Sour Meads Have Been An Unexpected Boon For Mead Lovers

In 2020, after our move to Smyrna, we famously struggled with a infection in the brewing process. Our investigation took months as each usual suspect was eliminated. We collaborated with Scofflaw Brewing who labs that they could do the testing. What we found was a happy little lacto bacillus living in about 6,00 gallons of mead. Harmless, but not as expected. Lacto is a common bacteria in brewing.

Though we found the answer, we had still not found the source. As unlikely as it was, we found that the infection came from the honey itself - which is incredibly rare.

Unplanned, we had stumbled onto an entirely new style of mead - Sours. The base mead has a distinct flavor to it. Far less sweet and a little tart. What should have been Solifaction, our base mead, was something completely new. After more than a year of work and testing, Sour meads have become staple of the Viking Alchemist.

In 2022, we created a unique mead to celebrate the innovation and offer the market something different. Enter Cha-Cha-Cherry Bomb. The mead was crafted as an homage to the shear randomness of life and how sometimes things work out and you win the jackpot. With cherry, mango and habenero, the Sour mead is a journey in itself.

But bringing a mead to market means more than just the taste. We also have to name it and create a label. While all labels are equal, some are more equal than others! Most of them are designed by Tamara, and this one deserves a shout out.

Each symbol on the label has a meaning whether a flavor, an ingredient or a life outcome. When they line up, you win! We chose a 70's illustration style for the label, alluding to the hit "Cherry Bomb" written by Joan Jett (Hero!) for the The Runaways. A surprise hit, too!

You may just enjoy the mead or even enjoy the label. But that label tells a story that has become lore in our family. Today, the meadery is producing more than a half dozen Sour meads regularly and has won awards for many of them. While mead lovers have embraced them, Sour meads have been even more popular with non-mead lovers who wanted something a little less sweet.

With Beer, We Bring On The Braggots!

After more than five years of making meads and ciders, the Alchemist is finally adding beers to the menu! These will not be usual, pedestrian beers… no! These will be special, unusual beers made with select honey to add our own, particular twist on beer. While Smyrna has only one other local brewery, we are fully aware that there is no shortage of exceptional beers around us. But nobody is doing what we plan to do… Our usual bit of mad science.

We have chosen to expand the operation by creating Mandatory Fun Beerworks, a Viking Alchemist Experiment. The mission for our beerworks will be to uncover beer secrets that can only be unlocked by adding honeys. While breweries have been adding ingredients and pushing hops to their limit to reveal floral notes and citrus flavor, there has been a distinct lack of honey-love! We’re going to fill that gap.

Our beers are twists that you cannot achieve with traditional brewing. So far, we have found the honeys to open up aromas and flavor profiles that can be either dramatic or delicate but always unique.

It’s worth trying every one of the beers we put on tap as we go, but the real story will be in braggots! With the addition of beer on tap, we can finally make our own braggots whenever and however we choose to. There will be no other location in Atlanta that has as many and as varied braggots as Smyrna!

Braggot
A blend of beer and mead. These are less common to find, locally, in any quantity. Some bars will create them on the fly by mixing mead and beer, but it’s not the same nor as intended. A proper braggot is the perfect balance of sweet honey, malty flavor and body, and a bit of hop bitterness.

Braggot’s, like cysers and ciders, can often be flavored with spices and other flavors creating a rich experience. A braggot keeps the best qualities of both beer and mead in perfect balance. If you see a braggot on a tap menu, definitely try it. They are fairly rare and worth it, almost every time.

Our Blood Stripe, for instance, is an Irish Red braggot with Brazilian Pepper honey. The honey is gathered from bees that have been pollinating pepper plants. It’s amazing how this small change in the source produces a completely different taste! What we are left with is a surprising spice coupled with the warm feel of honey.

The Alchemist supports exploration and curiosity. As such, we have started a DIY program for our Smyrna guests to make their own braggots. More than 16 meads on tap and 16 specialty beers that means… does some math, carry the one… a perfect 256 different braggots you can make!! And that’s just the start.

