MEADS (honey wine)

Mead is an alcoholic beverage produced by the fermentation of a diluted mixture of honey and water. Sometimes with fruit and spices added as flavorings it is called by different names, melomel, metheglin, pyment, cyser and a variety of other names.

It is typically clear with a slight gold tint, with an alcohol content of between 7-22%. By varying the proportions of honey and water and the point at which fermentation is stopped, a wide variety of types can be produced ranging from a very dry and light mead similar to more traditional white grape wines, to sweet and heavy-bodied desert wine. If fermentation is left to continue while bottled a sparkling mead resembling a sparkling white wine is produced.

Until the late middle ages both mead and sparkling mead were highly popular beverages, especially in northern regions of Europe, where wine grapes could not easily be grown. It was produced by organized industry during the 15th-century, controlled as with other trades by guilds. The largest guild of brewers during the time was the Guild of Free Brewers in London, who at the time controlled all aspects of brewing wine, mead and ale. Not only did they control the manufacture of these products but the distribution and laws governing the measurement when dispensed. The guilds controlled all aspects of the trade and production of ale, mead and only toward the end of the 16th-century wines. As the importance of honey was displaced by less expensive sugars in the late Middle Ages, mead was gradually displaced by less costly beers and ales and to a lesser degree by imported wines. Mead then became a drink of the socially lower classes. Nonetheless, it was always considered for medicinal value and was prescribed to even royalty.

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