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

5-21-19 It's time for Texas! Texas Mead Works, that is. Mike Poole, owner and meadmaker of Texas Meadworks, in Seguin, TX, joins us tonight. Mike began making beer, mead, and wine while living in Washington State in the early 1990s.  He currently has approximately 26 years experience fermenting.  With his wife, he opened Texas Mead Works and Blue Lotus Winery in 2010 in Seguin, Texas.   Last year...

5-7-19 We are talking with Greg Heller-LaBelle, Vice President of the American Mead Makers Association, and co-owner of The Colony Meadery in Bethlehem, PA. Greg is coming on to tell us all about the debut of MeadCon East, the AMMA conference, that will be held in Pennsylvania, September 5-7, 2019. After 3 years of holding the MeadCon in Broomfield, CO alongside the Mazer Cup International, the AM...

5-7-19 We are talking with Greg Heller-LaBelle, Vice President of the American Mead Makers Association, and co-owner of The Colony Meadery in Bethlehem, PA. Greg is coming on to tell us all about the debut of MeadCon East, the AMMA conference, that will be held in Pennsylvania, September 5-7, 2019.[break] After 3 years of holding the MeadCon in Broomfield, CO alongside the Mazer Cup International,...

4-30-19 Tonight we are joined by Lance Shaner, co-owner of Omega Yeast, and Carvin Wilson, mead aficionado and speaker on fermenting mead at high temperatures.

4-30-19 Tonight we are joined by Lance Shaner, co-owner of Omega Yeast, and Carvin Wilson, mead aficionado and speaker on fermenting mead at high temperatures. Lance is a long time yeast handler, and has been homebrewing since he was an undergraduate days at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He got to play with many yeasts, since the food science department there had a wide selection...

4-23-19 Tonight we're headed down to Texas, to talk with Gary Gordon, owner of Breaking Brew Meadery in Farmers Branch, Texas. Gary and his family got involved with mead via beer. He gave his son at beer kit on his 21st birthday, and that got the ball rolling. After 5 years of making beers, he got really interested in meads and ciders. They were really interested in how fast mead was taking off, a...

4-16-19 We're bringing Steve Patik back to talk about braggots tonight. Braggots are very popular, and there are many ways to approach them. I've had stout-style braggots, and ale-style braggots, and everything in between, and there are a million ways to make them. Steve is a big fan of braggots, and has made many. We're going to be talking about best practices for braggots, preferred yeasts, ferm...

4-2-19 Polish Meads! At the 2019 Mazer Cup International, Scot Schaar and Bob Slanzi were given Polish 'passports', to recognize their prowess in making Polish meads. Both make amazing Polish style meads, and many have had the chance to try them and say 'hell yeah'. Making Polish style mead can be tricky, there are some rules around how the styles are made, and working with these sweeter meads is...

3-26-19 Tonight we're getting together with Jon Oppegaard, owner of Oppegaard Meadery in Tukwila, WA. Jon makes excellent mead, I've tried many of his products. He's even done savoury meads, like his taco mead (yes, I said taco) that he released recently, and which was a huge hit, and sold out pretty quick. Jon has been making mead for over 10 years, and loves it. He made his own because there was...

3-26-19 Tonight we're getting together with Jon Oppegaard, owner of Oppegaard Meadery in Tukwila, WA. Jon makes excellent mead, I've tried many of his products. He's even done savoury meads, like his taco mead (yes, I said taco) that he released recently, and which was a huge hit, and sold out pretty quick. Jon has been making mead for over 10 years, and loves it. He made his own because there was...

2-26-19 Tonight we are getting together with Mike Manning, co-owner of The Colony Meadery in Allentown, PA. Mike is speaking at the AMMA MeadCon in two sessions, Session Meads, and Post Fermentation Mead Flavoring. Mike has been brewing since 2001, and did his first mead in 2009, on Mead Day. He's gone on to win a bunch of medals, and won BOS in Valhalla, resulting in a collaboration mead with Moo...

2-18-19 We're back to featuring MeadCon speakers. Tonight is Sergio Moutela, owner of Melovino Meadery in New Jersey. Sergio is an accomplished meadmaker, and will be speaking at the MeadCon on Making Beer Styled Meads. Sergio has been pushing the boundaries of many mead styles, one of my favorites is Peachy Palmer, a lemon-tea session mead that is so refreshing and tasty, you'll find yourself dri...