Each week, we will be rotating new beers into production and experimenting with more concoctions.

The Sour Mead: The Triumph of the 5 Flavors

Things change and nothing stays the same, no matter how much we want it to. As they say “when one door closes, another one opens.” This, however, was more like we were already in the doorway and then the door slammed shut, hit us in the face, sending us flying backward out of an open window and, finally, hitting the ground, knocking the wind out of us.

We were dazed, confused and defeated. But, once we recovered, we realized we had fallen into something new. Sour Meads? Why not! We had talked about doing it sometime in the future. And, like so many other plans, this on had been put off, delayed, and forgotten. Then, the Future gave us a Present. We were forced to change and adapt.

The Alchemist team went to work in earnest. Along with the first “regular” sour mead, we had already made Bliss, Ethereal and Skol before we knew about the souring, so we had plenty of raw material to work with.  We set ourselves a challenge to create a Tasting Flight of 5 new sours. Here’s what we imagined:

First, we combined the three sour Signatures to create Fruited Sour Mead (we’re working on the name). Very tasty and a good start.

Second. Who didn’t like Sweetarts as a kid (or adult)? We added Blueberry and Blackberry to our base sour mead and, voila!, Sweet Tart Mead!

Third. If you like Pina Coladas and getting caught with sour mead (now that song’s stuck in your head), then our Coconut and Pineapple mead might be your bag. We did name that one -  Malibu Tang Mead!

Fourth. We really stepped outside the box. Ok, we honestly don’t know where the box is, so getting creative wasn’t anything new. How about Plum, Juniper and Lime? That could be something. Festival of Dionysus Mead.

Fifth, and finally, let’s kick up the sour a little more. Take the tartness already in there, kick it up a notch with Blood Orange and Grapefruit, then add a little Habanero to make it more interesting and, BAM! Surt’s Lava Mead.

This was a Triumph! Huge success!

Five new flavors to start our Sour Mead journey. The tartness of the base mead let us experiment and combine flavors we hadn’t tried before with great results. What had started out 6 months ago as an existential disaster had turned into an opportunity we had never really imagined. And we’ve only just begun.

So, what have we learned?

Sometimes Lady Opportunity knocks (or punches you in the face) and Mother Necessity takes over.  They take you on An Unexpected Journey and, if you’re very clever – and really stubborn – you might learn something and end up with something new and exceptional.

In the end it all worked out for our quiet, humble barrel of honey. What seemed like an exceptionally ordinary barrel turned out to be the hero of the meadery. The trip was exciting and fun - kind of.

And, if someday you find yourself on your Unexpected Journey, it’s best if you don’t go alone. Maybe bring a towel. But that is a story for another day, and another unexpected hero.

The Sour Mead: The Desolation of Lacto

…As recounted by the Alchemist

It’s a lovely morning at the Mead hall and the drums of honey are hot. The heating bands have been on them since yesterday, turning the older crystalized honey into a sticky soup of piping hot honey that will run through my pump. It was the first time putting a batch of this honey into the new 30 bbl tanks I had commissioned, and I was excited to see how they performed.  We had finally said goodbye to our trusty 15 bbl tank and replaced it with two 30 bbl tanks as we ventured into new territory.

It was uneventful, which was exactly what I was hoping for. This batch really needed to be perfect or we were not going to be able to meet our orders, next month. The tanks were sanitized per our established procedures and rituals. In all this time, the honey has never been a source of infection, due to its antimicrobial nature.  Everything was going along as usual, except now the batch was twice our usual size.

Once the batch was fully mixed and the yeast pitched, I left it to begin its magical transformation. Little did I know that deep in the dark confines of that stainless steel vessel more than just yeast was multiplying and consuming nutrients. A strain of Lactobacillus had come along for the ride and now found itself in a most hospitable environment.

The Lacto didn’t announce its presence for several weeks into fermentation when its souring waste products began to make their presence known to my tastes and alert me to this malfeasance present in my brew. By this point it was too late to affect the outcome and now I had a problem on my hands.

