Well, my fellow Meadiacs, it has been almost exactly a year since our very first real blog post. We had posted a few announcements about our location and logo and such, but on February 11th, 2013 we wrote our first article called, “What is Mead, Exactly?” which gave a basic overview of what makes mead, well… mead.
Since then we have covered dozens of topics about mead, its brewing, and the enjoying thereof. We also do bi-weekly Ask the Meadmaker segments now to help educate the populace about mead. We’ve had multiple newspaper articles about us and a television spot. We have had over 500 guests to the meadery since we opened to the public in October, so we’ve gotten to do a lot of one-on-one education, as well.
AND YET…
Approximately 3 out of 4 people we come in contact with have no idea what makes mead different from cider, wine, beer, or any other fermented beverage. We have, in fact, had a score of individuals think it’s a distilled product.
Let’s be honest, though, you don’t need to know what something is to enjoy it. It is unlikely that many people could make a hollandaise sauce from memory, but that doesn’t make eggs benedict any less incredible.
Yet knowing the basics of a food or beverage just adds that little extra something. An IPA is perhaps more enjoyable when one can speak coherently about the hop varietals (technically hop cultivar) used; a merlot is a merlot and not a shiraz only when you know a little about grapes; and mead takes on a whole new life when you can look for the subtle honey notes in a hydromel or talk about the characteristics of the fermentation of a show mead.
The truth is, we enjoy talking about mead almost as much as we enjoy drinking it. We feel that engaging people about the subtle characteristics in different styles of mead or in honey varietals helps them enjoy their beverage more, no matter whose mead it is.
We LOVE when people brew their own mead, because that often helps them develop an even deeper appreciation for it. This is why we’ve written so many homebrew oriented articles over the past year. But, if there’s a single thing we hope people take away from a full year of articles from Groennfell Meadery it’s this: Mead is made from honey.
Since then we have covered dozens of topics about mead, its brewing, and the enjoying thereof. We also do bi-weekly Ask the Meadmaker segments now to help educate the populace about mead. We’ve had multiple newspaper articles about us and a television spot. We have had over 500 guests to the meadery since we opened to the public in October, so we’ve gotten to do a lot of one-on-one education, as well.
AND YET…
Approximately 3 out of 4 people we come in contact with have no idea what makes mead different from cider, wine, beer, or any other fermented beverage. We have, in fact, had a score of individuals think it’s a distilled product.
Let’s be honest, though, you don’t need to know what something is to enjoy it. It is unlikely that many people could make a hollandaise sauce from memory, but that doesn’t make eggs benedict any less incredible.
Yet knowing the basics of a food or beverage just adds that little extra something. An IPA is perhaps more enjoyable when one can speak coherently about the hop varietals (technically hop cultivar) used; a merlot is a merlot and not a shiraz only when you know a little about grapes; and mead takes on a whole new life when you can look for the subtle honey notes in a hydromel or talk about the characteristics of the fermentation of a show mead.
The truth is, we enjoy talking about mead almost as much as we enjoy drinking it. We feel that engaging people about the subtle characteristics in different styles of mead or in honey varietals helps them enjoy their beverage more, no matter whose mead it is.
We LOVE when people brew their own mead, because that often helps them develop an even deeper appreciation for it. This is why we’ve written so many homebrew oriented articles over the past year. But, if there’s a single thing we hope people take away from a full year of articles from Groennfell Meadery it’s this: Mead is made from honey.
