"Well, as Ricky said, it is going fast... And... he does have quite the personality." - Brittney Hibbs

Yep, that about sums up this week's excellent segment of What's On Tap? all about Autumn Spice Mead!

Or click here to watch.

So, for about two years Ricky the Meadmaker has been begging to be allowed to come up with a party idea. For reasons that are not entirely clear, someone finally gave him permission to do it.

It turns out that Ricky's idea of a good time is standing around, drinking, and talking about arcane aspects of Tolkien legendarium. This should have come as a surprise to no one. But, a promise is a promise, so here goes:

Are you a nerd? Like, a Super Nerd? Then put on your knee high boots and best tunic and get ready for an evening of Shire music; polite, erudite dispute; and, of course, mead!

Mark your calendars for Thursday, November 12, 2015, and stay tuned for more details.

In which Ricky the Meadmaker explains the canning process.

More info:
Havoc Mead
Iron Heart Canning

Groennfell Meadery makes Craft Mead. 

We say it on our website, at brewfests, on distributor ride alongs, in our tasting room, and everywhere we are allowed to speak about our product: Groennfell Meadery makes Craft Mead.

Or, to put it another way, Groennfell Meadery does not make Honey Wine.

Or yet another way: just as all apple wines are ciders, but not all ciders are apple wines; all honey wines are meads, but not all meads are honey wines. [1]

We just realized, however, that very few people have anything more than the murkiest of concepts about what exactly qualifies as a “Craft Mead” and how it differs from what the vast majority of the meaderies in the United States produce. Even our excellent Mead Varieties Poster doesn’t really offer any answers.

So, today we are offering our definition of Craft Mead. This is not a definition of “hand crafted mead.” Nor is it a definition of “artisanal small batch mead.” It is not an attempt at describing what makes a mead good or bad. It is our definition of Craft Mead.

To us, a Craft Mead is a mead that is designed in the tradition of craft beer or craft cider and marketed alongside them. Here are our guidelines and parameters for qualifying to us as a Craft Mead. Exceptions are in the footnotes.

• Packaging: It must be packaged in “traditional beer packaging.” This can be beer bottles (12 oz., 22 oz., and some 500 ml), cans, or kegs. If you want to be put in the craft beverage section in a liquor store, it really helps to look like you belong there. [2] 
  
• Carbonation: It must have bubbles. [3]
  
• Alcohol Content: Again, “beer range” is a pretty good target, so 4% - 9% abv. [4] 
  
• Price: It must be affordable enough to appear reasonable alongside ciders and beers. Making a high quality product that can sit on a shelf for 10¢-35¢ per ounce is a real challenge, but it is an absolute must. [5]
  

Many meadmakers seem to find price to be their greatest limitation when it comes to brewing and selling a craft mead. Even if you hit every other metric, if the shelf price is $8 for a 500 ml bottle, that would work out to an absolutely outrageous $34 six-pack. At that price it can be a very well crafted mead, perfect for a special occasion, but it doesn’t fit our definition of a Craft Mead. [6] Furthermore, $8 for a 500 ml bottle is well below what most meaderies would consider charging!

So why does it matter? It matters because we want to help everyone succeed in the mead industry. We are not defining Craft Mead because we think it’s better or we want to exclude Honey Wines from the marketplace.

We feel that having a clear definition of Craft Mead will help other meaderies produce a product that really has a place on the shelf alongside all of the great craft beers and ciders out there.

We know that not everyone will agree with our parameters, especially the packaging, carbonation, alcohol content, and price ones, but it's good to have a definition somewhere on the internet.

Oh, and there's one more thing: Craft Mead can't be brewed by a big multi-national brand disguising themselves as craft meadery. It's not like anyone's doing that yet, but we are not excited about the prospect of a Shock Top Mead.

[1] Or pick your analogy: ales : beer, cheddars : cheese, astromechs : droids
[2] Yes, we’re intentionally excluding 375ml and 750ml bottles, even though those are what the Feds want.
[3] Could a craft meadery get away with one still product? Possibly, but it would very much be the exception and not the rule. We’ve had a few still beers. They were an… exception and definitely not a rule.
[4] Are there 14% abv. beers? Sure. But if you have something at 14%, you’d better have a few around 5% as well. In this case, as with the bubbles, it’s partially the company it keeps.
[5] Again, exceptions can of course be made for absolute monsters or funky seasonals, but only if they’re in a family that includes some reasonably priced kin. Please see 3 and 4 above.
[6] Yes, we know. Bombers. Please read our thoughts on the Bomber Scam Here.

It might seem strange that a meadery – an establishment whose sole reason for existing is to sell mead to other people – would give away all of their secrets about how they make, as was just mentioned, the only thing they sell.

In fact, we go a step further: We write a blog post every single week. So, effectively, we’re giving away all of our secrets without even being asked.

It’s not like we’re just giving yeast recommendations to homebrewers either. At any given time, Ricky the Meadmaker is consulting with four to six start-up meaderies. We have played host to nascent professional meadmakers from a dozen states, even giving away schematics of our brew set-up and full copies of our recipes.

Oh yeah, then there’s Ask the Meadmaker.

So what gives? Are we extremist Marxists who don’t believe in private property? Is this just Ricky’s inability to keep his damn mouth shut played out on an international scale? Do we have some secret master plan to bring down Big Beer? Are we just super bad at business?

Possibly. (Except the beer one. We love beer.)

The answer is simple: We think individuals making mead at home will grow their appreciation for the beverage and we believe in community not competition when it comes to other professionals.

Home meadmakers have three things to offer us:

• If their mead is very good, they will seek out commercial examples. We like to think our mead is very good, so they will naturally want to drink it.
  
• If their mead is very bad, they will gain an appreciation for how challenging what we do is. They will, instead of drinking their own bad mead, wish to drink good mead. See outcome above.
  
• Either way, they will be educating their friends and acquaintances about mead. To this day, the single most common question we get is, “Now what is mead exactly?” Also, there are many, many people who claim to have never heard of mead, which is of course bull honky. 
  

Professional Meadmakers, far from being our competition, potentially offer us something even greater: Comparison.

Nobody can be a connoisseur of a single item. You can be a beer connoisseur, but not a Sam Adams Boston Lager connoisseur. More mead means more Meadiacs.

So, we like to think that we are part of a big network, all working together to bring mead to an ever widening population of mead fanatics.[1] We don’t want to knock any beverages and you will never hear us say that mead is the best drink. We just happen to really like mead, and we like when other people get to enjoy it as well.

Oh, but before we forget, full disclosure: We have one secret.

Our secret is the last name of our honey supplier, Pete the Beekeeper. His honey is so spectacular we don’t want anyone to come and steal him from us. (OK, full, full disclosure: We actually can't ever remember his last name, though we believe he has one.)

[1] Moderation and regular exercise will help if you find yourself to be one of the ever widening mead fanatics.

In which Ricky the Meadmaker answers questions about how to get Groennfell Mead outside of Vermont, what the most fun thing about being a pro brewer is, what kind of yeast he uses for Mannaz Mead, whether or not one can start a brewery with one's friend, and announces the 2nd annual Plaid Party on September 18, 2015!