Making Mead

What’s better than honey? Alcohol. But why not have both? Ryan and I could never answer that question. So in 2007 we started making mead, also known as honey wine. Since then, we’ve made 125 gallons of the brew in more than 20 different varieties, using about 400 pounds of honey. My room and our kitchen have become a nanobrewery and I’m pretty sure my friends only pretend to like me because of the mead. Eli distilled the 5 hours of one of our recent mead making adventures into 102 seconds:

Keep reading for the full flavor.

Unlike beer, mead needs to age for at least a year to achieve a smooth, mature flavor. Meads can be very sweet like a dessert wine, dry like a Sauvignon Blanc, still like a Malbec or carbonated like a champagne. They can be simple, brewed with just honey, yeast and water or complex with the addition of fruits, spices, syrups or any number of other ingredients. Some of our favorite meads thus far have been brewed with mangos, fresh mint leaves, 100% blueberry juice and sweet Bradford pears. In the next 12 months we’ll be bottling pineapple, strawberry, vanilla, chai tea and prickly pear meads among many others. The prickly pear mead was brewed with more than 10 pounds of prickly pear cactus fruit picked from multiple rustic Colorado locations, including Shelf Road.

Ryan bottling our new Dry Wildflower Mead

The type of honey used makes a major impact on the final flavor of the mead. Though most of the sugars in honey are fermented into alcohol by yeast, the unique composition of each kind results in complex undertones that dictate the characteristic flavor of the particular mead. We’ve used very dark honey varieties like Wildflower, Ambrosia and Choke Cherry, as well as light honeys like Alfalfa and Clover.

Pasteurizing 10 lbs of fresh bananas for our just-brewed GingerBananaOrangeWhiteGrape Mead. Photo: Ron Propri

The type of yeast chosen for fermentation also plays an important role in developing the resulting mead. Different strains of yeast have different tolerances for alcohol. Since alcohol comes from the destruction of the honey, yeasts that convert more of the honey will leave a drier, stiffer mead while yeasts with lower alcohol tolerances can produce sweeter meads.

Eli tasting our freshly bottled Black Cherry Mead

Below you’ll find descriptions of a few of our select meads. We love to donate to our friends’ good times and we humbly accept friendly donations in return. If you ever wind up with one of our meads in your hands, enjoy. And be aware, the alcohol content of 15-18% will leave you more than a little inebriated if you’re selfish!

Thanks to Eli for photos and video!

Fall Apple
The day Ryan Wilson was born, he weighed 14 lbs. 3 oz, had a full head of curly locks and a giant chub.  After one day of acclamation to the outside world he had grown a hairy chest and had become an aficionado of hard alcohol.  As an adult, Ryan has worked tirelessly to blend the wealthy amber aroma and complex earthen flavors of the fine bourbons he knows so well, with the level, sweet subtleties of mead.  On the 28th of October 2008, Ryan’s vision became reality with the creation of our Fall Apple Mead.  Using rich Clover honey, a glut of organic apple juice and a touch of fresh orange juice, the outcome is a unique beverage that whiskey connoisseurs would love on Sunday mornings.  The distant citrus background that compliments a bold red apple centre results in a charming, soft flavor while the high-gravity harder tones loiter in the asymptote of aftertaste and will leave you savoring every drop.

Southern Mint
As you look into your lovers’ eyes after a sip of Southern Mint you’ll know why you adore him so – because he bought you the bottle of Southern Mint.  With a flavor smoother than James Dean lighting up a cigarette in an underground jazz bar, Southern Mint is sure to bring out your slow charming drawl.  Brewed with crisp Alfalfa honey and infused with fresh mint leaves, Southern Mint has a light essence, a pleasant effervescence and an exquisite candescence. Warm up a winter night with a glass of Southern Mint at room temperature, or toss in an ice cube and rock-away a romantic summer sunset on your porch before making heroic love to your southern bell.

Golden Pear
Old Francis worked on his father’s western Nebraska pear orchard his entire life.  The family scarcely made enough to get by, but the pears from one lovely tree they would never barter.  These perfect Bartlett pears were so juicy, golden and delicious that they could only be given to the true of heart and dapper of spirit.  Thus, aware of the forgery that would permeate his petition, Adam Michael Scheer of Boulder, Colorado pissed on Francis’ tree and stole ten pounds of the finest golden Bradford pears love can yield.  With these pears a crisp, light and sweet mead was concocted.  In every swallow that reaches the throat and every waft that contacts the brain, Francis’ tree will smile upon ye.

Stairway Alfalfa
The cascade of feelings that strikes you after a sip of our carefully crafted Stairway Alfalfa mead can only be revealed by experience.  The initial sweetness transports you to younger days when the sugary scent of summer filled your nostrils and reveries of naïve childhood crushes dominated your days.  As your tongue bathes in the river of blond, a pacified patience loiters, resembling the wisdom only time can bring.  When the warm waterfall wanders down your throat you’ll understand the peaceful contentment that awaits in your elder years.  As the tones of ocher Alfalfa honey settle in your belly, the music of the stars will become the 12-bar-blues.  After a half bottle of these perspective vicissitudes you’ll be drunk and looking to have nasty, uncoordinated relations in the nearest truck-stop bathroom.

Rudesheimer
Dry and even, mature and graceful, our Rudesheimer mead clearly belongs in the connoisseur’s cabinet.  This brew is much too smooth for teens trying to find inebriation from Snickers Martinis or Abercrombie Bud Light Frat boys.  Brewed with aged clover honey and Rudesheimer yeast this creation is serious yet simple.  Its pleasant flavor and light aftertaste may veil the high gravity of this particular brew.  But don’t be fooled.  A quality concoction need not be masked by sugar to pack a punch.  Our Rudesheimer blend is what mead makers in the 1300s envisioned when hobbyhorses met bailiwicks, an event marked by the showing of many, many ankles.

Zee Zinfandel
Full bodied and muscular yet clean-shaven and elegant, our Zinfandel mead is a fantastic accomplice for any occasion.  Not ready after a full year, this mead has required aging longer than most.  Now, at more than 21 months, our Zinfandel batch has retained its original sweetness and attained a gentle, melodious aftertaste for a complete mead experience.  You’ll be the life at Christmas parties or the pulse of President’s Day when you bring a bottle of Zee Zinfandel.  It also wouldn’t hurt to wear pit-stained muscle shirts and sport killer racing stripes.