Blog - Got Mead? The Largest Mead Resource on the Web

10-26-21 Tonight we're headed to Gaithersburg, MD to talk with Yancy Bodenstein, Manish Eigner and Jacob Latour at Clear Skies Meadery. Clear Skies got started over a mead fueled Christmas discussion in 2018. It wasn't long before they filed and got a lease and started construction on their location, in 2019. They managed to get through all the paperwork and permits in less than a year, and pitche...

10-12-21 We're headed to Baltimore, where we'll catch up with James Boicourt, founder and owner of Charm City Meadworks. James began making mead back in college (NC State) around 2004, after taking a great class on introductory beekeeping. He was already trying out homebrewing, and got so interested in beekeeping and entomology that he ended up taking a graduate level bee class. What else was a co...

9-27-21 Tonight we're changing up a bit, Charm City had to reschedule into October. We're tickled to have Bob Slanzi step in to talk with us tonight. He's going to work with Vicky to rescue a mead of hers that went a bit sideways, and we're going to talk about making mead (of course), as Bob is a no-measure meadmaker, he's all about the flavor profile and the palate. There may be a special guest o...

9-14-21 Tonight we're celebrating National Honey Month with Alison Conklin at the National Honey Board. The NHB has a bunch of really interesting events and campaigns going on during September.

8-31-21 Tonight we're doing a pre-recorded session with Tom Gosnell, owner of Gosnell's of London. Tom got interested in meadmaking in 2013 after a visit to the US and going to Maine Meadworks. He liked it so much, he decided to try meadmaking at home. After three years of increasing meadmaking in his kitchen, he decided it was time to go commercial, and took the plunge. Tom got hooked up with a c...

8-19-21 Tonight we're 'across the pond' visiting with Ann Farrell and Gordon Baron at Lancashire Mead in Horwich, Lancashire, Great Britain. They make meads in a natural fashion, without stabilizers or finings. Gordon is a Druid and uses mead in ritual.  He wanted a pure mead for this purpose (and didn’t want to put chemicals into the earth) so in 2009, he decided ‘how hard can it be?’, emptied hi...

7-27-21 Tonight we're back across the pond and hanging out with Danique Staal, owner of De Noordelijke Mederij (The Northern Meadery). Danique makes some very interesting meads, including a Stroopwafel mead that took gold and Best in Show at the European Mead Makers Kings of Mead Competition Mead Madness Cup in 2020, the largest mead competition in Europe. Danique got interested in mead at an earl...

7-13-21 Tonight we're getting together with Frank Golbeck from Golden Coast Mead and Alyson Schramm Naeger from Schramm's Mead to talk about the Mead institute, a non-profit they have founded to establish Mead as an industry with a more than 1000 year future. The Mead Institute was co-foounded by Alyson and Frank to provide resources to mead professionals to enrich the mead experience from product...

6-24-21 Tonight we're continuing our travels in Europe with Gert Smet and the Blacksmith's Meadery in Antwerp, Belgium. Gert is a reenactor - a living history nerd. His living history group, Ortus Phoenix, portrays the late 15th century, just after the death of Charles the Bold. Gert drank his first mead on one of the medieval festivals in 2011. Needless to say it was 'high quality' rotgut (some c...

6-15-21 Tonight we're staying in North American and headed for the Great White North, Manitoba, Canada, to be precise. Kon and Julie Paseschnikoff own Bee Boyzz Honey and Mead in Oak Bluff, Manitoba. Theirs is a multi-generation business, starting out with Kon Sr. keeping bees many years ago in Venezuela, then Kon getting involved in his dad's market gardening business, and being pulled into bees...

6-8-21 Tonight at 9PM ET/3AM Norway time, we're continuing our journeys around Europe and talking with Anders Riseng, co-owner of Askheimer Meadery in Askim, Norway. Askheimer Meadery is one of just a few meaderies so far in Norway, but that is changing, as mead awareness grows in Europe. Anders and his partner Jarl-Magnus teamed up with the idea of starting a meadery during a tasting session at t...

5-11-21 This episode, we're headed off to the Netherlands, and hanging out with Jeroen Krikke, owner of Kollectiv Mead in Den Haag (The Hague). Jeroen is a long time mead maker, and has taken his love of mead commercial, with his small, but growing meadery. Jeroen used a sabbatical to start Kollektiv Mead in 2018, following his ambition to introduce The Netherlands to "Dutch Craft Mead". At Kollek...

