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Organizing a Mead Tasting

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curgoth

curgoth

Why do something when you can overdo it?
GotMead Patron
Jun 10, 2014
721
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18
Toronto, ON
www.memento-mori.ca
As I've been going through my first year of mead making, I've been setting aside a couple bottles from most of my batches (I have been more greedy with the BOMMs) to see how they age. I'd also like to take a bottle of what I think is the best of my reserve to a festival this summer and enter it into their mead competition (ChevetteGirl won last year's with her Blackberry JAOM).

To that end, I'm looking to set up one or two tastings of my reserve meads among my friends to get someone else's opinions on what the best one is. There's going to be somewhere between 5 and 10 different meads to sample (I need to go through and figure out which ones are worth checking at this stage).

I'm looking for opinions on a few things:

  1. What sort of food/snacks should I have? Just bread/crackers? Will adding in cheese and preserved meat throw off tastebuds too much?
  2. How many samples should I guess per person? i.e., should I expect taste buds to be too drunk by the 5th glass?
  3. How should I order the tastings? Dryest to sweetest? Traditionals followed by melomels and metheglins?

Since neither my friends nor the judges at the competition are going to be highly trained BJCP judges with exacting palettes, I'm thinking about doing a score card with seven categories (clarity, colour, body, flavour, sweetness, bouquet, overall impression) and asking for a 1-10 score for each before we discuss each one.
 
May we all become as organized as you are and remain faithful to timely posting of the progress of our meads. My hat is off to you, even though I am not close enough to benefit directly from your planned tasting. Keep up the good work! I, for one enjoy your well thought out and presented posts.
 
i don't really know from experience. And i have never been to a competition either, but i have a few thoughts. I doubt any one could judge to well after drinking 5 glasses. I would just serve a couple ounces of each while you're evaluating. I would also just have some very neutral food stuffs just to clear the pallet and not to compliment your Mead. Different food/mead pairings might taste different to each person based on what they like and dislike. There ore different kinds of toast/ wafers that could clear the pallet without adding much flavor. I have heard wine testers sometimes eat celery for this reason. Once the scoring is over, then start drinking in earnest and pairing with your food.

Just my uneducated
 
Crackers like water crackers, or slices of french baguette and lots of water to cleanse in between. If you want to get really serious everyone should have a spit vessel, but that's, like, a waste of good mead. Just keep the samples to a few tablespoons (three is perfect) and if you don't have one glass per sample (that number can get up there if you have a lot of guests) then have some way to rinse the glass out for the next sample. And yes... dry to sweet is the way I have always seen it. How many? I have done a few tastings and after 5 I start to get fatigue. Remember it's going to take a while to dole out the samples if you have more than 4 people tasting.


Here's a link to a wine tasting table that should help as well. http://www.epicurious.com/images/ar...artiesevents/epicurious-wine-tasting-grid.pdf
 
Yeah, no spit vessels. I'll drink anything the tasters don't want, and pour small samples. :)

I like the style of that score sheet. I'll have to see what I can put together in that vein.

I do worry a bit that I won't be able to coordinate enough tasters to go through 5 bottles - I figure optimally I'd have more than one person per bottle, ideally closer to two.
 
In the end maybe all you need is two glasses per person. Rinse one while they taste the other. Say you have 4 people tasting. Pour sample one into each glass, then wait... After they are done, pour sample 2 into the second glass and while they swish and taste and write, you take the first glass and rinse. By the time you get back, they should be done with the second. Then repeat until all your samples are done.

Doing that does two things, keeps you busy and out of the room so they will be more honest and sets a slower pace for the tasting.


Sent from my TARDIS at the restaurant at the end of the universe while eating Phil.
 
I have taken a few wine tasting classes and generally they organize them as sweetest to dryest. 6 wines at a tasting seems to be the norm. Definitely give notecards for details and try to explain to them what you want. Instead of "oh, that's tasty!" a more descriptive "Nice flavor balance with notes of vanilla and an oaky background" would be preferred. Give them a list of possible flavors and smells to help them with their descriptions. One class even had small boxes containing different herbs and scents for us to smell and compare to the wine which was helpful in identifying those light aromas. Placemats identifying each mead is helpful as well. As for food, have a palate cleanser and water available, but you could also have a range of small bites to try with each mead to find out what pairs best with it. olives, cheese cubes, meats, chocolates, etc. Have them try each with the meads and describe how the taste of the mead changes in relation to the food. I had one wine that I considered completely undrinkable until I paired it with the right cheese and then it became mellow and delicious. Good luck with the tasting!
 
Running through this Saturday. I finally settled on 6 meads, mostly on the criteria that they were my oldest. I'm using a simple scoring chart based on what Mannye posted above, and plan to have crackers and cheese available besides water. I've just realised that I need to stock up on pens to make sure everyone has something to write with!

The mead tasting is at 3 pm. There's also a party happening at 7pm in the same place that night, so any leftovers should be taken care of. :)

For those following carefully along at home (why?!), the meads I'm going to bring are:

* CDB #4, Wildflower Trad (I expect it to be bad, but bland)
* CDB #5, Dry Metheglin ( I at least look forward to this one)
* CDB #6, Hop Metheglin (Did it ever carbonate?!)
* CDB #8, Apricot Melomel (Did it ever lose its burn?)
* CDB #10, Pear Ginger (Best thing I have ever made, I think. I expect this to win)
* CDB #9, Viking Bog (This Titanspawn of stars - I expect reactions to be anything but mild)

Myself, I'll also be looking at how any off flavours have mellowed, and how much of the honey flavour has returned.
 
Personally I would never serve something "I expect to be bad" unless it was to someone with enough experience an knowledge to help me figure out what to do to improve it.

I probably would set aside a couple of extra that I thought might be good. Then when I opened the bottle I would surreptitiously sneak a taste and if it wasn't good I'd grab another and set the first aside.

And it looks like you have the second half of my suggestion covered. When I do something like this, I usually arrange the mead tasting with nothing but some bread of bland crackers along with water to cleanse the palate and then prepare dinner to have afterwards where people can drink what they want.

Cheers
Jay
 
The tasting went well. I had 5 tasters, in the end, and went in the order above. I had an old cheddar and a bland gouda, along with plain crackers to nibble on.

I haven't had a chance to sit down and go through the score sheets, but there was a general consensus that Viking Bog is the one I should enter at Kscope if I want to place highly. Opinions on favourites differed, mostly settling on the last three.

I'll try to sit down and post tasting notes on all six on their individual brewlog entries some time soon.

The Viking Bog was the only one the tasters liked enough to ask for seconds of. We drank it all before we broke for dinner. The rest of the mead got consumed during the party that followed.
 
Told you hed know enjoy your mead, have found several sources locally to buy it...vanilla mead nom nom nom. From what I see you just pop a whole vanilla pod? in the bottle leave and enjoy when infused
 
Kamabnogs said:
Told you hed know enjoy your mead, have found several sources locally to buy it...vanilla mead nom nom nom. From what I see you just pop a whole vanilla pod? in the bottle leave and enjoy when infused
Click to expand...

Hey bud, welcome to the forum. Look at when the last post was made before you drag up a thread that has been dead for over 4 years. These guys aren't even around anymore.
 
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