To start, at the time of this post, I am in no way a mead judge or professional taster in any capacity. Just a guy who's trying to share his thoughts on meads he's tried. Reading other reviews and notes on mead, I've picked up tidbits on how to describe things and will do my best to do these things justice.
In this first post, I'll include all the commercial meads I've tried, but any time I try a new one, I'll add it to this thread as per a suggestion that I thought was good. For anyone out there though, never hesitate to comment on here.
Kurt's Apple Pie - Moonlight Meadery
Bottle description: Kurt's Apple Pie is made of honey and fresh pressed apple cider. Additionally, we use natural vanilla and cinnamon... 14% ABV
This was the very first commercial mead I ever tried. It made me slightly more confident in my own work, because I could tell this and my own cyser were similar.
It has a very good nose which does smell like apple pie! You get the apple and spices, but no honey.
While I thought the nose was good, the taste is far less so. It has a little bit of a bite that at first I thought was reminiscent of fusels, but I think is just some sort of astringency from the spice tannins or acidity. Again, similar to a cyser I had at the time which had these faults. But the real con to this is the spices: they are just super overpowering, and I don't think the vanilla and cinnamon mixed well in the taste. You can still pick up the apple and there is some sweetness in the background, but the spices just kill it. The alcohol is noticeable and stands out in not a great way.
I think this improved slightly by letting it open a bit and warm up from the fridge, but never to a point that I really enjoyed it.
Overall: 4/10
Would not get again. Considering this was my first commercial mead, I was very disappointed with that.
The Root Cause - Melovino Meadery
Bottle description: ... euphoric pairing of Florida orange blossom honey and freshly sliced ginger!... 14% ABV
Nose is floral with citrus and a bit of honey. You can pick up that the ginger is doing something there as well, but just from the smell I couldn't identify it as ginger.
This was surprisingly sweet. Unfortunately I didn't keep enough around to measure with my hydrometer, but for 14% I expected something a little more dry. I think I would have liked it a little more dry, but it was still good. Despite the ABV, the alcohol was barely noticeable. Just a warmness on the back of your tongue and throat in the after taste. Quite nice.
Strong citrus, and again you can tell the ginger is there but it's not overpowering, and I again wouldn't have guessed it was ginger I was tasting. I was waffling between "this is quite refreshing" and "what exactly is going on in my mouth". At warmer temps the ginger becomes more apparent.
It says on the bottle to serve well chilled, but I liked it a little bit warmer than just out of the fridge.
Overall: 7.5/10
I liked this, but it wasn't my favorite. I probably wouldn't buy another bottle of this unless I wanted a solid commercial mead to share with a friend. I would get a glass of it at a bar though.
This next one is a bit special. I'll comment on it more after the reviews, but it was part of both going to a meadery and taking a class that I got to taste these.
Enlightenment Wines
Nought
Description: Raw wild mead. Spontaneous fermentation from wildflower honey and well water. Made and aged in red wine barrels. 12.5% ABV
The nose was crazy. Smelled like moonshine. But the taste was great, and that disparity was a little confusing. Clean taste. Some residual sweetness despite being fermented dry. Floral and some honey. Noticeable alcohol, but in a good warm way.
Overall: 7/10
Dagger
Description: Tart cherry, yarrow, chamomile and foraged hemlock mead. Unique character, healthy tannins. 12% ABV
Unique character was an understatement. I forgot what this smelled like because the taste was insane. In a bad way. SUPER bitter. But, you could tell that was intentional from the ingredients rather than bad practices or fermentation.
That being said, the guy who made this said it was more of a tonic than a mead. At the adjoining bar, he said they use it as an ingredient for cocktails or take it as shots rather than drink straight.
Overall: 2/10. Though I would like to try a cocktail made with this.
Memento Mori
Description: Made from hand picked foraged dandelion flowers, orange peel, and wildflower honey. 13% ABV
This was interesting. Also quite bitter, but drinkable. Some alcohol, and background citrus and honey. Initially I thought 'no', but I'd like to drink it again. I think it would grow on me.
Overall: 5/10
Raise the Roof
Description: Single varietal apple blossom mead, spontaneous fermentation, pet- nat style. Sparkling. 12.5% ABV
The best. The carbonation was very light, with tiny bubbles. He confirmed it was carbonated with honey as opposed to corn sugar or anything else. I liked it.
