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Decent commercial meads

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lucid717

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Jun 17, 2009
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Do they even exist? I thought it would be easy to acquire information about commercial mead on a site such as this, and on the internet in general, but all I'm coming across are vague, subjective, generic descriptions (i.e. it was sweet). I was hoping the reviews section could steer me in a good direction, but it was less than extensive, to be kind.

So to sum up... to the seasoned mead enthusiast here, what are some commercial meads that you would recommend? And it would be helpful if these descriptions/comparisons were made in relation to other commercial meads when rated. I don't expect them to stand up to some divine, artisinally made concoction your mead making buddy unveiled at least years festival. I just want to know how they rate when compared to other mershes.

So what mersh(s) stand above the rest? My personal tastes are for a traditional, still mead more on the dry side than sweet (but not "too" dry). Any recommendations?
 
I appreciate the prompt response. I did see the few reviews in the review section but from what I see all the products are only reviewed by 1 person. That leaves too much subjectivity. If a product had several reviews, although each is still subjective on it's own, the sum of the parts is greater because it reflects a much broader view. I was hoping that this thread might generate more opinions.

Here are a few I'm looking at that might fit the bill based on my preferences (traditional, dry):

Long Island Traditional Mead (Wildflower)

Lurgashall Dry Mead

Honeyrun Mead Ragnar's Reserve

Earle Estates Contemporary Honey Mead
 
Well I haven't tried any of those, PA is a terrible state for purchasing any type of liquor I'm afraid. However, in addition to the reviews section on the main site there is also a wine forum, as well as some threads specifically about commercial products that you can check out. I actually started one on commercial hard ciders awhile back which led to some good feedback for me. I think I saw a commercial mead thread on here somewhere before too. Also, the two brand names I recommended before weren't necessarily from the reviews section so much as they were mentioned in passing by members of this site on a few different threads I've seen. You might try searching the forums for the product name, to see if that yields any results.
 
Here, I'll give you the best I can for some reviews on Commercial Meads I have tried...

Redstone Meadery -

Black Raspberry "Nectar": Semi-sweet, sparkling mead that has a great aroma and flavor of Black Raspberries. It is one of their (if not their) best selling mead. I personally like it because I like Black Raspberries and the flavor is there to remind me of it without being too strong. It is 8% ABV, so one 750 mL bottle can get a little buzz going...but I rcommend 2!

Traditional Mead: Sweeter, but still not cloying. A 12% ABV mead that will get a good buzz on while also giving you a nice drink. It always seems just a touch "hot" thanks to that alcohol, but it doesn't get in the way of the honey flavors. I have drank a few bottles of this one.

Plum Wine: This one is probably my favorite online find...I got this straight from their website store and love it! Nice plum flavor and aroma...all while being an 8% (if memory serves) semi-sweet mead. It only comes in 500 mL bottles, though...

White Pyment This one takes a little getting used to if you aren't familiar with how pyments taste, but after a couple sips it ranks right up there with their Traditional and packs the same ABV. Quickly becoming a favorite of mine...good balance between white wine dryness and mead sweetness. Seems a little more dry than the traditional, but I like it that way...

Apricot "Nectar" This one isn't quite as good as the rest, in my opinion. It is still a tasty drink, but I am not so sure it works (for me) as a semi-sweet sparkling mead. I think if this one were sweeter, it would be more enjoyable to me...

Cinnamon-Vanilla Mead At first, I didn't care for this one as I thought the vanilla flavors were too strong. But then I let it warm a little bit and it became a highly enjoyable mead! It too is 12% and you really (at least I didn't) wouldn't guess that. It has a little sweetness to it and the spices play along very nicely with that...

Lurgashall Meadery -

English Mead This is a 375 mL bottle, just so you know. At first, I really liked this one, but as it warmed it seemed to have a slight "barnyard" characteristic to it...meaning it seemed to smell and taste a slight bit like straw. Overall, I would buy this one again but I would make sure to keep it slightly chilled.

