Good article on this year's International Meadfest and the
International Mead Association at this URL:
http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/cda/...BDC_2517_3287519_ARTICLE-DETAIL-PRINT,00.html
International Mead Festival, new trade association hope to promote glories
of honey wine
By Cindy Sutter, Camera Food Editor
November 2, 2004
A guy walks into a bar.
He says to the bartender: "I'd like a glass of off-dry mead. What do you
recommend?"
OK, so there's no punchline here, but mead makers locally and nationally are
hoping mead becomes a part of the cultural vernacular at least as well-known
as this classic opening line to a joke.
To that end, mead makers will be participating in the third International
Mead Festival to be held in Boulder Friday and Saturday, and also are
setting up an International Mead Association, in hopes of making mead a
household word and a sought-out beverage.
With five meaderies in Colorado and two in Boulder County out of about 60
nationwide, the state is becoming something of a hotbed in what producers
hope will become a mead revolution of sorts.
"We're throwing around the term (that Colorado) could be the Napa Valley of
meaderies," says Julia Herz, owner of www.honeywine.com and one of the
organizers of the new association. Other important areas of ferment, so to
speak, are California and the Pacific Northwest, she says.
The association will be modeled after the Boulder-based Association of
Brewers, which coined the term microbrewery and helped educate the public
about the desirability of craft beers.
Herz believes mead could follow a similar path.
"The Association of Brewers through over 20 years of holding the Great
American Beer Festival has shown the world that America makes some of the
highest quality beer in the world." The festival's awards system has been
instrumental in improving that quality as well, she says.
With mead, education will be an important component. For the uninitiated,
mead is honey wine. It may be made simply with honey, wine and yeast or also
may incorporate fruit or herbs. Ethiopian honey wine, which is believed to
have been made for 3,000 years or longer, is known as tej and made with
added herbs called gesho. Tej is made using spontaneous fermentation, much
like sourdough bread depends on wild yeast in the air to create the bread's
starter. Another well-known style of mead is Polish, which is sweet and
similar to a dessert wine. However, American meaderies are creating their
own style of mead, Herz says.
"They're resurrecting the world's oldest beverage with a modern twist. (The
meads are) not sometimes as heavy and dense," she says. "They're more
modeled after a balanced sweetness and acidity, which you get in grape
wines."
Changing the perception that mead is always sweet may be one of the
association's toughest tasks. In fact, mead may be sweet, semi-sweet, off
dry or dry. It depends on how much fermentation is allowed, Herz says. The
higher the alcohol content, the less sugar the mead will have.
Roberta Backlund, one of the wine managers at Liquor Mart, says customers
usually expect mead to be sweet.
"I'm not sure where that comes from," she says. "Honey connotes sweetness to
a lot of people. I show them the alcohol content to debunk the myth. It's
not a sweet libation at all."
Backlund, who served as a judge at the mead festival last year, recommends
mead for people who want to try something different and who are allergic to
sulfites.
She says many meads compare in sweetness to a Riesling and pair well with
spicy foods such as chicken curry or Szechwan dishes.
Backlund has seen a growing interest in meads, mostly she says because of
the efforts of mead makers, especially local ones.
Redstone Meadery, the first meadery in Boulder County, has seen a big jump
in its business, according to David Myers, chairman of the mead.
The meadery was started in 2000, and the first product came into the
marketplace in 2001. The company produced 8,000 liters in 2002, its first
full year, 14,000 in 2003 and expects 20,000 for 2004. The mead is sold in
10 states.
"It's reflective of what's happening in the mead world," he says, as
meaderies grow in size and number.
A few years in the future, Herz and Myers hope mead will be a common
beverage in bars and restaurants. They hope the new association will promote
that growth.
"We need more meaderies to get a mass consciousness going on, so people
start to look for mead more regularly," Myers says.
Contact Camera Staff Writer Cindy Sutter at (303) 473-1335 or
sutterc@dailycamera.com.
Copyright 2004, The Daily Camera. All Rights Reserved.
