March ‘22 Honey Pot – Stories From The Hive

The Ancient Art of Making Mead

In its purest form, mead is a tasty, alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey & water with yeast.

In the long history of alcohol production, the craft of mead making is almost certainly the oldest. It predates the invention of the wheel, with cave paintings depicting the collection of honey from wild bee colonies. ‘Legend’ has it that the ancients drank the liquid from an upturned beehive in a tree cavity filled with rain water. While discovery of this delightful alcoholic beverage was probably by chance, it became understood that when water was added to honey, it initiated fermentation by wild yeasts. From this discovery, the importance of honey & its ‘offshoot’ mead became woven into cultures, folk-lore, myths & religions worldwide. In its purest form, it has been called the drink of the Gods, the property of the monks, the choice of royalty, a medicine, an aphrodisiac; while in its rougher form, a drink of the masses.

In Norman, Anglo-saxon & Celtic cultures, mead making in its purest form was mostly confined to the monasteries & abbeys. They owned most of the beehives, from which they extracted the honey and also valued the beeswax for making their candles.

In the 18th century, when the popularity of honey gave way to sugar as the major form of sweetener, so the production & popularity of mead declined. Nowadays, with the world-wide surge of beekeeping, mead making is again gaining attention & momentum. It can be a simple, try at home craft.
One of my beekeeping friends has several batches ‘aging’ in the pantry, dating back two years.

Mead with honey alone, or additional herbs & spices, can vary in flavour & strength from sweet, dry or even ale like. Although usually included under the general name of mead, other honey based alcohols are also gaining popularity. Melomels for example, are made by fermenting honey with fruit juices, or cyser from fermenting honey with apple juice alone.

Beekeepers have ready access to the main ingredient, honey. With the addition of a few basic tools & other ingredients they can brew up a batch of mead quite easily. Like most alcohol, the flavour improves with age.
Ref: Making Mead, Acton & Duncan 1968.

Thanks to Leonie from the Gold Coast Amateur Beekeepers Society for this information

Bee good,

TK x