Lurgashall Mead I can't remember the real (or full) name of this one, but it was a 750 mL bottle that was corked...no spices came with it. This one was a little sweeter than I care for, if I remember correctly. It has been about a year since I had this one, so my memory is a little hazy. Other than the "over-sweetness" of this mead, I don't recall any off flavors or anything that would make me say to stay away from it. I just know that I have many other meads that I would buy before I got that one again...sorry, this one isn't so helpful!!

Okay, hope these help out a little. I highly recommend going online and finding a few meaderies that will ship to your state (Redstone, Fox Hill, B. Nektar, Rabbit's Foot) and order some of their wares...it is the experimentation and tasting that can make this addition...errrr..hobby so fun!!
 
capoeirista13 said:
Well I haven't tried any of those, PA is a terrible state for purchasing any type of liquor I'm afraid.
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Yeah, and wouldn't you know that just happens to be where I reside. I reckon I wouldn't even be able to acquire most (if not all) of the brands I'm interested in anyway, so this research is probably moot.

DrinkupNY is a good site to order spirits from if you're in PA, but I see only 1 mead on their site and it's the Ragnar's Reserve. If all else fails I may just end up going with the Mount Hope Honey Mead again for Mead Day. It's a bit too sweet for my taste but decent otherwise. It's readily available at least.

I really appreciate everyone's help.
 
Medsen Fey said:
You might want to check out some of the meads that won awards at the the recent Mazer Cup International competition. The commercial winners are going to be some very fine meads.

There used to be a nice website at honeywine.com - the site doesn't seem to be working now (at least for me). Are they no longer in business?
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When I look and see Chaucer's getting 1'st place in the Traditional category I have to question the reliability of this competition. I know for a fact that I don't agree with the results of most spirits judging competitions.

And yeah that sucks about that honeywine site not being up anymore. I have a feeling it would have made my research much easier. Almost everywhere I looked there was a link for that site as reference material, only it doesn't work.
 
lucid717 said:
Yeah, and wouldn't you know that just happens to be where I reside. I reckon I wouldn't even be able to acquire most (if not all) of the brands I'm interested in anyway, so this research is probably moot.

DrinkupNY is a good site to order spirits from if you're in PA, but I see only 1 mead on their site and it's the Ragnar's Reserve. If all else fails I may just end up going with the Mount Hope Honey Mead again for Mead Day. It's a bit too sweet for my taste but decent otherwise. It's readily available at least.

I really appreciate everyone's help.
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I'm actually from PA too, but I am currently working in NJ up in Moorestown. There is a store called Martin's Liquors on the way home from work, I've been told they have mead and I am probably going to go by there tomorrow to check it out. It is on Rt 38.
 
lucid717 said:
When I look and see Chaucer's getting 1'st place in the Traditional category I have to question the reliability of this competition. I know for a fact that I don't agree with the results of most spirits judging competitions.
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Yes, regardless of judging, one should always honor one's own taste buds with the things that please them most. :)

Still I think the judges at the mazer cup are some of the mead makingest and drinkingest folks on the planet, and they aren't afraid to call them as they taste them. I can tell you first hand that the blinding for the competition is first rate, so the judges don't know who made whatever it is they have in their glasses. Blind tasting often produces surprises which is one reason many big, elite wineries don't like to participate in them. Obviously the conditions associated with a tasting are markedly different from the environment where you taste things at home, and that can have a bearing on how things get scored.

I would not, however, discount the results of the competition even if Chaucers did well. As much as we joke about it, for a dessert mead, it is pleasant. My wife happens to like it quite a bit. I can certainly understand wanting something more on the dry side though.

As you taste more commercial mead, perhaps you can lead the charge here to post more tasting notes so that we can generate a more robust set of reviews for others to enjoy later.

Medsen
 
Where do you live?

Unfortunately most of the quality commercial meads that I've come across are made locally and I'm pretty sure that they don't get much distribution outside of Alaska or the the US Pacific Northwest.

The few other commercial examples that I've had are of European origin, and they tend to be alot more on the sweet side, so I wouldnt recommend those given your preference for dry meads.