“How can I get rid of this robust bacteria feeding on my mead?”

I didn’t have the ability to deal with the problem directly, as the typical course to handle such a problem would be to hold the batch above 180F for several hours to kill off the heat-resistant intruders. I do not have a brew house or any other means to heat 1,000 gallons of any liquid to that temperature, so I had to turn to more creative means.

I had 2 problems to solve: First, I had to figure out a way to kill the microscopic gremlins currently present in our mead.  Second, I needed to find the root cause of the problem. Where did these interlopers come from? How can I ensure this event does not repeat? At least not unexpectedly.  

Honey is anti-microbial so, of course, that couldn’t be the source. Not only that, I heated the honey so I didn’t consider it likely that it was the provider of our microscopic hitchhikers. Was it the new (to me) tanks? The previous owner had mentioned they made sours, so perhaps we just didn’t do a good enough job scrubbing the tanks? Perhaps this would be the source of our infection. There was also some concern about the city water supply, as they had just had to do work on the water main supplying our building. Could this be the source of our woes? 

Armed with this knowledge we scrubbed the hell out of the tank and even hooked up a steam system to sanitize the tank. We upgraded our water filtration system and put it in service. Then, armed with new resources, I heated up another batch of honey and mixed it into the wort of a new batch.

That is when bad went to worse.

Not only did the sour happen again, it happened faster causing the entire ferment to accelerate. Now we have 2,000 gallons of sour mead and no reasonable explanation for why. So, having excluded all reasonable sources I had to consider the “unreasonable” idea that the honey, even heated, could have been the source of the infection.  

We needed to test the honey, so we reached out to our friends at Scofflaw Brewing who graciously agreed to help us out. We brought them samples of the honey which they tested in their lab. Sure enough, they found the infection and identified our unexpected guest. It was lactobacillus. We found the problem; now how do we fix it?

Like we always do: With Science and Creativity!  We had been using ozone in the air to kill unwanted bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms (including Covid) for years.  Will it work in liquid? Mead is a remarkably stable drink in the presence of oxygen so after some correspondence with the owner of an ozone machine manufacturing company for the beverage industry, we concluded that it was worth a try.

It worked! I added ozone directly to the batch like I was running a CIP procedure and it killed everything! Not only that, when I took samples out to our staff and regular customers, they tended to prefer the batch that was processed with ozone.

What a relief.

We now use Ozone as part of our standard mead making process.  As an added bonus, when used on the fresh must, to wipe the slate clean before I inoculate with my own yeast strain, it all breaks down into O2 which makes the yeast very happy.  They multiply more rapidly and, so far, it seems that I can knock an entire week off the ferment time.  A Win-Win.

Now here I am with almost 2,000 gallons of lovely – and stable – sour mead that we can’t use in any of our current products.  What to do? What to do? Oh Bother, what to do?

Stay tuned…

The Sour Mead: An Unexpected Journey

In a hole in the ground there lived a…

No. Sorry, wrong Journey.

In the back of the Meadery there was a drum.

Not some old dirty drum, just sitting around getting nasty. This drum was filled with honey. Beautiful, golden, sweet honey. All thick and gooey, just waiting to become Mead like all the other drums around it. There were a lot of drums of beautiful honey, so this drum waited patiently for its turn, idly passing the days by itself. Or, so we thought.

You see, honey has a superpower. Nasties can’t grow in it. Yeast, bacteria and other stray microbes can’t live in honey because it is so thick and gooey. Normally, honey has a moisture content of 15-17% which is very low and very unfriendly to the little organisms that can cause trouble. Normally. 

Sometimes, the honey the bees give us needs a little help, so the beekeeper usually dries the honey to the proper moisture content. Usually. 

Most of the time, if the moisture content is a bit high it doesn’t matter too much if it is used right away and mixed with other drums. Most of the time.

