Ask the Meadmaker Ep. 63 – Basic Gurus

Groennfell Meadery Ask The Meadmaker
06/11/2016 2:00pm 3 minute read

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In which Ricky the Meadmaker is rather star-struck.

TRANSCRIPT

Ricky Klein

Welcome to Ask the Meadmaker, where I, Ricky the Meadmaker, usually answer your questions about mead making, mead drinking, mead brewing, and really any question you're willing to send to me, but not this week. This week, I am in sunny Baltimore at the national home brewers' conference, and I ran into two of the most important people in the world. They are important to me, because all of you send me your questions every week and I have been so happy to answer them. But I want to introduce the two people that taught me to brew. A decade ago, when I was learning to brew, I came across a video with these two young men in it. I want them to introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about what they do.

James Spencer

Well, Ricky, I'm James Spencer, and I, along with my friend Steve Wilkes, have started Basic Brewing, Basic Brewing Radio, Basic Brewing Video, and our DVDs as well, and we've been doing this stuff for 11 years.

Ricky Klein

I wasn't even allowed to drink 11 years ago.

James Spencer

You may not be allowed to drink now, depending on what Kelly says.

Steve Wilkes

There you go. So, we started we started bringing in 1995.

James Spencer

Somewhere around there. '96?

Steve Wilkes

Yeah, '95 or '96. We've been brewing a long time. We finally started doing it professionally, you might say, and I'm glad that you appreciate what we did.

Ricky Klein

Absolutely.

James Spencer

We got to meet Ricky in person when he was just a lad, about what? Seven years ago.

Ricky Klein

Yup.

James Spencer

He brought us some beers that had a lot of honey in it. Braggots, and nearly braggots, and things like that, and they were really delicious. And now here we are, we're in Baltimore and we get an email from Ricky. And now he's the owner of two meaderies and the Mead Hall and all this stuff. And he brings us these meads that are some of the best commercial meads I've ever had in my life. They're extremely drinkable. They have interesting flavors. They won't knock you on your butt because they're not high-gravity meads. So awesome. The only question I have to ask is when are you going to start distributing in Arkansas where we live?

Ricky Klein

We're working on it. And that's the end of our show. I don't have a word of the week this week because other Ricky is still in Vermont. So, thank you guys. Keep sending your questions and I'll get to them as soon as possible. Cheers.

James Spencer

Happy brewing.

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Popping my Cherry Psychopomp

Psychopomp is a sleeper hit. I usually am a chad normal honey mead enjoyer without adding a lot of stuff to it, but Psychopomp is definitely pretty good even for someone like me.

Lookers: Cool looking ruby red color with carbonation bubbles clinging to my Glencairn glass. Smellers: Strong tart sour cherry smell, but not overpowering or potent, just a nice cherry tickle in my schnozzle. Tasters: Smooth tart sour cherry in a nice balanced manner. The cherry smoothly slides up in your DM's and is like nah bro no strong alcohol nail polish taste with me, here have so of this sour tart cherry now with some carbonation tickles. Then we will end this dance with some extra sour on the finish. I couldn't really taste honey, but I could feel its essence.

I wish there was a bit more of a honey flavor but others have mentioned tasting the honey, it also might be the fact I drink everything cold. Overall, it is pretty good and that is from someone who does not really care for cherry, or flavored meads for that matter. If you like tart sour cherry then you will definitely like it.

Using my Valkyrie's Voice to review this Valkyrie's Choice

Intro - Valkyrie's Choice was probably the first of Groennfell's craft mead lineup I tried many years ago from the variety case. It was immediately one of my favorites for the price, with Old Wayfarer taking first place. However, I do not know if the formula changed over time if my tastes changed, or if I am remembering wrong because it's not quite the same now as it was back then. With that said even though it's different it does taste cleaner, probably due to them no longer using sulfates and the like.

Lookers - Valkyrie's Choice has a very pretty golden wheat appearance that is much lighter than Old Wayfarer, it reminds me of a Moscato wine appearance. It is a little bit misty yet you can almost look through it, and a slight amount of carbonation bubbles cling to the side of my glass.

Sniffers - The aroma is hard to pick up on, especially with the liquid being cold, as well as my air leaving my nose dry and sad, making it even harder to pick up any smell. It has a very subtle honey smell (who would have guessed) and not much else, I could not even smell any alcohol which is good.

Tasters - Smooth and crisp honey flavor with a slight fizzle in the mouth like it's giving a little hello how are you to me. The honey flavor is very light especially if you are used to "full" bottled mead's, but still nice and honey in my tummy feeling. There is a strange other cereal grainy flavor in there somewhere, but still enjoyable. It is very smooth as I barely pick up any alcohol taste. A faint but obvious fizzy taste tickles my tongue like it is giving me a goochy goochy goo. The aftertaste is a stronger honey flavor and the other mentioned flavor is gone.

Conclusion - If you are like me and you enjoy pure honey flavor mead more than wacky mead flavors like blueberry mead (if mead was supposed to be blueberry flavored then Bee's would be blue :p) then you will like Valkyrie's Choice by Groennfell Meadery. Just keep in mind if you are new to these types of craft mead's that they are much lighter than "full" mead's you would find in a bottle, so do not expect a honey elemental to pop out and slap you across the face.

With that said I do wish it had a stronger honey flavor as it is pretty mild, so you might prefer something with a bit more honey flavor along with a bit extra flavor such as Old Wayfarer or Hop Swarm both of which are in my opinion stronger honey flavors with other additional flavors but don't tilt to the dark side of cherry/blueberry mead. It is still pretty good and worth a try though, the old Barrel Aged Valkyrie's choice was a better version but the new iteration which is Shieldmaiden was much worse (the original release), however I have not tried the new Shieldmaiden formula so take that opinion with a grain of salt.

Fire on Snow

Nice balance of the cinnamon and vanilla. The heat from the peppers isn't very strong. Color reminds me of some of the meads I've tried when I first started drinking mead

SKOLL !

The perfect mead to ride our current epic California storms. This Crisp, refreshing mead has helped me ward off cabin fever and focus on better weather ahead. I'm saving the majority of my order for springtime frolicking in fields of green grass.

Oh sweet mysyery of life at last I've found you!

I love Nordic Farmhouse so much I would marry it! My favorite flavor profiles are sour and sweet, and this festive mead is very refreshingly tart! I especially love to drink it and serve it to my guests at the cranberry holidays (ie. Thanksgiving and Solstice/Christmas)!

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