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Rabbit's Foot MeaderyRabbit's Foot Meadery
  • Welcome
  • About Us
    • Mead FAQ
    • Blog
    • News
    • Giving
  • Our Products
    • Meads
    • Ciders
    • Beers
  • Contact & Hours
    • Tap Room Hours + FAQ
    • Groups & Private Events
    • Current Draft + Bottle Menu
    • Upcoming Events
What Is Mead?
Mead is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey and water, sometimes with fruit and spices added as flavorings.

Is Mead Sweet?
Contrary to popular belief, Mead is not simply a sweet wine produced from honey. Mead can be dry, semi-sweet, sweet or include other fruits. It can be as varied as the honey from which it is made.

Are All Meads The Same?
Mead has been called by many different names including: melomel, cyser, pyment and metheglin. It is typically clear with a slight gold tint and with an alcohol content of between 7-18%. By varying the proportions of honey and water and the point at which fermentation is stopped, a wide variety of types can be produced ranging from a very dry and light, to sweet and heavily bodied. If fermentation is left to continue while bottled, a sparkling mead resembling a sparkling white wine or champagne can be produced.

Mead can be broken down into general categories like sweet, medium and dry as well as still or sparkling.

We use several different varieties of honey each with their own unique characteristics. By purchasing only those honeys that meet our exacting standards are we able to control the end result.

Where Does Mead Get It's Flavor?

The main ingredient of any mead is honey. Both the flavor and the color of the honey depend on the variety of the flower that the nectar comes from. Clover honey is light in color and mild, while honey from buckwheat is much darker and stronger. Honey is rich in simple sugars; dextrose and levulose and contains more calories than ordinary sugar in addition to sodium, iron and potassium levels that make it ideal for fermentation.

Where Can I Buy Mead?
A selection of our meads can be purchased when you visit the Tap Room or Online at VinoShipper.com

A Brief History of Mead

Honey is probably mans oldest sweet food. In many early civilizations it was extolled as food for Gods, as a gift from the Gods or as a giver of immortality. The Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and other ancient peoples used honey in making cakes and candies as well as beverages. It was also used to make salted meat more palatable, hence honey hams. Wherever there was a large orchard there was sure to be an apiary. It was very common for households to have a small orchard as well as a small apiary, or for locals to come together and contribute the honey that had been gathered over the summer to a brewer who could make mead for them.

Until the late middle ages both still meads and sparkling meads were highly popular beverages, especially in northern regions of Europe, where wine grapes could not easily be grown. It was produced by organized industry during the 15th-century, controlled as with other trades by guilds. The largest guild of brewers in London during the time was the Guild of Free Brewers, who at the time controlled all aspects of brewing both wine, mead and ales. Not only did they control the manufacture of these products, but the distribution and laws governing the measurement when dispensed. The guilds controlled the trade and production of ale and mead and only toward the end of the 16th-century wines. As the importance of honey was displaced by less expensive sugars in the late Middle Ages, mead was gradually displaced by less costly beers and ales, and, to a lesser degree by imported wines. Nonetheless, it was always considered for medicinal value and was even prescribed to royalty.

If you are interested in making mead yourself, please take a look at our short ‘A Guide to Mead’.

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