History of Mead

Mead

Mead is a beverage rich in history and lore dating back over 8,000 years. Mead is a honey-based fermented beverage that has been produced and enjoyed since before the dawn of recorded history. Because of its history of origins, mead has acquired an almost magical reputation in our mythologies.

The earliest surviving description of mead is possibly the soma mentioned in the hymns of the Rigveda, one of the sacred books of the historical Vedic religion and (later) Hinduism dated around 1700–1100 BC. During the Golden Age of ancient Greece, mead was said to be the preferred drink. In Europe, it is first described from residual samples found in ceramics of the Bell Beaker Culture (c. 2800–1800 BCE).

Pottery vessels dating from 7000 BCE discovered in northern China have shown chemical signatures consistent with the presence of honey, rice, and organic compounds associated with fermentation.

Aristotle (384–322 BCE) discussed mead in his Meteorologica and elsewhere, while Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE) called mead militites in his Naturalis Historia and differentiated wine sweetened with honey or "honey-wine" from mead. The Hispanic-Roman naturalist Columella gave a recipe for mead in De re Rustica, about 60 CE.

Some claim that it’s magical to consume the intoxicating flavours of the fermented honey, and that imbibing mead brings one to a level of intoxication unlike any other alcoholic beverage. Mead is thought to be an aphrodisiac, a medicinal potion, and a fertility aid. As it is made entirely by honey and water, mead legend takes on a mystique from its naturally sensual ingredients. 

Mead making was once the province of a select, trained guild. Often, it was women who did the brewing and fermenting of beer and mead. It was a good economic enterprise for women in that epoch. Now, it is open to all who have the patience and skill. 

There is a poem attributed to the Brythonic-speaking (Welsh) bard Taliesin, who lived around 550 CE, called the Kanu y med or "Song of Mead". The legendary drinking, feasting and boasting of warriors in the mead hall is echoed in the mead hall Din Eidyn (modern-day Edinburgh) as depicted in the poem Y Gododdin, attributed to the poet Aneirin who would have been a contemporary of Taliesin. In the Old English epic poem Beowulf, the Danish warriors drank mead. In both Insular Celtic and Germanic poetry, mead was the primary heroic or divine drink, see Mead of poetry.

Later, taxation and regulations governing the ingredients of alcoholic beverages led to commercial mead becoming a more obscure beverage until recently. Some monasteries kept up the traditions of mead-making as a by-product of beekeeping, especially in areas where grapes could not be grown.

There are many kinds of honey, based on which flowers the bees collected the nectar from. Bees aren't loyal to any particular flower, so any characterization of honey as being from a particular source (for example, "blackberry honey") can vary from absolutely true to a rough generality, depending on what flowers the bees can find and how interesting they find them. Honeys range in taste and colour from the light clover through alfalfa to stronger tasting (and darker) such as buckwheat.

There are many unusual honeys to be found where there are unusual local flowers. Which honey you will use depends both on which you like the taste of, and what type of mead you are trying to make. Stronger flavours go well in metheglins and heavier or sweet meads, while the milder honeys make a good base for melomels or dry traditional meads. Realize that a honey with an interesting-but-unusual taste can produce an overpowering character in mead.

The alcoholic content ranges from about 3.5% ABV to more than 20%. The defining characteristic of mead is that the majority of the beverage's fermentable sugar is derived from honey. It may be still, carbonated, or naturally sparkling; dry, semi-sweet, or sweet. Each sip is filled with thousands of years of history and remains a familiar component within mankind’s tales.