This drum of beautiful, golden, sweet honey was not as thick and gooey as it should have been. It was… moist. Not too moist, mind you. But moist enough. Sitting quietly, waiting patiently our little drum made a friend. In fact, it made lots of friends and they all had the same name: Lactobacillus.

And the drum kept its new friends a secret.

Finally, the day came and our hero was going to be made into Mead. Along with some of its drum friends, a bunch of water and some yeast our barrel started on his Journey. An Expected Journey to a destination we all knew and loved. And, in our brand new tanks! 

This was to be our first batch of 1,000 gallons of delicious Mead. It was going to be great – until it wasn’t. The drum’s secret friends woke up and got to work. When the batch was done we tasted it and were… surprised. The yeast had made defiantly “mead.” But the secret Lacto had made it sour. This was not good.

And, so, we set off on a VERY Unexpected Journey.

The Alchemist will take it from here…

Recent Posts

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Is a Sour Mead for you?

Sour beers are experiencing a massive explosion in the US as consumers discover a new way to enjoy beer that isn’t just another IPA or stout. You can now find sours in most creative breweries, but the concept has yet to hit the other fermented industries like mead and cider. While we have been experimenting with mead varieties for years, we had not considered nor tried a sour mead. No reason, really. It just wasn’t on our radar. Until last year.

Purely by coincidence, one of our batches got contaminated with a strain of Lactobacillus (an entirely different story which we will cover) which led to a flavor profile unique and unusual. In the beer world, sour beers typically taste very little like their traditional cousins, with the exception of Gose and Berliner Weisse, which are more like kissing cousins to a Pilsner. The lacto bacteria changes the profile so deeply and then, with the addition of fruits, the beer is more like a cocktail than what most Americans would call a “beer.“

And… Sour beers are amazing! Deep flavor profiles, experimental ingredients, wild names… Sour beer is what we needed to kick it up a notch. And as much as these flavors changed the world of beer, sour mead is poised to do the same thing for our category.

Consider the ideal flavor profile of a mead. Smooth bodied, rich undertones, warm with a residual sweetness that even the driest of meads still retains. In wine parlance, it is closest to a Riesling. If you have tried to describe mead to a friend, it’s a challenge (we even made a guide for that: How to Explain Mead to a Friend). Good luck explaining a sour mead.

So… What should you be looking for? What should you expect?

A good sour mead is going to keep ALL of the best traits of a melomel. There is a smooth body, a warm feel with light fruit flavor. But the underlying sweetness is complemented with a tartness. Sour is a misnomer.. It’s not so much sour as less sweet or slightly tart. This additional flavor profile makes the sour mead far more complex and lets other flavors come forward that might otherwise be overwhelmed by the sweet character.

Starting with this firm foundation, we have been able to add unusual and creative combinations of fruit that might never go well with a traditional mead. And these are not session meads. All the sours have been fermented to 11% ABV delivering a pretty powerful kick despite their funky fruit flavor.

If you are someone who leans towards the drier meads and shies away from sweet, sours may be in your future. This winter, we have perfected 5 flavors and plan to keep expanding throughout the year.

Fruited Sour Mead - A combination of cherry, peach, pear.

Sweet Tart Mead - Blueberry and blackberry Sour mead

Malibu Tang Mead - Coconut, pineapple sour mead

Festival of Dionysia Mead - The God of Wine’s personal mead of Plum, Juniper, and Lime sour mead

Surt's Lava Mead - Blood Orange, Grapefruit, Habanero sour mead

This is still experimental! We are looking for feedback and thoughts from our fans. This Winter, you can try any of these meads at our tap rooms. Please share your opinions with our staff. Let us know what you prefer and what you’d like to see. The alchemist is experimenting and he wants your input!

Bring Back the Honeymoon Tradition!

The term “honeymoon” is rooted to the European tradition of giving a newlywed couple a gift of a month of mead. Long before a honeymoon became synonymous with a vacation getaway, European cultures were treating the first month of marriage as a vital step toward a fertile union.