Got to taste this both straight out of the fermenter and out of a finished bottle. Naturally, the fermenting one was sweeter, but I could down a bottle of this easy in one siting. Others seem to agree with me, because aside from 5 bottles in his personal collection, they were out of stock.
Some sweetness, very faint honey, but also apple notes. Crisp and clean.
Overall: 9/10
Before I got to try Enlightenment Wines, I was seriously questioning if I liked mead. Especially coming off of tasting Kurt's Apple Pie and disliking that. But it turns out that I was just making bad stuff (I've improved drastically since then thanks to all of you).
The guy who runs it, Raphael, is a bit odd, and definitely would disagree with some of the advice we give here, but he certainly knows his stuff. Enlightenment wines has been operating since 2009 which makes it one of the oldest meaderies in the US, so they have to be doing something right.
He comes from an herbalist background and very much focuses on the natural process. As I'm sure some of you picked up on given the herbs and 2 spontaneous fermenting meads from that list. But he also does not stabilize, preferring instead to ferment everything dry. The only mead that used sulphites was the dandelion one, but I forgot why. He also doesn't filter. So all of his meads are more cloudy than most of what even I produce besides not filtering myself. Occasionally he'll use bentonite but that's about it.
He is a fan of Fermaid O since its organic/natural, but I failed to ask him exactly what his feeding protocol was. Everything he makes is aged for a minimum of a year and is around 12% since he thinks going more than that is too harsh or harder to deal with.
He said the single best thing you can do for yourself as a mazer is get a barrel and put your mead in it. I believe all his meads spend some amount of time aging in barrels, and definitely some are sur lie aged.
He also recommended ignoring mead making books and just going after wine books to learn about the fermentation process.
One thing I thought that was odd was that he very much advocated adding acid upfront. He was more concerned with how it would integrate with taste post fermentation and said it was better to add at the front in that case. But it depends on what other ingredients you'd be using.
Meeting him and getting to talk and try his meads definitely made me question things. He's more focused on small batch rather than huge commercial operation though, so I think this is where the difference truly lies. He doesn't care if he goes out of stock of something and has to wait a year to make more. He's just doing him. Which is pretty cool.
In this first post, I'll include all the commercial meads I've tried, but any time I try a new one, I'll add it to this thread as per a suggestion that I thought was good. For anyone out there though, never hesitate to comment on here.
Kurt's Apple Pie - Moonlight Meadery
Bottle description: Kurt's Apple Pie is made of honey and fresh pressed apple cider. Additionally, we use natural vanilla and cinnamon... 14% ABV
This was the very first commercial mead I ever tried. It made me slightly more confident in my own work, because I could tell this and my own cyser were similar.
It has a very good nose which does smell like apple pie! You get the apple and spices, but no honey.
While I thought the nose was good, the taste is far less so. It has a little bit of a bite that at first I thought was reminiscent of fusels, but I think is just some sort of astringency from the spice tannins or acidity. Again, similar to a cyser I had at the time which had these faults. But the real con to this is the spices: they are just super overpowering, and I don't think the vanilla and cinnamon mixed well in the taste. You can still pick up the apple and there is some sweetness in the background, but the spices just kill it. The alcohol is noticeable and stands out in not a great way.
I think this improved slightly by letting it open a bit and warm up from the fridge, but never to a point that I really enjoyed it.
Overall: 4/10
Would not get again. Considering this was my first commercial mead, I was very disappointed with that.
The Root Cause - Melovino Meadery
Bottle description: ... euphoric pairing of Florida orange blossom honey and freshly sliced ginger!... 14% ABV
Nose is floral with citrus and a bit of honey. You can pick up that the ginger is doing something there as well, but just from the smell I couldn't identify it as ginger.
This was surprisingly sweet. Unfortunately I didn't keep enough around to measure with my hydrometer, but for 14% I expected something a little more dry. I think I would have liked it a little more dry, but it was still good. Despite the ABV, the alcohol was barely noticeable. Just a warmness on the back of your tongue and throat in the after taste. Quite nice.
Strong citrus, and again you can tell the ginger is there but it's not overpowering, and I again wouldn't have guessed it was ginger I was tasting. I was waffling between "this is quite refreshing" and "what exactly is going on in my mouth". At warmer temps the ginger becomes more apparent.
