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7 best meads
This ancient tipple is making a comeback, so we've rounded up the finest honey-wines available in the UK
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Your support makes all the difference.The ancient booze of mead suffers a bit of an image problem over here in the UK, having long been perceived as an olde-worlde, hobbity beverage – the drink of choice for folks with a penchant for sandal and sock combos and an unhealthy interest in battle re-enactments.
It’s a different story in the US, where the small but fast-growing mead scene attracts a feverish following, and – keen to get their sticky fingers on the honey pot – many of the hip US breweries have added the beer/mead combo known as ‘braggot’ to their booze portfolios.
The big-hitting US meads are tricky to source over here in the UK, but fortunately there’s a handful of established meaderies (and a few young upstarts) producing some fine honey boozes to satisfy the most demanding mead-head.
Here are seven of the best, but before we raise our flagons, a word of caution: mead is notorious for gifting the overzealous imbiber with monumental hangovers, so don't set about it like a Viking on shore leave. Sip it with the reverence it deserves.
1. Mab Mead Hounds Of Annwn, 14%: £22.99 for 750 ml, Beer Hawk
Caerphilly's Mabinogion and Arizona's Superstition meaderies are the hive-mind behind this spectacular Anglo-American meady mash-up. It’s a complex, multi-layered booze – heavy strawberry on the nose, followed by sweet notes of vanilla and honey blossom with a crisp, palate-slapping acidity to finish.
2. Lancashire Skadi Mead, 17%: £15 for 750 ml, The Lancashire Mead Company
This Bolton-based meadery produces a pantheon of meads to suit all palates, all of which bear the names of different Norse Gods. Their finest tipple is named after Skadi, the goddess of bow hunting, winter pursuits and – going by the ABV on the bottle – hangovers. It’s a seemingly innocuous golden mead, super silky and herbaceous with a rousing boozy finish.
3. Gosnells London Mead, 5.5%: £24 for 6 x 330 ml, Craved
If you were looking for a purveyor of tasty, medievally-inspired beverages, Peckham might not be your first port of call, but from this small backstreet warehouse comes something sweet. A speedy, 10-day fermentation process results in this light, bright bee-borne booze with a long honey-coated, floral aftertaste.
4. Omnipollo Magic 1.618, 6.5%: £8.23 for 330ml, Beer Hawk
Swedish beer heroes Omnipollo have pillaged their Viking heritage to create this experimental, small batch, honey-infused booze. Made with the addition of grapefruit, hops and honey, it pours clear, bright and sparkling, and delivers huge amounts of citrus and resinous pine, tempered by a silky honey sweetness. Pricey, but a real treat.
5. Lyme Bay Christmas Mead, 10%: £8.29 for 750 ml, Lyme Bay Winery
A spice-rich, smooth-sipping mead, tasting of figgy pudding, Christmas cake and all things festive. Winter mead-suppers of yore used to plunge hot pokers into their tankards – for the modern equivalent, bung a mug of this in your microwave to create a toasty tipple to warm your cockles.
6. Lindisfarne Mead, 14.5%: £9.95 for 750ml, St Aidan's Winery
A toothsome treat, cooked up by the monastic mead makers of Lindisfarne Island. This holy tipple is made the Roman way and bolstered with grape juice, resulting in a silky-slick mead with a herby, vinous quality. Look out for their new ‘dark’ mead – not currently available online, but if you leg it over the causeway at low tide, you can grab a bottle from the island shop.
7. Cornish Mead Co. Blackberry Mead, 17%: £8.50 for 750 ml, Morrisons
Mead devotees will tell you that the correct term for a fruity mead is a “melomel”. This one is a marvellous, jammy concoction with massive hits of blackberry and dark, juicy fruits. Not too sweet, with a slight berry acidity balanced by subtle honey notes. Imagine a distilled fruits of the forest yogurt, and you’re almost there.
The Verdict: Mead
For a sublime modern twist on this most ancient of drinks, make a beeline for the Mab mead. Apian-obsessives will also delight in the QR code on the bottle which reveals the hive location and pollen sources of the bees that helped make your tasty booze.
Richard Hood and Nick Moyle are the Two Thirsty Gardeners. Their book, Brew it Yourself, is out now.