Arranged marriages were the norm among nobles as well as the common folk in many cultures for millennia. Along with the hand of the bride, the bride's family was expected to make an offering to the new couple. Usually a dowry – cash, land, a goat – but a common accompaniment was a healthy serving of mead. This tradition can be documented as far back as the 5th century and likely goes back much further.“

One mon’s worth” was the typical measure of the gift. For so many reasons, this makes sense. Particularly when you consider that the goal was… offspring. For the new, probably awkward, couple, a few drinks made things a little lighter and easier. In moderation, of course. In addition to relaxation, mead was considered an aphrodisiac generating a bit more enthusiasm from both parties.

Ideally, the couple exited their first month with child, soon to be ready to take on the grand task of plowing the fields and tending the animals. While it may seem more utility than celebration, it was a fun tradition. That first month of marriage is an important time for a new couple and should be as happy and stress-free as possible. The gift of honey reflected this sentiment and sought to cement their future together.

Our modern word has its roots in old English “Hony Moone,” documented back to the 1500’s. There is writing that speaks to a cautionary tale for newlyweds, warning them of the frailty of love in the passing of time, encouraging the couple to enjoy this moment and celebrate. Like many traditions, this interpretation is likely a medieval twist of the even earlier traditions to align it closer to the beliefs of the time. And, much like the earliest honeymoons, today’s culture treats this beginning as a joyous occasion, special to the couple, though fleeting.

Bring It Back!

With over 200 meaderies in the US, today, it is easy to bring the Honeymoon tradition back to its roots. No matter where you live you can probably find some mead in your liquor store. Better yet, google a meadery nearby and get it right from the source. And, when all else fails, you can buy it online. No excuses!

Many people struggle to find the right gift for a friend or family, but it’s staring you right in the face! Sure, you can get the flatware and give a check, but how cool would you be if you gave them some mead! Bring back a tradition that was so perfectly brilliant that it has lasted millennia, barely changed. Along with your gift, you can impress them with your deep knowledge about early cultures and traditions.

This year, we’ve offered a limited-time package of two of our fan-favorite meads: Harmony and Bliss. Though this was our holiday seasonal bundle, it also makes for a great wedding gift!

And why limit the Honeymoon to just marriage? What about other big life events? Major anniversaries and birthdays, housewarming, birth of a child (clearly, the honeymoon worked!), you name it. Think creatively! The Honeymoon gift isn’t just for marriage… it’s that fleeting moment in time that is perfect and fragile and should be celebrated. They should toast to it with the most ancient of drinks.

Rebooting Mead for a Modern Society

We’re not sure why mead hasn’t gotten as much attention as the Paleo diet, but it should!

It’s the same idea… going back to our roots when things were simpler and less industrialized, Our ancestors (brilliant partiers, it must be added) stumbled upon mead by accident and found a great way to smooth over the rough edges of a hard day of hunting and gathering. This is before the days of true agriculture, when much of what was used by humans was found in the wild.

How Did Mead Get Started?
in the simplest terms, mead is fermented honey and water. Yeast, occurring naturally, invades some wet honey and creates an alcohol. There is no question that this was a surprising and, probably, really weird find. But it was so popular that every culture, worldwide, discovered and later fermented mead. There weren’t many other options available to get on a good buzz without killing yourself. So this naturally occurring alcohol became the preferred drink of our ancestral partiers.

It Was Everywhere
Since honeybees exist across the world, there was an easy source of honey that every culture would have access to and be able to harvest. Once an enterprising villager figured out how honey fermented, it was easy to replicate. Granted, it might not have tasted amazing, at first, but it was alcohol! Every village wanted a little more party, and the bees were happy to help.

Mead at the Center
Over millennia, mead making became the center of festivities capturing the label “Nectar of the Gods.” While many westerners associate mead with the Vikings, it was not exclusive to them. This association is simply a by-product of western literature, documenting the mead halls, cups and horns with the Norse. Mead was everywhere, being perfected and refined.

