Mead revival in US growing apace

Mead production looks likely to join the ranks of the craft drinks industry in the US as the number of meaderies in the country grows.

According to Vicky Rowe, owner of mead information site GotMead, the number of mead producers in the country in the last 10 years has rocketed from 30-40 to nearly 250.

Speaking to the BBC about the growing interest she said: “I like to say that everything old is new again – people come back to what was good once.”

Earlier this year, a large number of meaderies banded together to form the American Mead Makers Association.

The group states on its site that its immediate goals are to build its memebership and increase its presence at mead events, while longer term goals include the establishment of a certification programme and scientific research into mead production.

Rowe added that there are difficulties to overcome, namely the perception that mead is always sweet and, as the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau classifies mead as a wine, it has to be labelled “honey wine”, which perpetuates the image of mead as being sweet while not allowing it to be recognised as mead in the first place.

The craft beer industry has been credited with bringing about the interest in mead, as home brewers looked to create new products.

Brad Dahlhofer, owner of B Nektar meadery in Detroit Michigan, told the BBC he had taken to commercial mead making after being laid off when the Detroit motor industry crashed.

He now runs one of the most successful meaderies in the US shipping 1,100 cases a week across the country.

Another mead producer, Ben Alexander owner of Maine Mead, pointed out mead’s potential: “If you look at craft beer 25 years ago, they had 1% of the total beer market, and now they have 8%,” he said.

Produced from honey, mead is one of the earliest known alcoholic drinks with evidence for its production going back 7,000 years and is common to European, Asian, American and African cultures.

The Vikings in particular have an association with mead, a certain type of which was thought to turn the drinker into a seer – or wiseman.

There are also several different types of mead including Braggot (from the Welsh bragawd) which is very traditional and brewed with hops; Great Mead, which is designed for long ageing; Hydromel which is a very light mead and also the French name for the drink (derivatives of which are similar in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian also).

There are many meads which are also flavoured with various fruits and spices ranging from apples, cherries, blackcurrants and mulberries to rose petals and cinnamon.