of fusels (higher alcohols, like isopropyl-alcohol, which can give a "rubbing alcohol" type taste).

It could be either.

The commercial ones I've found just aren't that good IMO......

p.s. if I've got any of that wrong, please correct me, but that's how I understand it......

 

[Leeham991]

That £5 mead from Morrisons, Harvest Gold, tasted perfectly fine to me, not so sweet as other meads I've come across, though it is extremely alcohol hot. I was lucky enough to pick up a bottle which had been sitting in the store room for 18 months recently and it was vastly improved from what the shelves generally get stacked with. I've actually got a few bottles I'm keeping away in a cupboard until that hot alcohol taste ages off, but tbh I'm ok with the stuff new. I recently got a new bottle of Lyme Bay mead off the internet and it was absolutely revolting, like trying to drink nail polish. However the Lyme Bay brand when I've bought it from museums where it's been sat out in the gift shop looking pretty for the tourists for god knows how long it was alright, if a little sickly.

 

[wildoates]

I picked up a bottle of mead from Jorvic too, but haven't opened it yet. The only mead I saw in England was at touristy Viking/medieval gift shops, and since I think it was £20 or thereabouts--and it all seemed to be the same mead with a different label--I only got one.

 

[Leeham991]

I picked up a bottle of mead from Jorvic too, but haven't opened it yet. The only mead I saw in England was at touristy Viking/medieval gift shops, and since I think it was £20 or thereabouts--and it all seemed to be the same mead with a different label--I only got one.

I went to Jorvik earlier in the year and they had two meads. Lyme Bay mead and some white wine flavoured with honey that they were selling as mead. The Lyme Bay stuff isn't bad, but it can be very harsh if young and they don't give you a bottling date. A bit of a gamble.

 

[Smarrikåka]

Some of the best British Meads I've found is from Nine Maidens Mead. These are much drier than most British meads. In particular their Red Currant melomel is well worth trying out.

Out of sweet varieties, I've found Moniack to be extremely good.

 

[A Stephenson]

British False Mead!

Hi Leeham991 and Fatbloke,

I have recently spoken to a fellow mead maker who has worked in the trade and informed me that Lyme bay mead and another local to Devon are actually fake mead.

They use alcohol, sugar syrup and flavouring to create a 'false mead' that is sold as mead. The sugar syrup accounts for the high sg and cloying nature. Also it tastes too close to watered down honey to rather than fermented honey.
Also the Golden Harvest Mead sold in Morrisons, was the worst tasting mead I have had. I think it is also a false mead.

Regards,
Alex.

 

[fatbloke]

Well, the most recent commercial mead I've tasted was the Moniack mentioned by CG. UKTony had it sent to me to try and test.

Apparently they used to market it as heather honey mead etc, but it seems to have had a make over recently.....

First taste was sweet but not cloyingly so. Nice tasting. Yet a visit to the hydrometer still showed it to be 1.036 out of the bottle and it seems the trick for reducing or balancing the sweetness some must be acid, as it clocked up 2.6 pH (better write up at my blog).

Over all it was definitely the best one I've tasted.

So next time I bottle some I'm intending trying a back sweeten to 1.025 or so and some acid......

 

[A Stephenson]

Hi Fatbloke,

These commercial meads all seem to have both high sugar levels and low ph.

The mead I made earlier this year with Tesco honey, using Lalvin 71B, has the most honey character. It was sweet around 1030 mark at over 16%. I have Oaked it post fermentation so it has a medium Oak and it balanced the sweetness really well.

The other mead I made using D47 had residual sugar and was drier, is turning out really well.

You suggested using K1V-1116, which I used to make Buckwheat mead at low fermentaion temp and that is really nice. A local mead maker I met has tried all of the above and really likes them, so must be on the right track.

He has purchased a mead for me to try. Will pass you the details.

 

[fatbloke]

Its always handy to know of other commercial meads. We all have differing tastes, its just vvv handy to have some idea of what too expect......

Im suspecting that as a lot of the commercial brews do seem very sweet and test lowish for pH..... that they use acid to reduce it some.

As above, the Moniack has been the best too date but still reasonably high FG and the lowest pH......

Equally why I try to keep mine to 1.010 plus or minus .005

 

[A Stephenson]

Hi Fatbloke,

Just had some "apple" mead from Pennard Meadery. Really nice, they source organic honey from Brazil to make into mead.

Best stuff I have had to date.

 

[Jim H]

Ok, this isn't British. But, it's a commercial mead from across the channel, Normandy.

Chouchenn, which can be shipped to the UK, and the US for anyone interested. Buckwheat is apparently the historical flavor, they also have heather. I am thinking it would be worth a try.

 

[Maeloch]

Some of the best British Meads I've found is from Nine Maidens Mead. These are much drier than most British meads. In particular their Red Currant melomel is well worth trying out.

Out of sweet varieties, I've found Moniack to be extremely good.

After seeing this thread and as I'm in the process of making my first batches I decided to try the Nine Maidens Traditional. I don't have a sweet tooth, but I really liked it - 14.% ABV, pale, extremely smooth, however still very sweet. Not sure what their other varieties are like - I'm not knocking their pricing - but at 20quid a bottle it'll be a while before get to trying many.

I picked up a bottle of Fonthill Glebe pyment from the local market a couple of days ago. That was only semi-sweet with a bit of a tannin from the grapes. 5 quid a bottle, but they don't seem to have any online ordering going on their website.

Several times I gave meads a go in the tourist and English Heritage type shops, but they did a pretty good job of putting me off them and craft wines altogether for a long while as they were always far far too sweet.

 

[fatbloke]

After seeing this thread and as I'm in the process of making my first batches I decided to try the Nine Maidens Traditional. I don't have a sweet tooth, but I really liked it - 14.% ABV, pale, extremely smooth, however still very sweet. Not sure what their other varieties are like - I'm not knocking their pricing - but at 20quid a bottle it'll be a while before get to trying many.

I picked up a bottle of Fonthill Glebe pyment from the local market a couple of days ago. That was only semi-sweet with a bit of a tannin from the grapes. 5 quid a bottle, but they don't seem to have any online ordering going on their website.

Several times I gave meads a go in the tourist and English Heritage type shops, but they did a pretty good job of putting me off them and craft wines altogether for a long while as they were always far far too sweet.

Well see that's precisely my issue.

It's as if they're being patronising, in that, it's made from honey so it must taste like watered down honey.

Don't get me wrong, I like my red wines to be heavy/chewy clarets but I can't really get my head round dry meads, which is why I make my trads to about 1.010-1.015 so there's a good amount of honey character but not hugely sweet.

Some excellent suggestions here though. If I get 5 mins, I'm gonna see if I can get some of the other ones suggested here.....