Wait… We Can Make It Better?
Like all things… Mead makers sought to improved their product, adding more ingredients, refining their yeasts, creating more consistency. Enter the Melomel, a mead brewed with fruits and berries. The first branch of meads offered new flavors and unique profiles that would be different by region and season. Much like bread, there was suddenly an infinite variety on the basic recipe. The Melomel is likely the first mead a modern enthusiast will try. Most of these recipes have been lost or changed dramatically over the centuries.

Every Empire Must Fall… Even Mead
Given how foundational mead is, it is a curiosity as to why it isn’t more popular. The answer is simple: Industrialized Agriculture. Grains and grapes can be grown faster and cheaper than honey can be harvested. Once beer and wine were invented, mead became an expensive luxury in most regions, restricted to particular circles. Even today, it is more expensive to create mead than it is to create cider or most wine (think 2 buck chuck). So mead faded to the ages.

What kept It Alive?
Truth is, it never really left. There were always cultures or sub-societies that kept making mead. The monks during the medieval times were famous for their apiaries. But even they reduced their enthusiasm when they discovered how much easier beer is to produce. Throughout time, though, there has always been an affinity for mead because of its focus on simplicity and natural ingredients.

Today, mead is experiencing a renaissance because of the connection to nature and cleaner living that many modern drinkers have embraced. As people learn more about mead, they become more enchanted with the idea.

Mead for the Modern Palette
Meaderies today have been creating spectacular flavors that our ancestors could only have imagined. In a good meadery, you will find a breadth of profiles ranging from sweet to dry. The most modern addition has been carbonation. Sparkling meads are truly a modern invention, offering an effervescent experience impossible with traditional methods. It’s these explorations that have updated the drink and made it not just accessible but preferable to a wide audience. 

Some meaderies have been experimenting with ancient recipes. Our label “Sir Digby’s Senility", for instance, is based upon a very old English recipe from The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened (1669) a renowned collection of mead recipes. The original mead recipe from Sir Digby included ginger and a strong rosemary flavor and aroma. After aging for over a year, our version of Sir Digby's has mellowed, with the ginger being far more subdued and the rosemary more subtle, as a background note, present but not overpowering.

It’s difficult to know what the original would have tasted like, as almost all herbs today have been cultivated, but it is an intriguing peek into the past. Additionally, many meads of the past were treated as medicines, having stronger astringent flavors we would not enjoy today.

Finding a Meadery Near You
There are currently about 200 meaderies in the US, today. It is very likely there is one near you that you can go and visit. The culture is one of enthusiastic education with professionals who would love to tell you about their craft. Ask about the history, the process and how they got into it. Most meaderies are also sourcing local ingredients, helping to support your community. When you buy mead, you are keeping a tradition going that has been with us for over 5,000 years. It is as close as you will ever come to walking in your ancestors shoes and tasting what they tasted.

Would You Like to Learn More?
There is a growing online community around mead. If you’re interested in learning more about mead and building your own personal palette, we suggest Got Mead.

How to Explain Mead to Your Friends

First of all… It’s mead, not meat.
As much as we might want one, there is no such thing as a meatery.

This is, surprisingly, the first hurdle and may take a few tries. Once you get over that, though, you still have to describe what mead is, what it’s like and what to expect. Let’s start off with the basic assumptions, assuming they’ve heard of it:

“Mead.. that really sweet stuff they have at Renaissance festivals, right?”

“It’s like… a super sweet wine?”

“Game of thrones… that’s all I know”

Those are all terrible examples and you have your work cut out for you. You can power through this. You could take a few different approaches, depending on who you’re talking to. Remember, you’re trying to explain an experience to someone… it’s like trying to explain a color. It might help to think about what your friend will care about.

Your Logical Friend
It’s a brew made from honey, yeast and water. Some call it honeywine, but it’s not sweet like honey or even a wine. It’s an alcoholic drink that is very light, smooth and semi-sweet. It can also have fruit and berry flavors… It’s not syrupy or too sweet. Typically, about 11% alcohol - which is quite a kick. If you like cider, you’d love mead.
You have to try this….

