The Mead House

In this episode, the guys challenge each other to create a summer time mead. They present each other with a concept and have to define their flavors, sources of the flavors, intended ABV for their projects giving plenty of insight into the start of the recipe building process. Stay tuned for the end result in another month or two! The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Us...

Is it the last fading remnants of spring in the air, or is that just a pollen cloud heralding another allergy attack? This week the guys sit down to chat about meads made with flowers – what kinds to use, how to get the flavors out, as well as some speculation as to which would make the best meads. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all...

The guys try a braggot Jeff made using some limited availability ingredients and then get to chatting about what they want to accomplish with their summer. From fruity stuff to session meads and meads made with kviek, before too long time gets away from both of them as the ideas start flying. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your...

After last week’s boozy episode trying easily available commercial meads, the guys decide to flip the script. They sample commercially available meads from smaller producers in various parts of the country for the sake of comparison to more widely available commercial brands. Mead makers include Sky River Meadery, Ozark Viking Meadery, Prairie Rose Meadery and Texas Longhouse Meadery. The Mead Hou...

If you walk into a large local liquor store anywhere in the country, you MIGHT find mead there. If you do find it, you’re likely to find one of a few brands that have wide distribution. The guys realize that they haven’t tasted any of them in a VERY long time. To remedy that, they review five different widely available varieties of mead and sneak in a local variety at the end. The Mead House Podca...

The guys take a look at recipes from the Elder Scrolls Cookbook for quick meads, evaluating those recipes, then do some digging on older and less mainstream parts of the internet to find weird mead. What they find are unusual ingredients, archaic practices, and plenty to keep them amusing themselves. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for a...

The guys get a little silly this week – leaning into the presentation side of mead making to think up cool, interesting or silly ways to present your meads inspired by the massive quantity of fantasy books, movies, television shows, tabletop and video games. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply needs! Thank yo...

After their last foray into experimenting with herbs to make tea investigating a gruit, the guys return for the second part of the experiment using a variety of roots, as well as a nut and some bark. Will any of them yield a good addition to a gruit braggot in the planning stages? Or will their tastes take them in an entirely new investigative direction? The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacc...

Jeff and Chris return to the topic of making a gruit-braggot, a braggot without hops that Chris can enjoy due to his allergy to hops. In an effort to research some of the herbs which could be appropriate for such a brew, they make teas with five different herbs which could contribute to said brew, then start talking about the grains that could go along with said herbs, completely forgetting half o...

For all the new listeners to the podcast, Jeff and Chris take some time to cover all their best practices for mead making, how and why their practices differ from other recipes you might find out on the web and how those practices lead to what all of us want, better mead. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supply n...

In their seemingly endless quest for new and novel ways to make mead, the guys dip their toes into the flavor palate of Ethiopia. Tej, a mead made with gesho root, is an obvious stop on the tour, but they also explore an herbal tea made with koseret, as well as an indigenous style of beer called tella made with roasted grains. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use ou...

With the weather heating up, the guys spend a fair bit of time throwing ideas for summer meads around, helping each other develop their plans and coming up with some tasty ideas. Plus, Jeff lets Chris try a couple more honeys and the guys taste an interesting mead from Drinking Horn meadery. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your s...

Catching up after an action packed travel schedule, Jeff and Chris spend a little time chatting over some of the popular trends they’ve seen in mead making, from the ubiquitous meadowfoam honey to some trends in the past and speculating as to what new trends are coming forward. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and su...

The guys take some time to do a recap of this year’s Valkyrie’s Horn mead competition while driving home from Minneapolis as the experience is still fresh in their minds. Tune in for the impressions, annecdotes, memorable parts of the experience and far too many new ideas the fellas have come up with over the course of the weekend! The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! U...

Jeff challenges Chris to design a pyment using some wine concentrate which may be past its sell-by date, using ingredients he has around the house. The guys think about additional fruit, spices, different options for yeast and honey, and the end result shows a lot of promise. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount code MHP10 for all your shopping and supp...

The guys spend a fair bit of time thinking through how to put together a good pyment, a mead/wine hybrid, and all the considerations that need to go into that. Then they take a few minutes talking about some of their favorite YouTube content creators by listener request. Valkyrie’s Horn Mead Competition: https://home.valkyrieshorn.com/ The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycor...

Jeff takes some time to talk Chris through a mead recipe he’s taken through several iterations – a sangria style mead he makes for his wife Sheila.  Using a base of blackberry wine and merlot kits and some eclectic ingredients for backsweetening, they end up with a consistent crowd pleaser that gets repeated again and again. Valkyrie’s Horn Mead Competition: https://home.valkyrieshorn.com/ The Mea...

The guys take some time speculating about the burn – not just capsumels using hot peppers, but what other ingredients could be used in mead to get the heat sensation and how to approach adding those ingredients, including hot peppers, ginger, black pepper, and even a few other odd possibilites! Valkyrie’s Horn Mead Competition: https://home.valkyrieshorn.com/ The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by...

The guys are working towards a trifecta! In this third episode of “let’s eat interesting stuff we found and see if it can make a mead” Chris brings in a series of 11 different fruits to sample and evaluate their feasibility in making a new interesting mead with. Some produce strong options, some produce disappointment, and the final fruit in the list – well let’s just say they didn’t save the best...

Jeff takes a turn at “I found this weird thing…” and cracks into some pomelo. Chris ups the ante and brings ‘sweet lime’ and kumquats to the flavor party, along with pomelons, then Jeff takes a step way out to left field to sample a little dried galangal. Editor’s note: It looks as though pomelo, pomelon, and pummelo are all regarded as the same species of fruit though it does appear there is also...

At Chris’ suggestion, the guys take a deep dive into trying lychee and lychee flavored drinks, talk options for how to make lychee into a mead, whether to use whole fruit or prepared options, honey selection, and even a little on other flavors that play well with this fruit. BJCP Mead Judging Program: https://dev.bjcp.org/exam-certification/mead-judge-program/ Valkyrie’s Horn Mead Competition: htt...

Jeff and Chris take some time going in depth regarding maintenance steps for equipment used on the day to day when it comes to meadmaking, from glass carboys, plastic buckets and stainless steel fermenters, along with all the smaller bits and bobs like rubber grommets, transfer tubes and airlocks. Valkyrie’s Horn Mead Competition: https://home.valkyrieshorn.com/ The Mead House Podcast is sponsored...

The guys realized in all of last week’s talk of fruit and spice additions to recipes, they’d completely neglected to talk about several important finishing steps, so this week they move to correct that with a discussion on oaking, finishing, fining and filtering, and a few words on bottling as well! Valkyrie’s Horn Mead Competition: https://home.valkyrieshorn.com/ The Mead House Podcast is sponsor...

Last year the guys gave you three basic starter recipes – traditionals with an ABV of 8%, 12%, and 16%. Today Jeff and Chris start wading into taking these recipes – or any other recipe you find – and making them your own with advice on when and how to add fruit, spices, and even a brief commentary on carbonation. The Mead House Podcast is sponsored by Bacchus & Barleycorn! Use our discount co...

Jeff and Chris return to feeding prompts into Large Language Model Chatbot AIs to test their capacity to create recipes, this time testing the ability to manage a more technically complicated prompt as well as a potentially confounding subjective prompt. Afterwards the guys give a few brief thoughts on the utility of these models in recipe development. Raw responses for the two prompts given can b...