International Mead Association at this URL:
http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/cda/...BDC_2517_3287519_ARTICLE-DETAIL-PRINT,00.html
International Mead Festival, new trade association hope to promote glories
of honey wine
By Cindy Sutter, Camera Food Editor
November 2, 2004
A guy walks into a bar.
He says to the bartender: "I'd like a glass of off-dry mead. What do you
recommend?"
OK, so there's no punchline here, but mead makers locally and nationally are
hoping mead becomes a part of the cultural vernacular at least as well-known
as this classic opening line to a joke.
To that end, mead makers will be participating in the third International
Mead Festival to be held in Boulder Friday and Saturday, and also are
setting up an International Mead Association, in hopes of making mead a
household word and a sought-out beverage.
With five meaderies in Colorado and two in Boulder County out of about 60
nationwide, the state is becoming something of a hotbed in what producers
hope will become a mead revolution of sorts.
"We're throwing around the term (that Colorado) could be the Napa Valley of
meaderies," says Julia Herz, owner of www.honeywine.com and one of the
organizers of the new association. Other important areas of ferment, so to
speak, are California and the Pacific Northwest, she says.
The association will be modeled after the Boulder-based Association of
Brewers, which coined the term microbrewery and helped educate the public
about the desirability of craft beers.
Herz believes mead could follow a similar path.
"The Association of Brewers through over 20 years of holding the Great
American Beer Festival has shown the world that America makes some of the
highest quality beer in the world." The festival's awards system has been
instrumental in improving that quality as well, she says.
With mead, education will be an important component. For the uninitiated,
mead is honey wine. It may be made simply with honey, wine and yeast or also
may incorporate fruit or herbs. Ethiopian honey wine, which is believed to
have been made for 3,000 years or longer, is known as tej and made with
added herbs called gesho. Tej is made using spontaneous fermentation, much
like sourdough bread depends on wild yeast in the air to create the bread's
starter. Another well-known style of mead is Polish, which is sweet and
similar to a dessert wine. However, American meaderies are creating their
own style of mead, Herz says.
"They're resurrecting the world's oldest beverage with a modern twist. (The
meads are) not sometimes as heavy and dense," she says. "They're more
modeled after a balanced sweetness and acidity, which you get in grape
wines."
Changing the perception that mead is always sweet may be one of the
association's toughest tasks. In fact, mead may be sweet, semi-sweet, off
dry or dry. It depends on how much fermentation is allowed, Herz says. The
higher the alcohol content, the less sugar the mead will have.
Roberta Backlund, one of the wine managers at Liquor Mart, says customers
usually expect mead to be sweet.
"I'm not sure where that comes from," she says. "Honey connotes sweetness to
a lot of people. I show them the alcohol content to debunk the myth. It's
not a sweet libation at all."
Backlund, who served as a judge at the mead festival last year, recommends
mead for people who want to try something different and who are allergic to
sulfites.
She says many meads compare in sweetness to a Riesling and pair well with
spicy foods such as chicken curry or Szechwan dishes.
Backlund has seen a growing interest in meads, mostly she says because of
the efforts of mead makers, especially local ones.
Redstone Meadery, the first meadery in Boulder County, has seen a big jump
in its business, according to David Myers, chairman of the mead.
The meadery was started in 2000, and the first product came into the
marketplace in 2001. The company produced 8,000 liters in 2002, its first
full year, 14,000 in 2003 and expects 20,000 for 2004. The mead is sold in
10 states.
"It's reflective of what's happening in the mead world," he says, as
meaderies grow in size and number.
A few years in the future, Herz and Myers hope mead will be a common
beverage in bars and restaurants. They hope the new association will promote
that growth.
"We need more meaderies to get a mass consciousness going on, so people
start to look for mead more regularly," Myers says.
Contact Camera Staff Writer Cindy Sutter at (303) 473-1335 or
sutterc@dailycamera.com.
Copyright 2004, The Daily Camera. All Rights Reserved.