Your Experimental Friend
This is the next thing. Remember when West Coast IPAs were a big thing and suddenly everyone was trying them? It’s like that. Mead is way ahead of the curve and truly a unique taste. Think… light, clean, crisp… then throw in your favorite fruit flavors. Picture cranberries, blueberries, peaches, cherries… anything you can imagine! If you want to get away from the same old things, mead is going to be it.
You have to try this….

Your Lover
This is where the term Honeymoon comes from! A newlywed couple would get enough mead to keep them loaded for a month. Not saying this made a lot of kids, but I’m not NOT saying that either. There is nothing more romantic than a bottle of mead under the stars.
You have to try this….

Your Distracted Friend
Yes, it’s made with honey. No, it’s not as sweet as you think. Yes, it is high in alcohol. I dunno, man, like 18 different kinds? Light. Refreshing.
Look, just try this...

Your Healthy Friend
You know how wine gives you a headache and beer makes you feel bloated? Mead is so much better. It’s all-natural, gluten free, made with local honey. You sip it, not quaff it. This is the go-to alcohol if you want to get closer to nature. That means supporting honeybees. You don’t hate the honeybees, right?
You have to try this….

Your History Channel Friend
Mead is the oldest alcoholic beverage known to mankind. Every culture discovered mead, independently, which is pretty amazing. It was the adult beverage for millennia, until agricultural societies took over and grain became easier and cheaper to ferment. But mead was the original. It’s like taking a walk through your history.
Just water, honey and yeast… that’s all it takes. After that, you can flavor it with all sorts of things. Not as sweet as you think, and a lot smoother.
You have to try this….

Whether they like sweet or dry, there is a mead for everyone. We’re on a mission to bring mead back to the table, helping everyone we know to reconnect with their roots and keep the ancient art alive. We think our meads are the best, but we encourage you to explore ALL meads. Treat yourself to something that has been a tradition for thousands and thousands of years and hasn’t changed. Water, honey and yeast… There is nothing more pure.

We hope this helps… It’s not easy, but we believe in you. Mead is a journey and we’re glad you’re on it with us.

Craft Also Means Consistency

The quest to find something new is at the heart of the craft industry. Customers and trade, alike, will go to lengths to uncover the new latest brew and have that rare opportunity to seize on on the latest trend. While there is always something new happening, it doesn’t mean things aren’t planned and scientific. Though there is this “experimental” vibe to craft, there comes a tipping point where creative decisions become business decisions. And this is where many craft brewers struggle - consistency.

For this conversation, we went to the source and spoke with Robin Kosoris, the OG alchemist. Robin had casually mentioned how the team makes decisions that help keep an all-natural, organic product consistent across 6 different meads, throughout the year. As expected, this is the biggest challenge the production team faces. Honey, for example, can be wildly different from region-to-region and season-to-season, and the same can be said for the fruit. And part of the success of any brand is meeting a customer’s expectations. The flavor they fell in love with must stay incredibly close, year-after-year.

Robin holds a simple philosophy: “To minimize the natural variation, we minimize the unnatural variation.” This thinking has led the meadery to focus, obsessively, on their ingredients. Eliminating chemicals, additives or anything else that can’t be identified, which can affect flavor in unexpected ways, and choosing, instead, the same all-natural ingredients from the same vendors, every time.

The positive happenstance of these decisions has been a wildly consistent product that is very consumer friendly: All-natural and locally sourced. Making good business decisions can be compatible with healthy, consumer-friendly products. They are not mutually exclusive ideas and, in our case, has been a foundation of the meadery.

All of this goes back to the challenge for craft. At some point, the experimentation has to meet a business goal which can be consistently repeated. Over time, these reliable labels come to make up 70-80% of a craft brewers work, allowing for explorations in the remaining time. But, like any business, true success comes from identifying what works, perfecting it and repeating that for as long as the consumer public enjoys it.

So, next time you lift a glass of Mangata or Bliss, think about the hard work that went into making that pour practically identical to every other pour. And enjoy!