2-12-2019 Tonight at 9PM EST, we're talking with long-time mead history buff Dan McFeeley. Dan has been on the Gotmead forums for almost as long as Gotmead has *had* a forum. He was a regular poster in the Mead Lovers Digest email list before Gotmead even existed, and you can find his posts in the MLD archives on Gotmead. He hasn't been super active lately, life and parenting has kept him busy, bu...

2-5-19 Our guest tonight is Michael Fairbrother, owner of Moonlight Meadery in Londonderry, NH. Back in 1995, Michael tried a cyser (apple and honey mead) for the first time. Since that first sip Michael has developed a passion, and a single minded dedication to making international award winning meads. After being recognized as New England’s best mead maker for three consecutive years, Michael qu...

1-29-19 Tonight we're bringing in another speaker for the AMMA Meadcon. Steve Patik lives in Colorado with his wife and two daughters. He found a passion for Mead over a Thanksgiving table in 2012 and year later decided to try his hand at making this amazing beverage. For over 5 years, Steve has been making mead and doing so in some unconventional, yet successful, ways. Steve rarely has a mead tha...

1-22-19 We're off and running this year with featuring people who will be speaking at the AMMA Meadcon March 12-14. Tonight we're talking with Tom Repas (we had a schedule change, and Steve Patik will be on next week). Tom is a master beekeeper who speaks all over the country, AMMA Meadmaker of the Year 2018, winner of many medals, including two Mazer Cup Best of Show awards (2015 and 2017) and 14...

1-15-19 Part 2 of Mead Myths, because we had so many that came up from our listeners last week! Ryan, Vicky and AJ will be talking about the myths that have arisen on techniques in meadmaking, they pervade a lot of the internet and are passed around by people not aware that they are myths. Yes, mead is old as people, and yes, it has a long history (we're having a show on mead history next month),...

1-15-19 Part 2 of Mead Myths, because we had so many that came up from our listeners last week! Ryan, Vicky and AJ will be talking about the myths that have arisen on techniques in meadmaking, they pervade a lot of the internet and are passed around by people not aware that they are myths. Yes, mead is old as people, and yes, it has a long history (we're having a show on mead history next month),...

1-8-19 We're back after our December time off to enjoy family and the holidays. And diving right in! Ryan is going to kick off the new year with some conversation on meadmaking, and some of the myths that seem to pervade a lot of the internet and are passed around by people not aware that they are myths. Yes, mead is old as people, and yes, it has a long history (we're having a show on mead histor...

11-27-18 Tonight we are talking with Kenneth Jenkinson, manager at Savannah Bee Company and fellow mead maker. Kenneth is heavily involved with the Savannah Brewers Club, works on the Domras Cup competition. He's an avid meadmaker, and is very passionate about mead and honey. Especially honey. Savannah Bee Company strives to live as bees live: symbiotically with nature and in a manner that contrib...

11-27-18 Tonight we are talking with Kenneth Jenkinson, manager at Savannah Bee Company and fellow mead maker. Kenneth is heavily involved with the Savannah Brewers Club, works on the Domras Cup competition. He's an avid meadmaker, and is very passionate about mead and honey. Especially honey. Savannah Bee Company strives to live as bees live: symbiotically with nature and in a manner that contrib...

11-20-18 We're continuing our exploration of mead recipes and flavor profiles this week. We asked in the GotMead Group on Facebook and on the Gotmead Page for some flavor profiles that people would like to try to create. We're going to spend tonight working on them, and seeing what we can come up with to help with creating recipes for those flavor profiles. Get your Flavor Bibles out, and join us...

11-13-18 OK, so recipes are taking longer to do than we had in one show, lol. Last show we went down multiple rabbit holes of mead making ideas from questions from the chat gang, so we're back this week with Recipes, Part 2. We promise to stay on target this week. No, really! Making mead is as simple, or as complicated as you'd like it to be. And recipes are the same. Making mead is like cooking,...

11-6-18 We're tickled to have Pete Bakulic, President of the Mazer Cup International Mead Competition, on with us tonight.   Pete was one of the founders of the Mazer Cup International and has been actively involved with the growth and expansion of the competition ever since. Last year, the Mazer Cup International saw over 1100 meads judged. It is the largest mead competition in the world. Entries...

10-30-18 Episode 123! Dang, they're piling up! We're back from a week off, because Vicky ran off to DisneyWorld last week (and found mead there!!). This week, Ryan is back again, and wants to talk about creating your own mead recipes. Probably the most asked question on the Gotmead Forums and the many mead social media groups is 'do you have a recipe for xxx'. Yeah, we do. But you'll never be able...