Modern history of Mead (last 100 years resurgence)

[wildoates]

Do people drink it in Sweden? My son says they don't in Norway, not much, anyway. It's expensive, and since everything is expensive in Norway, they drink beer instead, as it's less expensive.

 

[Angelic Alchemist]

Actually, the resurgence in mead popularity is due to the return of ancient souls to this plane of existence (myself included). They enjoyed mead in earlier incarnations and the craving carried over to this time frame. ;D

Interesting. I never thought about it that way.

 

[Smarrikåka]

Do people drink it in Sweden? My son says they don't in Norway, not much, anyway. It's expensive, and since everything is expensive in Norway, they drink beer instead, as it's less expensive.

I'm surprised he gave expensive as the reason, because it hardly exists there. In Norway they have recently started importing some of the Danish mead (which is more honey liquor than mead), and they also have one own mead, which I haven't tasted, so I can't speak for it. I've had some requests from Norway asking if I can distribute mead to them. So I'm looking at possibilities.

Alcohol in general Norway is very expensive though, like your son said (it's bad in Sweden too, but only half as bad as in Norway). There are very high fees placed on it by their customs. And if mead was widely available there, it'd be much more expensive than beer was, but it'd be about the same as wine.
I can't say what the general knowledge about mead is like in Norway, but I imagine it is similar to what it is here in Sweden, which is pretty limited.

The average Swedish person has never tasted mead, but they have heard of it, and are aware that the vikings used to drink it. That's about it though. Then there are quite a few things that they believe, which aren't true. These things are: 1. That it's similar to beer. 2. That it's a predecessor to beer, and that beer replaced it because mead was inferior to it. 3. That they have any idea what mead is. These beliefs come partly from the fact that there's been a few beers (and even one or two braggots) in the past that marketed themselves as mead, and partly from the fact that they may have tasted some very bad homebrewed meads.
Then there are those who have tasted (or even made. The homebrewing of mead is quite big in Sweden) the real thing, and they generally love it.

So to try and answer your question. Do Swedish people drink mead? Some do, and I'm working on increasing that crowd. There's generally quite a bit of enthusiasm, and positive surprise among those who taste good mead. And it has recently stirred some attention from media, so things are looking up. There is definately a market for it, but it's difficult to get restaurant owners and the stateowned alcohol monopoly to hold it in stock and give it a shot.

I have a company that currently imports mead from Poland and the US. There is also one brewery that has a small scale production of mead, and I'm looking to get into that as well. There's also a producer of an alcoholfree mead, and another one that makes a braggot (marketed as mead of course, even though we have a word for braggot though nobody has ever heard about it.), exclusively made for a medieval restaurant, and they sell a lot of that (over 20 000 liters a year). I think the majority of Swedish people that have positive experiences of mead, have either had homemade mead at some medieval/viking type event/market, have had their mead experiences at the restaurant I mentioned (they also buy quite a bit of mead from my company), or visited my stand at the Stockholm Beer/Whisky Festival this year or last year.

 

[Dan McFeeley]

So that means the majority of the meaderies were founded in the 90s or later? It seems like quite a gap between Morse efforts, and the beginning of "the trend". Did honey prices drop a lot towards the end of the 80s?

I'm a bit unclear on how you differentiate BetterBee's production from earlier production? Is it that previous producers primary focus was other kind of drinks (beer, wine, etc), that the production was very limited (example: a Jewish restaurant producing enough to satisfy its own needs), or that the mead produced was not quite mead (honey liquor, beer or wine spiced with honey, etc)?

It was likely that BetterBee's designation as the first US meadery was its own. Mead had been produced in the US for quite some time before that, but I don't have specific info on that. It may have been that BetterBee was the first licensed winery in the US whose sole production was mead, and the first winery to specifically designate itself as a meadery.

From Roger Morse's Master's Thesis, Cornell university, 1953:

2. Industry in the United States
Honey wine in this country is produced largely for sacramental
purposes for the Jewish trade. After the second World War,
about 10 companies used honey to produce various types of
wine. Many of these were diluted wiht fruit juices and some
with sugar; also, hops were used in making many of the wines.

