Mead

Mead: Nectar of the gods, swill of the Deep Ones, and, now, muse to you and I. Made first by a self-organizing, complex hive of bees, then fermented by a legion of yeast cells–all for you. Use this gift wisely.

On Cyser and Ciderschool

4 October, 2015 | 1 Comment

Hello, friends! It’s been a while since you’ve last heard from me, but I have some news: I recently participated in a podcast with Allen and Tysen over at Meadmakr and Matt Williams of Winemaker’s Academy called The Serious Cyser [...]

The 2015 Mazer Cup

22 March, 2015 | 12 Comments

To my knowledge, The Mazer Cup International is the largest annual, mead-only competition in existence. It features both home and commercial competitions with hundreds of entries each in which meadmakers vie for the coveted Mazer Cup trophies. The event also includes the ‘Mead [...]

Holiday Gift Ideas For The Aspiring Cider/Mead-Maker

28 November, 2014 | 0 Comments

Well, folks, it’s that time of year again: The Holidays. And besides being the perfect excuse to bust out the home-fermented beverages, the holidays are a time for something else: awkward, anxiety-laden gift-giving. Anxiety which requires consumption of home-fermented beverages to deal [...]

New Tutorial Is Up: How To Make Mead

13 July, 2014 | 0 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a new tutorial, but hopefully it was worth the wait…particularly if you’ve been thinking about making your own mead but have been standing on the edge of that cliff, not quite able to commit. I hope the new mead tutorial throws you [...]

Ingredient Feature: Currants

26 June, 2014 | 0 Comments

  I thought it might be interesting to periodically profile an ingredient often used in cider and/or mead and the incarnations it can take. Guess we’ll find out if that impulse is [...]

Mead Review: Medovina Summer Solstice

3 November, 2013 | 0 Comments

Summer Solstice is that rarest of animals in the commercial mead world: a relatively dry mead from a small producer who tends his own beehives. Medovina is the creation of Mark Beran of Niwot, Colorado, who has been keeping bees since the 90’s and who–as I’ve been reminded of a [...]

Cidersage Visits Scrumpy’s Hard Cider Bar

8 October, 2013 | 2 Comments

  Main Scrumpy’s tap line–there are several more handles not pictured. I recently made a trip to visit Scrumpy’s, a hard cider bar and restaurant on the North end of College Avenue in Fort Collins, Colorado, and I can’t tell you how happy I am that I did. Ok, actually [...]

Cidersage Visits Redstone Meadery

8 September, 2013 | 0 Comments

Tour: Redstone Meadery This is my first real post on Cidersage. Wow. No pressure. Breathe… Recently, I made the brutally long, 12.4-mile drive from my home in All-America City-winning Longmont, Colorado, to Boulder to visit Redstone Meadery. That’s right: the first post on this cider [...]