Mead reviews in general are fairly scarce but the best resource I've found (by sheer number of reviews) is actually ratebeer.com however the disclaimer for those reviews is that I've found that its not uncommon for an uneducated reviewer to post a review of a mead as though he was expecting it to be a beer. Nevertheless it would be a good starting point for you to familiarize yourself with products from several commercial meaderies around the world.

Whether or not those meads are available in your neck of the woods is a different matter entirely. ;)
 
Medsen Fey said:
I can tell you first hand that the blinding for the competition is first rate, so the judges don't know who made whatever it is they have in their glasses. Blind tasting often produces surprises
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Knowing now that they were blind tastings makes me trust them exponentially more. I wasn't aware of that. I have personally witnessed blind absinthe tastings produce very surprising results. The only way to go into a tasting is without any preconceived notions.

I've heard some nasty things about Chaucer's. I believe in this very forum I saw it dubbed "The McDonald's of Mead". I hear it's very sweet so it probably wouldn't be to my liking, but I guess I shouldn't knock something I haven't had.

By the way I'm in the York, PA area, so availability will indeed be a big hurdle for me. Again, I greatly appreciate the help.
 
I think Chaucer's gets knocked by mead folk the way that Bud/Miller/Coors do by beer folk. It's true that it's not what most of us want or like, but that doesn't mean it's a bad product for the people to whom it is marketed. I've never had Chaucer's myself, but at least in the case of BMC beers, they are actually consistently well-made and very difficult to reproduce at home (impossible if you consider cost). Turning rice and corn into the exact same beverage all over the world for pennies is admirable, even if it does taste like toilet water to beer snobs. ;) Honestly the non-lite versions are pretty good, for what they are. Chaucer's just needs to be taken in context too and apparently it's pretty good. Same for McDonalds, though at least Chaucer's probably won't give you a heart attack, e. coli, high cholesterol, or other nasties. Let's all agree to stick with mead--the liver is regenerative and you have TWO kidneys.
 
Here in Sacramento we can get a fair number of the Rabbit's Foot Meadery Meads. Though some of them are marketed and hidden among the beers and ciders. I have found that the products made by Rabbit's Foot have delivered exactly what they said they would, though so far I have not tried the straight meads, as I am waiting for a time when I want a sweet dessert style mead before I purchase a bottle of it.

The ciders made by Rabbit's Foot are hidden as they don't call attention to the fact that they are actually cysers, and they even have a different label for theitr cider style offerings (Red Branch Cider Company). Basically their cysers and braggots are marketed as ciders and beers, while their straight meads are in the wine section.

I have started tasting them, as right now they are my only alternative to Chaucer's Mead, which while tasty, is the only mead usually available, and it is definitely sweeter than I usually like.
 
I'm not sure if you're at all a fan of the super sweet meads, but if you make it down to MD or another state where you can find it, Apis Jadwiga (Poltorak) is a damn fine beverage. At under $30 it matches up with many good ports and could be the best commercially available mead.
 
I'm going over to BevMo today and I'll check to see what they have there (I won't buy it because it's expensive, and I'm cheap. I buy wine on their buy-one-get-the-second-one-for-a-nickel sale or I don't buy it at all). The last time I checked a BevMo, in Salinas, they only had Chaucer, no Rabbit's Foot, which surprised me given that it's made just up Highway 101 from Salinas.

My son went to the Norway festival in San Francisco and brought back a bottle of mead that he won't let me have--yet. If he doesn't drink it up before he leaves for Norge in a few weeks perhaps he'll donate it to his long suffering mother (I keep trying to remind him of that long suffering part, but he's having no part of it, alas!) so I can report back.
:p
 
Since I don't like sweet drinks, I've yet to find a commercial mead that I like...thats why I started making my own.
Chaucers is cloyingly sweet to me...and for some reason all my friends buy it for me as a gift.

I use the Chaucers to make Meadtinis
2 oz Absolut Citron Vodka
2 oz Chaucers Mead
1 slice of lemon (garnish)

The ladies seem to like them.
 
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