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Why isn't mead more mainstream?

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BrewinNColorado said:
The other day while driving home from work and passing several wine stores, I started pondering why mead isn't more mainstream then what it presently is. With there being (to my knowledge) over 150 different meaderies in the U.S and around the world, why isn't mead more mainstream?

Could it be because of...

meaderies are small so don't have a marketing budget?
laws make it harder to market?
general public is more accustomed to wine and unwilling to try new products?
mead doesn't fit into how consumers are drinking wine?
Wine stores and restaurants are reluctant to add mead for whatever reason.
Or is there something else I missed?

The reason I ask is there are a large number of meaderies and a larger number of home brewers making mead. With that, one would think that there would be a larger variety of mead on the shelf and served in restaurants. When I go into the larger wine stores in my area, there are only a few local meads on the shelf and none of the restaurants serve mead. Is this true in your areas as well?

With the very limited selection, it is really difficult to try different meads, and I cannot bring myself to order online.

What are your thoughts on what we (home brewers) can do to change this?

Thanks!
Michael
Click to expand...

I think good mead is hard to make. i made 1 mead and 7 country wines. Pretty much all my country wines have potential for being decent. My mead???

Have had lots of mead from round the world. Most of it is crap. I trash it rather than drink it. With fruit wines they are much easier to make.

I guess same can be said for counrty wines too. Why are they not more mainstream, even though they are easier to make?
 
I've recently had quite a bit of mead, both commercial and home made, and the majority of it certainly was not crap (some was though...)! There's a big difference between meads that fit our own personal tastes and "good vs bad", totally different things.

Most of the meads I tasted were somewhere between good and excellent quality (I had the happy chance to try well over 100 meads on this wonderful occasion) - but the number of ones that fit my personal tastes? Maybe 5% were the kind of mead that I would like to taste.

That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the others, just that I don't like them personally.

EDIT: The point to that was that it's actually not that hard to make good mead - if you have advice from people on this website and follow their advice, you can make great mead on your first try. If you keep winging it, or using outdated processes, or don't properly understand/follow the data you get from your ferment... then yes it can indeed be difficult to make.
 
One problem for certain consumers like myself is when you have fairly narrow tastes. I don't like spiced meads (unless it's extremely subtle, and it had better not be clove!), I don't like any sweetness in a mead unless it's got loads of acidity and tanning (KSchramm's HOD is a good example of a sweet mead I actually liked). This vastly narrows down the amount of mead a person can enjoy that others make, frankly I wish I liked more sweet meads!

I think keepitlow has near opposite taste to mine. From what I remember he likes a darker (I like darker) thick sweet mead like Moniack (spelling?), so a lot of what's out there might not be to his personal preferance.
 
keepitlow said:
I guess same can be said for counrty wines too. Why are they not more mainstream, even though they are easier to make?
Click to expand...

That one's simple - because grapes are the standard around which most research has been done and most equipment and procedures have been developed. Perhaps compared to mead, fruit wines are easier to get right, but compared to making grape wines, fruit wines are a lot more finicky in the fruit handling AND you have to add sugar as well which is an added step that grape wineries don't have to deal with... my $.02 anyway...
 
Mainsteam in Boulder?

Well this past weekend I was super lucky to get to visit Redstone Meadey. It was PACKED!

I did get a pic with the Owner and I sampled everything he had. We talked a little about yeast and whatnot and even about his Cyser.

I bought almost $200 worth of Mead and was super happy to have gotten to meet a meader who went Pro.

I must say, looking at the crowd who was there, and the amount of Mead purchased, that at least in this part of Boulder, Mead is very much alive!

I'll post a pic when my daughter gets the picture downloaded.

Mike
 
Ok as promised here is a pic of David and I. Like I said, the place was super busy, and David was all by himself, but he still had time for EVERYONE that was there. He answered questions patiently and was a superb host. I have been all around the world and have been to many a winery and brewery, but I must say, David surpassed all of them with his winning smile and personality..and great mead!

I would venture a guess that if all of the commercial meaderies are like this one, then by word of mouth alone mead will become more mainstream.

DSCN2149.jpg
 
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