4-27-21 This week on Gotmead Live we're going international! Our guest is Stian Krog, owner of Mjøderiet in Norway, the first meadery to bring back mead in that country. This episode is not live, we got together with Stian yesterday so he wouldn't be up at 3 am! Stian started brewing beer in 2011 and got curious about mead around the same time. He and Erlend Johnsen (now one of the Mjøderiet partn...

4-13-21 Tonight we're chatting with Pierre Rodrigue, a prolific wine and meadmaker living in Alberta, Canada. Pierre has been fermenting wine since 1985. His early batches consisted of kits, and fruits and berries. As there weren’t a lot of publications then and zero internet, he learned a lot by trial and error. Pierre began mead making in the fall of 2016, and has won several medals and Best of...

3-30-21 Tonight we're talking Polish mead, and all other things mead with Kris Plizga and Scot Schaar. Both of these gentlemen are accomplished mead makers, and both are pretty darn good Polish mead makers. Kris' mead adventure started many years ago while he was still living in his home country. At that time Poland was probably the only place on earth where mead was still produced by several comp...

3-2-21 Tonight we're back on our regular schedule, and are happy to be talking with Clint Walker and Chase Cohagan, of Walker Honey Farm and Dancing Bee Winery. Clint Walker III is a third-generation beekeeper and the owner of Walker Honey Farm in Rogers, TX.  In 2011, Walker Honey Farm opened Dancing Bee Winery as the mead making arm of the business. Walker Honey Farm was founded in 1930, in the...

Tonight at 9PM ET, we'll be talking with Dustin Deisher and Jeff Anderson, award winning home meadmakers. The topic at hand is bench trials. In making mead, we do our fermentation, feed our yeast, and do our racking and stabilization. But once that's all done, the mead needs to be finished. And as anyone with more than a couple batches under their belt can tell you, yeast don't read the alcohol ra...

2-2-21 Tonight at 9PM ET we'll be talking with Tom Repas. Tom has been on the show before, and we're having him back, as he's an absolute fountain of information! We're going to talk with Tom about mead, specifically mead in secondary. There is a lot that happens in secondary, like stabilization, clarification, backsweetening, adjuncts and adjustments. Tom is a Master Beekeeper and owner of Canyon...

1-19-21 Tonight at 9PM EST we're getting together with Margot Phelps and the Maidmakers at Ancient Fire Cider and Mead in Manchester, NH. The Maidmakers series began in Early 2020  and was the idea of the AF team which, with the exception of Jason, is made up entirely of strong, passionate and smart women. The idea was to get their team more involved in the process of making the products that they...

1-5-21 We survived 2020! Here's to hoping 2021 will see the world getting back to normal. We're starting this year with what else, honey! We have Evan Himes, who is with Dutch Gold Honey in Lancaster, PA. We'll be talking about things like COVID impacts on the honey market in 2020 vs 2021,  the evolution of commercial beekeeping – Honey Labeling at retail, honey adulteration and testing, and thing...

12-1-20 Tonight at 9PM ET on GotMead Live, our last show of 2020, the dumpster fire of a year, we are happy to have Michelle Scandalis and Jeremy Kyncl, owners of Hierophant Meadery in Washington, with two locations on the Green Bluff loop in Mead, and a tasting room on Whidbey Island.

11-24-20 Tonight at 9PM ET on GotMead Live, we'll be talking with Sam Slaughter, a food and drink writer who has also written books on cocktails, and is a ten year home meadmaker.

11-17-20 Tonight at 9PM ET on GotMead Live, we'll be talking metheglins, (mead with spices), with multiple medal winning home meadmakers Amy Olsen and Josh Holbrook. We'll be exploring making metheglins, when and how to add spices, choosing your spices, flavor profiles and tips and tricks, as well as how to avoid problems.

11-10-20 Tonight at 9PM ET GotMead Live will be talking with Willie Wrede, owner of Meduseld Meadery in Lancaster, PA. Willie is a meadery owner (and a braggot fan), Marine, talented mead maker and a dad, and is now in process of opening a second location they're calling Artifice Ales and Meads.

11-3-20 Tonight at 9PM ET GotMead Live will be talking with Dan McNevin. Dan is a home meadmaker with a penchant for foraging his mead ingredients and also for making weirdomels (technically known as experimental meads).