Munro's Mead

[Chevette Girl]

A friend of mine ordered some Munro's mead online and I was privileged to try some tonight.

It was pleasant, very reminiscent of the first mead I ever made. Just sweet enough but not cloying or anything, I should have read the label more closely to see what kind of honey it was but if I ask for the empty, I'm sure I'll end up with it eventually

I'm suspecting based on the taste that it might have been goldenrod rather than clover... but my unsophisticated palate didn't pick out anything really exciting. Good general all-around mead.

I'll have to see how my boil/no boil batches taste comparatively...

My second glass tonight was my own blackberry JAO... and honestly, if I hadn't been driving and wanted a third glass of something, it would have been my own stuff... apparently they make a blackberry mead too so next time I'm in the area I'll have to fetch some and see how it stands up against my wares...

I know with fruit wines, my strawberry seems on par with the Sunnybrook Farm stuff (awesome place, visit if you're ever in Niagara-on-the-lake), their raspberry is far superior to mine although I found their blueberry too musky for my tastes, but when they added chocolate extract it was just divine... I know where the difference is too, they use pure pressed fruit juice and sugar to make up the SG, whereas I ferment on the fruit in sugar water... but hey, now I have another place to aim for next time I head south towards Lake Erie...

 

[wayneb]

Which Munro's was it, do you remember?

 

[Chevette Girl]

It was Munro Meadery's Sweet Mead.

 

[wayneb]

I'm pretty sure that that one (which won gold medals in the International Mead Festival - the precursor to our Mazer Cup International competition - both in 2007 and 2008, BTW) is from their own locally produced honey, which if memory serves is primarily a clover/alfalfa mix.

 

[Chevette Girl]

I was looking at their website today to see if I could figure it out and never really did, I guess I should have looked at their honey side instead of the mead side of things, I did notice the medals though, the Sweet won the gold and their dry and regular meads took silver and bronze medals, and my friend told me he'd let me try the others too.

Having just tasted my show meads, they're definitely not on the same level... but then, I didn't expect that much from my first show meads, especially since I'm not at all sure about the honey used...

 

[Jord]

I just finished off a bottle of their sweet mead the other night. I thoroughly enjoyed it! I've also got a bottle of their buckwheat dessert mead....it's supposed to be much sweeter than the sweet mead but I've found that it tastes about the same given the characteristics of the buckwheat honey. There may in fact be more residual sugar in the buckwheat mead but it certainly doesn't taste any sweeter. I also have a bottle of their blueberry mel that I have yet to uncork.

 

[beeman]

Wayneb is right about the honey blend. The honey in our sweet mead as of right now was produce in 2009. Small crop year but produce very nice honey for making mead from. Could be a little more wild flower in the honey from 2009.
John
Munro Honey & Meadery

 

[wildoates]

I love it when professional mead makers chime in!