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My first mead tasting

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Mazer828

Mazer828

NewBee
Registered Member
Sep 9, 2015
791
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0
Inland Empire
I hosted my very first mead tasting tonight. Huge success! I showcased four of my own offerings:

A lightly carbonated traditional session,
A blackberry Melomel,
A hippocras made with zinfandel grape juice, cherries, cinnamon, cloves, and black pepper, and
A traditional sack mead, oaked

Had about ten guests, and started with an aroma and taste exploration of two honey varietals to get them interested. Then worked my way down the list above. Along the way they became very very interested in the ingredients, the process, the history, the yeasts involved, and so many more questions. I really felt the evening was a huge success simply because of how interested they all became in this thing they had never really known about. So many misconceptions shattered! It was awesome. Some even asked if they could buy it from me! Ha! Some day, I said!

I encourage any of you who might be interested to host a mead tasting. It is very very rewarding.
 
Yeah, all non fermenters. Mostly wine drinkers and beer drinkers, so it was good to expose them to mead. Also started off the evening with a little honey tasting, which proved to be very educational and well received.
 
I did the same thing early on thanksgiving. I had 10 different honeys I had everyone taste. And then 6 different meads were available to try. I let everyone choose their favorite and sent them home with a bottle. Nice way to see what people liked. I think for sure I have found my first 3 meads to sell at some point.
 
Exactly! I wasn't so ambitious with the number of mead varieties I shared, but bottles did go home with people, and I believe if I can duplicate my results I may have some recipes worthy of being on the market as well. Guess I'd better start researching how to get licensed!
 
I'm doing one tomorrow night, although much smaller. Like 6 or 7 people, but it's a start I guess. Have about 8 things to try; should be fun. And the pilsner's ready to taste/bottle.
 
From what I've heard and read, three or four varieties are about the most you can share before people's attention and palates start becoming distracted. I hope you get more than that but that's why I went with only four.

Please share your results! It would be interesting to hear what kinds of things you learned.
 
This was just a tasting, everything was fermented to completion (completely dry) except for the traditional. We basically just wanted to see where they were at and if they were ready to bottle.

OMG it was such a success. 8 people showed up. I lined the carboys and single fermentation pail up on the counter and started thiefing samples from each. Everyone dipped their hands in the sanitizing solution that I had made up for bottling the pilsner an hour before. One person would hold the fermentation locks after removal, one person would draw the samples, then I would wipe down the mouth of the carboys with pure grain alcohol.

The blueberry, blackberry, and elderberries were my favorites. Each one had a nice dry subtle flavor of the respective fruit, smooth, plenty of alcohol, but no sharp bite in any one of them. Very subtle flavor that most people agreed would definitely benefit from a tertiary fermentation on some more of the respective fruits (they were just too subtle and didn't really stand out at all) or at the very least, an addition of more of the whole fruit juice. And of course backsweetening at a later date.

Of special note was the pomegranate-ginger-grains of paradise... This was so different from what I expected, and very unique. It had a hotness to it (grains of paradise, ginger combo??) and a subtle sweet pomegranate flavor with a nice tartness and spiciness. I was floored.

The kumquat mead was still "fresh" and I proceeded to remove the fruit from the batch. It got stirred up considerably, and it was very cloudy and full of fruit pulp floating in it but we still decided to sample it. Very awesome kumquat ie. citrusy flavor, but very yeasty and a tad "harsh" from the fruit acid I believe.. Just needs some aging for a few months and backsweetening and it will be awesome.

The traditional... WOW!!! I cannot even begin to do the reactions justice. Everyone was like, "Omg that's the best stuff!! You can taste the honey, it's deliciously sweet, and oh so smooth and tasty." I had no idea it was going to turn out that good. Just a nice normal honey liqueur flavour without being cloying or overpowering. Just awesome.

All in all, it was a success! They are perfectly drinkable as is to be completely honest, as I like my fermentable libations in their "natural state" after completion. But, I am curious to backsweeten them after some more adjustments and see how they turn out. I think they will only improve.

In the excitement, I only got two pics that are very similar to each other. I'll try to post them later. I spent about 2 hours total on all the equipment cleanup for the pilsner and all the meads. I am b-e-a-t. Going to bed now, happy as a drunken lark. :-)
 
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