During World War II the Production and Marketing Administration
authorized the use of 900,000 pounds of honey for the
manufacte of wine by 5 firms. Whether this much honey was
actually used, and what tpes of wine were produced, is not
known. It is estimated by one honey wine producer that about
100,000 bottles per year (4/5 to 1 quart bottles) of honey
wine were produced in 1948, 1949, and 1950. In 1951,
production fell of to 50,000 bottles. Probably the difficulty
in complying with government standards was responsible for
the decline. During 1950, some manufactures paid as much
as $1200 in fines for not meeting specifications. The main
difficulty with the wine was high volatile acidity. The honey
used in these wineries was mainly buckwheat.

 

[Smarrikåka]

Thanks a lot for the information Dan. That clearifies the situation a lot, though it kind of makes you wonder what happened between the 50s and the 80s. Was the quantities of commercial mead on a constant decline in that period, growing, or around the same?

 

[Dan McFeeley]

It's hard to say -- I don't have that information and am not sure where to look.

We were discussing Chaucer's mead on another topic thread -- by dominating the market among Rennaisance fairs, Chaucer's was probably a strong influence in generating interest in mead prior to the upsurge of commercial meaderies in the US.

 

[Angelic Alchemist]

It's hard to say -- I don't have that information and am not sure where to look.

We were discussing Chaucer's mead on another topic thread -- by dominating the market among Rennaisance fairs, Chaucer's was probably a strong influence in generating interest in mead prior to the upsurge of commercial meaderies in the US.

I think it's slightly ethnocentric for us to think that mead was a lost art until the upsurge in the USA as of recent. Many cultures ferment honey drinks. One of my favorites is Tej, which I used to thoroughly enjoy at the Ethiopian restaurants back in SF. The owner of my LHBS says he has a very strong Ethipoian client base, all of which use their own old family recipes, and none of which buy yeasts from him!

 

[Medsen Fey]

I think it's slightly ethnocentric for us to think that mead was a lost art until the upsurge in the USA as of recent.

I don't think anyone is suggesting mead was a lost art. It was still popular in some Eastern European regions as well, especially Poland. However, as with the production of Tej (to this day), very little was produced on a commercial basis. Even now, the total output of mead in this country (and globally) is a tiny, tiny drop compared to wine, beer, or spirits.

 

[Dan McFeeley]

On the one hand, mead isn't a lost art, not with a world wide mead culture. It's just been under represented in the US.

On the other hand, there have been a lot of advances made in meadmaking, most of it, I think, coming from the US. Roger Morse made significant advances in his day, I don't know if there is an equivalent in other non-English speaking countries to the books written for home meadmakers by the likes of Ken Schramm, et. al., and there has been a lot of Internet discussion on the application of advances in winemaking applied to meadmaking on these forum boards and elsewhere.

 

[wildoates]

The art of homebrewing in general as we know it here in the US is not widespread in Europe--at least not that my son has found. He was delighted to find a homebrew shop near Oslo where he can buy most of his supplies, but even at that, there aren't shops in every burg like there often is here. We have several online resources available to us to the point where we're spoiled--granted we're a huge country that can support that sort of thing, but when you're in Olso and pretty much have to ship in from Belgium, well, that adds to the cost of your brewing supplies.

Many of the Americans who homebrew tend to think like this: if the government is going to tax the bejezus out of my beer/wine/mead, I'll just make it myself. In Norway at least, the attitude is very different--they've been so ingrained that paying horrific taxes is for the "common good" they just pay them and figure it's, well...for the common good. It's a very small circle of homebrewers there, and they don't tend to be the young, hip, twenty-somethings who have had 3 generations of what they call democratic socialism over there and have been so very completely trained (plus they are at the beginning of their earning lives and haven't yet got hit by 70% income taxes ) that they don't mind having something be hugely expensive when it really doesn't need to be. My son hopes to help change that a little bit, and infect Oslo with the homebrew bug: quality beer, YOUR beer, that the government can't get their greedy meathooks into.

 

[afdoty]

I've been wondering how prevalent home brewing was during prohibition and is the home brewing tradition in this country may be a legacy of that era. And it still wasn't legal until Jimmy Carter made it so in the 70's. Funny how you could buy everything you needed to make beer, wine, mead and couldn't legally ferment any of it.

 

[Smarrikåka]

The art of homebrewing in general as we know it here in the US is not widespread in Europe--at least not that my son has found.

You are correct in this, and most of the things you said. But the homebrewing of mead is quite large here in Sweden (larger than in Norway too, I believe), if compared with the homebrewing of beer and wine (and if compared with the various shares of the market held on the commercial scale). A big reason for that is because it hasn't existed commercially, and people are curious about it. But compared to homebrewing in the US, it's very, very small.

Also I'd like to add something you didn't mention. If people want cheap alcohol here, they can easily buy it abroad, in countries with less taxes. That option isn't as available for you guys, which may be a reason as to why the situation is as it is.

 

[storm1969]

I don't know. My grandfather who migrated from Italy used to rave about the wine they made at home, and the fact that most of the families they knew made wine at home.

He was one of the people that started me into home wine/mead making (not mead, I don't think he ever mentioned it before he passed on).

He used to regret that he didn't have the space, nor the location to grow grapes here.

 

[Smarrikåka]

Morse also noted that a lot of commercial meads made in the New York area during that time were for Jewish sacramental purposes. This is something I'd like to know more about -- mead traditions in Judaism. I'm assuming that this is a part of Ashkenaz Judaism, the Judaism of Germany and Eastern Europe.

Just noticed on the following page http://www.midus.lt/en.php?p=History that mead was exported from Lithuania to Palestine in the 40s. Since the 40s is pre-Israel, could that somehow be related to mead traditions in Judaism?

 

[male]

Poland is still a backward country, where most people will prefer the cheapest and strongest alternatives.

Thank's Smarrikaka, you are very kind.

In Apis, which is the largest producer of mead in Poland, they can fill 2500 bottles per hour.

 

[sandman]

In Apis, which is the largest producer of mead in Poland, they can fill 2500 bottles per hour.

...and I still haven't made it over there for a visit?? OK, I need to schedule something before the snow flies. I'll PM you later this week to see what we can come up with.

 

[pain]

They only have sweet mead, and often very sweet mead, which limits its uses significantly. In the US there is all kinds of mead, one for every occasion, so even though availability is more limited, the appeal is probably greater. Poland is still a backward country, where most people will prefer the cheapest and strongest alternatives.

Hon, I think you should re-think the term 'backward' here. The remark came across as disparaging (I hope you didn't mean it that way), and we prefer not to disparage people, cultures or belief systems here. We have members from all over the world, and every one of them has something valuable to bring Gotmead.

Please don't disparage countries or cultures, you do them and yourself a disservice.

Regarding the usefulness of sweet meads, I find your comment interesting, since sweet mead production/sales far exceed dry mead production/sales in the worldwide marketplace (including the US, in which at least 60-70% of the meads produced could be classified as as least medium-sweet) based on the research I've done, so I tend to suggest that a mead being sweet doesn't limit its appeal at all. The Polish meads are quite distinctive, and however they might sell in Poland, they sell *very* well in the US, the distributors of the Polish meads here cannot import them fast enough.

Thanks!

 

[Smarrikåka]

Male, Vicky and anyone else who took offense, I apologise about that comment, I agree that it was out of line. It was not my intention to put Poland in a bad light as much as try to say that I thought the US mead market is undervalued. When it comes to mead, Poland is very much a forward country.
Apis is the producer I was refering to when refering to the large producer of mead in Poland, and I import a whole lot of mead from them myself, and have visited their facilities, so I'm well aware of them.
I didn't mean to question the usefulness of sweet meads either. The fact that Poland only has sweet mead helps them clearly distinguish it from wine, allowing mead to dominate the dessert drink market. Though having dryer alternatives available, and also a few more semi-sweet meads would allow a larger scope.

 

[male]

The fact that Poland only has sweet mead helps them clearly distinguish it from wine, allowing mead to dominate the dessert drink market.

I know that Poland is very well known as a country of sweet meads, but I have to disagree with Smarrikaka.Even in Apis you can buy Czwórniak Korzenny(1 volume of honey and 3 volumes of water),it is not a problem to buy others such meads from smaller meaderies.
In our long mead tradition there is also Piątniak (1 volume of honey and 4 volumes of water).

 

[Smarrikåka]

Even in Apis you can buy Czwórniak Korzenny(1 volume of honey and 3 volumes of water),it is not a problem to buy others such meads from smaller meaderies.
In our long mead tradition there is also Piątniak (1 volume of honey and 4 volumes of water).

Yeah, I only wish they had more alternatives for Czwórniaks and also Piątniaks (in fact, if you know anyone producing a Piątniak, please let me know ASAP ).