It says on the bottle to serve well chilled, but I liked it a little bit warmer than just out of the fridge.
Overall: 7.5/10
I liked this, but it wasn't my favorite. I probably wouldn't buy another bottle of this unless I wanted a solid commercial mead to share with a friend. I would get a glass of it at a bar though.
This next one is a bit special. I'll comment on it more after the reviews, but it was part of both going to a meadery and taking a class that I got to taste these.
Enlightenment Wines
Nought
Description: Raw wild mead. Spontaneous fermentation from wildflower honey and well water. Made and aged in red wine barrels. 12.5% ABV
The nose was crazy. Smelled like moonshine. But the taste was great, and that disparity was a little confusing. Clean taste. Some residual sweetness despite being fermented dry. Floral and some honey. Noticeable alcohol, but in a good warm way.
Overall: 7/10
Dagger
Description: Tart cherry, yarrow, chamomile and foraged hemlock mead. Unique character, healthy tannins. 12% ABV
Unique character was an understatement. I forgot what this smelled like because the taste was insane. In a bad way. SUPER bitter. But, you could tell that was intentional from the ingredients rather than bad practices or fermentation.
That being said, the guy who made this said it was more of a tonic than a mead. At the adjoining bar, he said they use it as an ingredient for cocktails or take it as shots rather than drink straight.
Overall: 2/10. Though I would like to try a cocktail made with this.
Memento Mori
Description: Made from hand picked foraged dandelion flowers, orange peel, and wildflower honey. 13% ABV
This was interesting. Also quite bitter, but drinkable. Some alcohol, and background citrus and honey. Initially I thought 'no', but I'd like to drink it again. I think it would grow on me.
Overall: 5/10
Raise the Roof
Description: Single varietal apple blossom mead, spontaneous fermentation, pet- nat style. Sparkling. 12.5% ABV
The best. The carbonation was very light, with tiny bubbles. He confirmed it was carbonated with honey as opposed to corn sugar or anything else. I liked it.
Got to taste this both straight out of the fermenter and out of a finished bottle. Naturally, the fermenting one was sweeter, but I could down a bottle of this easy in one siting. Others seem to agree with me, because aside from 5 bottles in his personal collection, they were out of stock.
Some sweetness, very faint honey, but also apple notes. Crisp and clean.
Overall: 9/10
Before I got to try Enlightenment Wines, I was seriously questioning if I liked mead. Especially coming off of tasting Kurt's Apple Pie and disliking that. But it turns out that I was just making bad stuff (I've improved drastically since then thanks to all of you).
The guy who runs it, Raphael, is a bit odd, and definitely would disagree with some of the advice we give here, but he certainly knows his stuff. Enlightenment wines has been operating since 2009 which makes it one of the oldest meaderies in the US, so they have to be doing something right.
He comes from an herbalist background and very much focuses on the natural process. As I'm sure some of you picked up on given the herbs and 2 spontaneous fermenting meads from that list. But he also does not stabilize, preferring instead to ferment everything dry. The only mead that used sulphites was the dandelion one, but I forgot why. He also doesn't filter. So all of his meads are more cloudy than most of what even I produce besides not filtering myself. Occasionally he'll use bentonite but that's about it.
He is a fan of Fermaid O since its organic/natural, but I failed to ask him exactly what his feeding protocol was. Everything he makes is aged for a minimum of a year and is around 12% since he thinks going more than that is too harsh or harder to deal with.
He said the single best thing you can do for yourself as a mazer is get a barrel and put your mead in it. I believe all his meads spend some amount of time aging in barrels, and definitely some are sur lie aged.
He also recommended ignoring mead making books and just going after wine books to learn about the fermentation process.
One thing I thought that was odd was that he very much advocated adding acid upfront. He was more concerned with how it would integrate with taste post fermentation and said it was better to add at the front in that case. But it depends on what other ingredients you'd be using.
Meeting him and getting to talk and try his meads definitely made me question things. He's more focused on small batch rather than huge commercial operation though, so I think this is where the difference truly lies. He doesn't care if he goes out of stock of something and has to wait a year to make more. He's just doing him. Which is pretty cool.
Today I did pick up the following from Wegman's in Cherry Hill NJ:
