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

10-24-23 Tonight we're headed to the other side of the world, to New Zealand, to talk with Jay Bennett, owner and mead maker at Beehave! Craft Meadery, on the North Island, in Taupo. Jay lives in the center of the North Island of New Zealand and is the Mead alchemist and owner of Beehave! Craft Meadery. He lives in the bush at the southern end of Lake Taupo and operates the Meadery in the township of Taupo. In Jay's own words, He is an alchemist, a wizard and a guardian of the land. Jay first served product to the public in December of 2020 at NZs largest beer fest in Wellington - beervana……he had two kegs of his lemon and ginger mead, Suckerpunch, and left there with empty kegs and was voted in the top 10 of the peoples choice leader board. Jay had a pretty organic journey with 8 years of beekeeping which started with the capture of a swarm in the wall of his house to running 200 beehive...not enough to be viable, so in the search for products he could make with his honey, he came across mead and started making it in 5 liter carboys. During winter to supplement his non-existent bee income he drove trucks for a friend and listened to every podcast he could find on Mead making, including GotMead, and then put into practice what he was hearing. He made some pretty rough stuff to start with but had a couple of early good results that gave him hope. Jay saw the opportunity to bring something new and exciting into the NZ market place and set up Beehave! Craft Meadery in 2020. Beehave! is a nano brewery with 4000 liters of fermentation space and another 1200 of brite tanks. Jay built the current set up for easy growth with a massive glycol chiller and space for larger tanks. His goal is to have 12000 liters of fermenters. There is no culture of Mead in NZ so he is pacing the growth. This has morphed into being the only Mead brewbar in New Zealand and a range of both session and still meads including a non-alcoholic offering. As of last week, they now have created a collaboration with Texas Petes BBQ joint at the Meadery and as they head into a New Zealand summer they are looking to enjoy a successful time introducing more locals to Mead. Join us to see what Jay is up to and how things are going with Beehave! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows We'll let you know! Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Let There Be Session Meads by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Oct 27 - Grimsby Hollow Meadery, Middleville, MI - Drink Mead, Learn Things - Celtic Halloween and Spooky Stories Oct 28 The Viking Alchemist Meadery, Smyrna, GA - Mead and Mischief '23, annual Halloween event Oct 28 - White Bear Meadery, Maplewood, MN - Yoga and Mead Oct 28 - Brix Urban Winery, Sainte Genevieve, MO - All Hallows Mead Oct 28 - Apis Mead and Winery, Carnegie, PA - Mead and Monsters 2023 Oct 28 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Mead-O-Ween weekend Oct 28 - Four Brothers Mead, Festus, MO - Heavy Hearts Trio Halloween Party Oct 29 - Trazo Meadery, Clarksville, TN - Viking Mead Fest Nov 1 - Kingview Meadhouse and Winery, Mount Lebanon, PA - Trivia Night Nov 3 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Death Faire Opener: Tending to the Heart Nov 8 - Oppegaard Meadery, Tukwila, WA - Mead Making Class Nov 9 - Apis Mead and Winery, Carnegie, PA - Hurry Up, Say Something Funny comedy show Nov 10 - Adesanya Mead and Microbrewery, Grandville, MI - TYFYS Mead Release - partnering together with Talons Out and Mother Apiary in support of veterans Nov 12 - Oppegaard Meadery, Tukwila, WA - Mead Making Class Nov 15 - Kingview Meadhouse and Winery, Mount Lebanon, PA - Trivia Night You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com If you want to get your event on GotMead Live, let us know at [email protected]

Tonight at 9PM ET, we're talking with Ali and Shane Fox, owners of Dragon Meadery in Aurora, CO. Dragon Meadery is a craft meadery located in Aurora, CO. and is owned and operated by Shane & Alexandria Fox, two former chefs who have spent 20 years each in the restaurant & hospitality industry. Having a deep appreciation for food, and respect for the quality of the ingredients, have extended their passion to mead. They create craft meads that span the spectrum style, flavors, and sweetness. They believe that fresh seasonal produce and honey locally sourced, makes the best meads. Back in the early 2000 A friend of Shane’s introduced him to mead, it was one of his new favorite beverages and something lacking in the restaurant industry. Shane met his wife Alexandria in 2004 & introduced her to mead with a trip to a local meadery. After which he explained he had the equipment and honey for two 5 gallon batches. She wanted to know why they weren’t making mead “we’re chefs, playing with recipes is what we do!” They went and picked up his equipment and honey, took it back to her place to start making their first batch, an orange blossom traditional. They learned a lot from that batch, like the importance of racking, bottling it when it is ready and not still fermenting also to use proper corks not tasting corks. They lost half the batch to “bottle bombs” in the first week after bottling and had a huge mess in their dining room. With lessons learned they made their second batch, a semi-sweet traditional and even entered into the International Mead Festival home competition 2007. To their surprise the mead took silver. Maybe they were on to something. The recession hit them pretty hard as new parents so in 2012 they decided to start the licensing process for a commercial meadery. Fast forword almost a year and several conversations with the city, they became the first meadery in the Denver metro area. They started their first commercial batches in August 2013. With a focus on high quality, full strength aged meads, and a goal to see othemelves on wine menus in upscale restaurants. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows October 10 - Brian Galbreath at Unpossible Meadery October 24 - Beehave Craft Meadery, New Zealand Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Let There Be Session Meads by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Sept 28 - Apis Mead & Winery, Carnegie, PA - Hurry Up, Say Something Funny - Comedy night Sept 29 - Atheling Meadworks, Roanoke, VA - Viriginia Mead Cup Sept 29-Oct 1 - American Mead Makers Association - East Coast Mead Conference in Roanoke, VA Sept 30 - Honey Wines Australia, Broke, New South Wales, Australia - Honey and Mead Tasting Sept 30 - Nutmeg State Mead Cup, Lebanon, CT - 1st Annual Nutmeg State Mead Cup at the Lebanon County Fair Grounds Sept 30 - Norse Hawk Axe Throwing, Branstaple, UK - Axe Throwing, Mead Tasting and Viking Games Oct 1 - Wyrd Leather and Mead, Portland, OR - Mead and Magic Sundays Oct 4 - KingView Mead, Mount Lebanon, PA - Trivia Night Oct 5 - Maniacal Mead, Ypsilanti, MI - Thorsdays, bring your drinking horns Oct 6-8 - B. Nektar, Ferndale, MI - the Finer Things Tasting: A new Mead Day Event Oct 7 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Meadtoberfest Oct 7 - Lost Cause Meadery, San Diego, CA - October Meeting and National Mead Day Celebration Oct 7 - Treehive Meadery, Brocton, IL - National Mead Day Celebration Oct 7 - Maniacal Mead, Ypsilanti, MI - 2023 Mead Day Celebration Oct 7 - Honey Pot Meadery, Anaheim, CA - National Mead Day Celebration Oct 7 - Juniper Tree Meadery, Paragould, AR - National Mead Day Celebration Oct 7 - Four Brothers Mead, Festus, MO - 4th Annual Mead on Main Viking Festival Oct 7 - Antelope Ridge Mead, Colorado Springs, CO - National Mead Day Celebration Oct 7 - Honey Moon Mead, Bellingham, WA - Mead-ieval Dinner at Semiahmoo Resort in Blaine, WA Oct 7 - Triaxial

9-12-23 Tonight at 9PM ET, we'll be talking with Don Miller, head distiller and owner at Texas Rivers Distilling Company in Freeport, Texas. Texas Rivers Distilling Co. was created in February of 2019 in Brazoria County… “Where Texas Began”. They are an LLC registered with the State of Texas as a Distilled Spirits Manufacturer and engage in Distillation and Rectification of craft spirits. They make Bourbon, Rum, Sour and Sweet Mash, and Indian Corn (Milo) Whiskey; all sourced from Texas Grains, as well as Honey Spirits. All their Recipes bear the name of a different river or waterway in the Lone Star State. Don and a few friends were hanging out, back in 2014, and got to talking about the the show ‘Moonshiners’. One of the group mentioned seeing a website that sold stills for a reasonable price. Don pulled the trigger and put up $200 for his share and to get his friends to get on board. They made some pretty awful stuff at first, as they were learning to use a still. But Don was stubborn and kept researching. He found some ‘tried and true’ grain bills and they ended up being ‘just ok’. So, Don dove into all the things like water chemistry, yeast healt, brewing, distillation, fluid mechanics, chemistry and esterification. He studied books and online, and got up with uncles and his dad (who’s a preacher now), who used to run moonshine back in Tennessee. They started out with five gallon batches, two at a time to fill their 10 gallon still, and netted about 2 gallons of drinkable spirits. They started getting together one weekend a month. Then Don really got the bug, and started distilling throughout the month, mostly so they could have fermented mash to run on the group weekend. That turned into mashing four days a week and distilling every weekend. At that point Don had 20K sunk into the hobby, and he hit up his friends and asked them to pitch in for more equipment and grains. That lost two of the group. They figured Don was delusional and obsessed. But one stuck it out, and he and Don are partners today. Don brought the time and drive, and the friend and partner brought a modern barn and additional cash flow. Flash forward about two years and they were buying grains from a brew and wine supply store in Houston every week. They had a “sample counter” where customers could leave their brews and wines for others to try and leave notes for feedback.Don started sneaking a bottle of our whiskey in and leaving it, picking up the previous week’s empty bottle.. One day the owner of the store calls out to Don “hey you!” Don stopped, palefaced, and turned around.. .”me?” And he said “yea, you. Are you the one leaving this whiskey every week?” Don admitted it was he. He asked if they were a legal distillery.. and Don replied “Not exactly..” still unsure where this was going. He replied “I hope you plan to go legal with it. I mean, I don’t care what you do wherever you are doing it, but this stuff needs to be in store shelves.” Don replied “do you think it’s good enough?” He said “good enough? This is the best Bourbon I have ever tasted, and no I don’t mean homemade… I mean THE best.” Don knew Scott Birdwell was a nationally recognized beer judge, and his private spirits collection would make Spec’s jealous. Don went back to the barn and talked to his friend Jason Wierzbicki about what had happened. They did a LOT more taste testing with people they knew … more than 300 people and they all agreed with Mr. Birdwell.. so Jason and Don decided to start working on going legit. In January of 2019 they scraped up $7500 to send Don to Moonshine University in Louisville, KY for a six-day distilling course. This was so we would be able to answer the question on the license application of “Where did you receive your training “.. with a straight face. When Don got back from Kentucky, Jason asked him “So… what did we learn?”.. Don replied “that we are already making it better than they are teaching in Kentucky. The next month, we hired a lawyer and filed their LLC with the State of Texas .. that was February of 2019. They started looking for a location to open the commercial business and Don got word that there was a new Meadery in West Columbia, Texas.. a few miles from his house. He thought they might be able to answer a few questions to help him prepare for introducing himself to the local City Hall and EDC. So he paid them a visit. That is when he met Traci Kuhfuss. She was a co-founder and the master Mead-maker and extremely kind and chock-full of knowledge.. Don left there with more questions than answers, which was incredible, considering she had answered almost everything he had asked… We became friends instantly. I found someone that could talk as much as me and keep it interesting 😎 After things went uphill and downhill and sideways while Covid played out, Jason and Don ended up buying an old mechanic shop in Freeport and remodeling it into their distillery. Traci had been such a huge help that he wanted to do somet

8-15-23 Tonight we're talking with Ben Chaney, owner of Scale and Feather Meadery in Avondale, Arizona. Scale & Feather is a small meadery run by three friends, Ben and Tamara Chaney are high school sweethearts who are going strong with 25 years together. Amber DeGiso is a graphic design specialist–creates cool labels and logos. They specialize in using local ingredients to produce their products. Chaney and one of the other founders, Matt Cross, took a class at UC Davis to learn more about honey wine. Their first foray into the mead business was making it for friends’ weddings. Decorated like an ancient mead hall complete with a flickering chandelier, the tasting room’s theme is reminiscent of Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. Chaney says a highlight of the space is a dragon head with glowing eyes that’s poised above the bar. Scale & Feather is also located next to a Nintendo-themed brewery called 8-Bit Aleworks. Ben has been making mead at home since 2011, and inspired by friends living their dreams, He decided that it was time to play with the big boys and, along with his wife and friend, opened Scale and Feather Meadery in 2019. A Native Arizonan, Ben graduated from Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Science in Marketing degree and has over 18 years of advertising, marketing, and event management experience. Ben completed the UC Davis Advanced Mead Making and Business of Mead Making course and won a silver medal from the Arizona Society of Homebrewers before going pro. Scale & Feather Meadery has received bronze medals from the National Honey Board in 2021 and Texas Mead Cup in 2022. Spicy meads started in 2019 and have since become a focus point for sales as in Arizona sweet and spicy seem to be a winning combination. Join us to see what Ben, Tamara and Amber are up to and talk mead! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows August 29 - Kent Slaymaker at Slaymaker Cellars September 12 - Don Miller at Texas Rivers Distilling Company September 26 - Ali Fox at Dragon Meadery October 10 - Brian Galbreath at Unpossible Meadery Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Let There Be Session Meads by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Aug 17 - MeadKrieger - Old Norse Mead, Loveland, CO - Free Trivia by Geeks Who Drink Aug 17 - Elgin Meadery, Elgin, TX - Beekeeper 'Mead" Up Aug 18 - Leonard Oakes Estate Winery, Medina, NY - Mulberry mead release Aug 19 - Arthurdale Heritage, Arthurdale, WV - Mead Workshop and Tasting Aug 19 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Honey 5k Fun Run Aug 20 - Wyrd Leather and Mead, Portland, OR - Mead and Magic Saturday Aug 25 - Good Omen Mead, Escondido, CA - Latin Night (Salso, Bachata, Cumbia) Aug 26 - World of Beer, Melbourne, FL - Cider and Mead showcase Aug 26 - B. Nektar, Ferndale, MI - Italian Honey and Mead Pairing by Bees in the D at B. Nektar Aug 26 - DMen Tap, Chicago, IL - Mead Fest 2023 Sept 2 - Run Amok Mead, Gardiner, ME - Down East Dead live music Sept 16 - Viking Alchemist Meadery, Smyrna, GA - Mead and Metal Artisans Alley Sept 23 - Starrlight Mead, Pittsboro, NC - MeadFest 2023 Sept 23 - White Bear Meadery, Maplewood, MN - Yoga and Mead Sept 29 - Atheling Meadworks, Roanoke, VA - Viriginia Mead Cup Sept 20-Oct 1 - American Mead Makers Association - East Coast Mead Conference in Roanoke, VA Oct 7 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Meadtoberfest Oct 14 - Michigan Mead Cup - Judging Oct 21 - The Brimming Horn Meadery, Lewes, DE - Mead O'Ween Party You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com If you want to get your event on GotMead Live, let us know at [email protected]

8-1-23 Tonight at 9PM Eastern we're headed out to Colorado, to talk with Mike and DJ from Honnibrook Meadery. AJ and I met Mike and DJ at the 2019 MeadCon and MazerCup, and I was *blown away* by their salted mango session mead (and all their other meads). These guys are doing something right, and if you haven't tried it, you need to. Kevin visited them in 2022 and loved their meads. Honnibrook Craft Meadery has been open for 4 and a half years now and the guys are really dialing in on serving session meads, refreshing meads below 8% ABV that are easy drinkers. The meadery is located just a little over a mile south of downtown Castle Rock Colorado in a man cave garage unit. They have over 85 approved mead recipes and offer 20 meads on tap along with mead slishees or mulled meads, depending on the season. They're currently up to 15 barrels a week in their production. They are up on Vinoshipper, so you can get their meads for your very own! DJ and Mike are both longtime home brewers that met at church and started brewing beer religiously every weekend for about ten years, experimenting with all the spectrum of styles. DJ even worked part-time as an assistant brewer at a very successful Denver Brewery to learn a lot about the beer business. DJ also has a culinary degree and worked as executive chef at the local country club. Their experimenting was not limited to beer, and they made several meads too. The meads received such a positive response they changed their focus to mead completely. They have attended the mead making classes at UC Davis to hone their craft and understand the commercial side of mead making and tinkered on draft mead recipes for several years with the focus on being professional mead makers. They both have won awards individually and together in the amateur and professional mead competitions. DJ is working full time at the meadery and Mike has his day job working in IT, so the meadery is open Tuesday-Sunday evenings and you can even set up an appointment. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows August 15 - Ben Cheney at Scale and Feather Meadery August 29 - Kent Slaymakers at Slaymaker Cellars September 12 - Don Miller at Texas Rivers Distilling Company Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Let There Be Session Meads by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Aug 3 - Maniacal Mead, Ypsilanti, MI - Mead Hall Thursday Aug 4 - Kinsale Mead, Cork, Ireland - Mead-Ella - Kinsale Mead at BarBarElla Cork Mead Masterclass Aug 4 - Good Omen Mead, Escondido, CA - Latin Nights featuring Salsa, Bachata, Cumbia Aug 5 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - National Mead Day Aug 5 - Honeygirl Meadery, Durham, NC - National Mead Day featuring Kelly Jackson Live Aug 5 - Meadiocrity Mead, San Marcos, CA - National Mead Day Aug 5 - Viking Alchemist Meadery, Smyrna, GA - National Mead Day Aug 5 - White Bear Meadery, Maplewood, MN - National Mead Day Aug 5 - Alternative Beverage, Belmont, NC - National Mead Day Aug 5 - Hunters Moon Meadery, Severence, CO - International Mead Day open house Aug 5 - Wyrd Leather and Mead, Portland, OR - National Mead Day Aug 5 - Wildflyer Mead Co, Navasota, TX - International Mead Day Aug 5 - 5/4 Meadery, Roswell, GA - International Mead Day Aug 5 - Stonehaus Meadery, Stroudsburg, PA - National Mead Day with the Two Taboo Aug 5 - Laurel Highlands Meadery, Greensburg, PA - Cousins Main Lobster - National Mead Day Aug 5 - MeadKrieger Meadery, Loveland, CO - Stand Up Comedy Showcase featuring Jozalyn Sharp (Standup NBC, VICE TV) Aug 5 - Honey and Hops Meadery, Front Royal, VA - Music and Mead with Bearded Harmony Aug 5 - Grimsby Hollow Meadery, Middleville, MI -Drink Mead, Learn Things - Celtic Mythology: Where to Begin? Aug 5 - Helderberg Meadworks, Troy, NY - Blackbraid Mead release - a blueberry and sumac mead Aug 5 - Hickory Tree Farm Apiaries, Kent City, MI - Mead Make and Take class Aug 5 - Sa

7-18-23 We are back from our hiatus with a new episode of GotMead Live. Tonight we're talking with Brian Woerner, founder of the World Honey Exchange. World Honey Exchange curates specialty honeys from places such as Chile, Columbia, Ethiopia, Mexico and Tanzania. They have provided honeys for meaderies to make unique meads. Brian Woerner is the Founder of World Honey Exchange, a company focused on creating and furthering linkages between honey producers and end makers of many kinds. Brian began beekeeping in 2012 in Guinea, west Africa, as a Peace Corps volunteer. He subsequently worked for a small honey startup in Cambridge while doing graduate research at Boston University. While studying and working in the Northeast, Brian worked to further beekeeping relationships in various places, including Tanzania & Colombia, before starting WHE as a wholesale honey company. Operational since 2019, WHE has become known for specialty honeys and worked extensively in the specialty craft beverage with partners including Heidrun Meadery in California, Deschutes Brewing in Oregon, and Lamplighter and Aeronaut Brewing in Massachusetts. Join us to learn more and see what Brian is up to with World Honey Exchange! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows August 15 - Scale and Feather Meadery Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Let There Be Session Meads by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events July 20 - Meadiocrity Mead, San Marcos, CA - Dungeons and Dragons and Mead July 20 - Wildflyer Mead, Navasota, TX - Bingo Night July 22 - White Bear Meadery, Maplewood, MN - Yoga and Mead July 22 - Honey Wines Australia Meadery, Broke, New South Wales, Australia - Honey and mead tasting July 22 - Orpheus Mead Fest, Golden, CO - Mead Festival - tasting and bottle sales July 22 - Four Brothers Mead, Festus, MO - Emma Nobbe music July 22 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Axe Throwing at the Meadery July 25 - Oppegaard Meadery, Tukwila, WA - Golden Boar release and BBQ feast day July 29 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Making Mead class Aug 3 - Maniacal Mead, Ypsilanti, MI - Mead Hall Thursday Aug 5 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - National Mead Day Aug 5 - Meadiocrity Mead, San Marcos, CA - National Mead Day Aug 5 - Viking Alchemist Meadery, Smyrna, GA - National Mead Day Aug 5 - White Bear Meadery, Maplewood, MN - National Mead Day Aug 5 - Alternative Beverage, Belmont, NC - National Mead Day Aug 5 - Hunters Moon Meadery, Severence, CO - International Mead Day open house Aug 5 - Grimsby Hollow Meadery, Middleville, MI -Drink Mead, Learn Things - Celtic Mythology: Where to Begin? Aug 5 - Hickory Tree Farm Apiaries, Kent City, MI - Mead Make and Take class You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com If you want to get your event on GotMead Live, let us know at [email protected]

11-29-22 Tonight we're chatting it up with Manny Elgarresta, friend, mead maker, previous co-host on Gotmead Live and denizen of Miami. Manny has been making mead for quite a while, and has even converted his garage to making mead, enhancing it so he could make mead and beer in the Miami heat. He has cooling systems, freezers as fermentation enclosures and has even decorated his mead cave with a ton of Star Wars memorabilia, much of it due to late nights with mead on Ebay and other sales sites. Manny Elgarresta is a native New Yorker now residing in Miami Beach, who got into homebrew after moving to Miami in 1987 and finding that the variety of beers was limited to Budweiser and Coors with some exotics like Beck's. After the craft beer boom made beer brewing kind of moot, he looked for a new way to use his fermenter and found mead. For a little over 10 years he's been trying to perfect a high heat traditional, making gallons of JAOM for the holidays and annoying gotmead podcasters with yeast questions. Special for tonight, our last show of 2022, Manny has obtained 10 *gallons* of rare Florida Keys mangrove honey, and another 5 gallons of Keys wildflower honey. 180 pounds of rare, organic, unprocessed honey. And here at GotMead Live, Manny is offering these honeys to 10 special folks, to make a really special mead. We will be choosing talented mead makers from our faithful listeners to get a gallon of honey, and make a special mead from it. We intend to feature those meads on GotMead social media and here on GotMead Live in the spring. The rules are simple: receive the honey (there will be shipping costs, Manny is giving the honey for free) create a mead that showcases the honey post to Gotmead (social and/or forum) the recipe and technique be willing to come on the show later to discuss what you did, why you decided the approach you took, and how it turned out be willing to get a bottle (can be like a 375) to us on GML so we can enjoy it with you! (and cheer your mead) So join us tonight to talk meadmaking, combatting the heat, varietal honeys and other great meadmaking info! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows We are off for December, see you January 10! Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Let There Be Session Meads by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Dec 1 - Hierophant Mead, Mead, WA - Spokane Valley Winter Market Dec 2 - Bragging Rooster Beer & Mead, Warrenton, NC - Live music by the Mary Selvidge Band Dec 3 - For You Brewing Supplies, Terre Haute, IN - Mead Competition Dec 3 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Community Solstice Party, including Ugly Sweater Day and the return of Coffee Mead! Dec 3 - Gladheart Wine & Brews, Roanoke, VA - Kinnfolk Mead and Cocktails - music by Kinnfolk Dec 4 - Starrlight Mead, Pittsboro, NC - December First Sunday Sound Bath Dec 4 - Starrlight Mead, Pittsboro, NC - Holiday Pop Up Market Dec 5 - Bryant's Dry Cider, Richmond, VA - Magic and Mead Mondays Dec 5 - Drinking Horn Meadery, Flagstaff, AZ - Mead and Magic Monday Dec 7 - Over the Moon Farmstead, Pittsfield, NH - December Book Club - The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister Dec 7 - Drinking Horn Meadery, Flagstaff, AZ - Mead Hall Trivia Dec 8 - Wildflyer Mead, Navasota, TX - Book Club - The Overdue Life of Amy Byler Dec 9 - Texas Heathen Mead Contest - For bragging rights for the poets portion in Texas - Bastrop State Park Dec 9 - Wildflyer Mead, Navasota, TX - Live Music - Logan McCune and Mary Brett Dec 10 - Old Station Honey and Mead, New Sarepta, Alberta, CN - Jingle and Mingle - Mead tasting, snacks, desserts and local artisans and vendors Dec 10 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - 12th Annual Holiday Open House - mead and vendors with gifts! Dec 10 - Raging Cider & Mead, San Marcos, CA - A Raging Holiday Market - mead and a number of vendors Dec 10 - Hunters Moon Meadery, Severance, CO - Mead

11-15-22 Tonight we're headed to Illinois to talk with Luke Goucher and Carson Souza, proprietor and head brewer/meadmaker at Obscurity Brewing and Mead. Obscurity Brewing and Mead was founded 6 years ago, and has been open for the last 2.5 years, with Obscurity Mead Hall being open for about 1.5 years. The brewery side is a brew pub in Illinois that features would class Beer, BBQ, and Braggots. They focus on making the best product they can. The Mead Hall is a small niche tasting room with production. They specialize in ciders, still meads, sparkling session meads, and pyments. Or basically anything they can get weird with. Luke Goucher is a real estate tycoon, restauranteur, and commercial banker with the absolute love and passion for mead and craft beer. He is an alumni of Augustana University. Luke grew up in the northern suburbs of Chicago. It's his visionary sight that brought along Obscurity as well as many other things. Father and husband, he never sleeps trying to see the bigger picture. Carson Souza grew up in New Jersey and went to college for music. But he never left food and beverage the whole time. He's been a commercial brewer for the last 15 years on and off. Luke actually got him fermenting mead. His passion grew from there. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows November 29 - Manny Elgarresta - Mangrove honey and mead making challenge Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Let There Be Session Meads by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Nov 15 - Moonjoy Meadery and Bottle Shop, Durham, NC - Mead n' Make: Quirky Tarot Nov 16 - KingView Mead, Lebanon, PA - Name that Tune and Trivia Night Nov 18 - Bragging Rooster Beer and Mead, Warrenton, NC - Flannel Party! Nov 19 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Getting Ready for Turkey Day - mead and Thanksgiving food pairing Nov 19 - Moonjoy Meadery, Lenoir, NC - Mead and Mindfulness Nov 23 - Bootleg Hill Honey Mead, Davenport, IA - Jim & Leigh Acoustic Nov 23 - Haley's Honey Meadery, Fredericksburg, VA - Thanksgiving Food and Mead Baskets Nov 24 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Temecula Turkey Trot - Harvest Honey Run 5k Nov 26 - Honey & Hops Brew Works, Front Royal, VA - Music & Mead - Featuring: Gunner Heathe Nov 26 - Graham Ordinary, Bedford, VA - Drink Mead, Bee Thankful Nov 26 - Wyrd Leather and Mead, Portland, OR - Small Business Saturday Nov 27 - Wildflyer Mead, Navasota, TX - Goat Yoga! Nov 27 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Holiday Artisan Market - Sip and Shop Dec 1 - Hierophant Mead, Mead, WA - Spokane Valley Winter Market Dec 3 - For You Brewing Supplies, Terre Haute, IN - Mead Competition Dec 3 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Community Solstice Party Dec 4 - Starrlight Mead, Pittsboro, NC - Holiday Pop Up Market Dec 7 - Over the Moon Farmstead, Pittsfield, NH - December Book Club - The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister Dec 8 - Wildflyer Mead, Navasota, TX - Book Club - The Overdue Life of Amy Byler Dec 9 - Texas Heathen Mead Contest - For bragging rights for the poets portion in Texas - Bastrop State Park Dec 10 - Old Station Honey and Mead, New Sarepta, Alberta, CN - Jingle and Mingle - Mead tasting, snacks, desserts and local artisans and vendors You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com If you want to get your event on GotMead Live, let us know at [email protected]

Tonight we're talking with Chad Wiltz, owner and meadmaker at Garagiste Meadery in Tampa, Florida. Chad has been making mead since 2014, and opened Garagiste in late in 2017, after winning the Home Meadmaker of the Year in early 2017. Chad had a life-altering event (though he didn't realize it at the time) in 2014, when he visited a small meadery in Michigan and tried their meads. And that started a quest for him. He wanted to have more mead that was THAT good, and headed back to Tampa to give it a shot, making home meads Having no local meadmakers to draw from, this gave him the luxury of being unafraid to experiment with flavors and ingredients not associated with meads. Some experiments failed and others worked great, all had a powerful influence on how he saw mead and what he thought mead could be. Like any hobby he dove face first into meadmaking. His goal was simple, to create memorable experiences through mead using locally produced ingredients to the extent possible. Soon he was sharing those meads with friends and they shared them with others. A phenomenon of sorts was born and fast forward another year and he was being invited to pour at local festivals. In early 2016 he decided to make Garagiste Meadery a legitimate business. The original concept was a side job of sorts, he'd make mead between the other day jobs. In April 2016 he launched a crowdfunding campaign to get started. Without much expectations or fanfare they put themselves out there. The campaign closed a month later making Garagiste Meadery the largest publicly funded Meadery in history. After some soul searching we decided that we'd throw our fate to the winds and let the voice of the people be heard. Garagiste Meadery would be a full Meadery with a Tasting Room and become the family business. As the Meadery came together they felt the impetus to get better. Still making home meads as they worked their way towards opening, and opened in late 2017. Thankfully, some great meadmakers embraced them and helped refine Garagiste Meadery to where they are today. Join us to talk with Chad! And get a 20% listener discount by using GOTMEAD = 20% at Garagiste! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows November 15 - Luke Goucher - Obscurity Mead and Cider/Obscurity Brewing - Elburn, IL November 29 - Manny Elgarresta - Mangrove honey and mead making challenge Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Let There Be Session Meads by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Nov 2 - Over the Moon Farmstead, Pittsfield, NH - Mead and Read November - Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt Nov 2 - Drinking Horn Meadery, Flagstaff, AZ - Mead Hall Trivia Nov 4 - Pye Road Meadworks, Odessa, FL - Murder and Mead - murder mystery event Nov 5 - Meadiocrity Mead, San Marcos, CA - 3rd Anniversary Party Nov 5 - Wandering Bard Meadery, Greenville, SC - Guided Mead Tasting - Special Reserve Bottles and Introduction to Mead Making Class Nov 5 - Philip Carter Winery, Hume, VA - Harvest on the Halfshell - Wine, Cider, Mead & Oysterfest! Nov 5 - Amber Dragon Meadery @ Play Faire Park, Abilene, TX - Mead Festival Nov 6 - Lilly Belle Meads, Lancaster, NY - Sunday Brunch Nov 6 - Starrlight Mead, Pittsboro, NC - First Sunday Sound Bath Nov 7 - Drinking Horn Meadery, Flagstaff, AZ - Mead and Magic, the Gathering Nov 12 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Intermediate Mead Making Class Nov 12 - Four Brothers Mead, Festus, MO - Live music with Bacon Nov 12 - Wyrd Leather and Mead, Portland, OR - Mad Hatters Mad Mead Party - Alice in Wonderland Night! Nov 12 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Free Axe Throwing at the Tasting Room Nov 12 - Mystic Ambrosia Mead, Santa Fe, NM - Fall Mead Tasting with Plyhumnia and Jordan Jonas Nov 13 - Cape Fear Spirits and Beer, Wilmington, NC - Mead Church w/Starrlight Meadery! Nov 16 - KingView Mead, Lebanon, PA - Name that Tune and Trivia Night Nov 19

10-18-22 Tonight on Gotmead Live at 9PM ET, we're looking forward to talking with Keith Seiz with the National Honey Board. We usually like to have Keith and Alison on during National Honey Month in September, but this year we're doing October. We'll be finding out what the Honey Board has been up to, and talking about their Honey20 Project, the Mead Crafters Competition (5th year!), and the Honey Spirits Competition, as well as their other involvement with honey in craft beverages. We'll dig into how it went with the Mead Crafters Competition, and what's coming in future competitions. We'll also be talking with Keith about his MeadCon talk around mead positioning itself as the next big thing, and follow the track of spirits-based RTD. And of course, honey. Seems that the demand for honey in the last year is the largest ever, and it keeps growing. For the last eleven years, Keith has traveled the country educating bakers, distillers, brewers and now mead makers about honey and its many uses. It’s his passion, and one that has him working with bees and meads, two of his favorite things. Before working for the National Honey Board, Keith served as editor and associate publisher of a trade publication that covered the wholesale baking industry. Come on in and have a listen! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Let There Be Session Meads by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Oct 19 - Lilly Belle Meads, Lancaster, NY - Mead and Massage Oct 19 - Drinking Horn Meadery, Flagstaff, AZ - Mead Hall Trivia Oct 19 - ARTifice Ales and Mead, Manheim, PA - Cigar Night! Oct 19-30 - Hierophant Meadery, Mead, WA - Harvest Festival Oct 21 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Autumn Mead Pairing Dinner Oct 21 - Gypsy Circus, Knoxville, TN - Birthday Mead Release: Chai and Cosmopolitan Oct 22 - The Brimming Horn Meadery, Milton, DE - Mead O'ween Spooktacular Oct 26 - Stardust Cellars, Greensboro, NC - Mead Tasting at the Loaded Grape Oct 27 - WildFlyer Mead Co, Navasota, TX - Adult Coloring Night - Halloween Theme Oct 29 - The Viking Alchemist, Smyrna, GA - Mead and Mischief '22 Oct 29 - Brix Urban Winery and Market, Sainte Genevieve, MO - All Hallows Mead Oct 29 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Mead-O-Ween Oct 29 - Trazo Meadery, Clarksville, TN - Mead Mayhem Oct 29 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Halloween Party - Tasting, Dinner and Costumes are Encouraged Oct 30 - WildFlyer Mead Co, Navasota, TX - Halloween at the Honey Farm Nov 5 - Wandering Bard Meadery, Greenville, SC - Guided Mead Tasting - Special Reserve Bottles and Introduction to Mead Making Class Nov 6 - Lilly Belle Meads, Lancaster, NY - Sunday Brunch Nov 12 - Four Brothers Mead, Festus, MO - Live music with Bacon Nov 12 - Wyrd Leather and Mead, Portland, OR - Mad Hatters Mad Mead Party - Alice in Wonderland Night! Nov 12 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Free Axe Throwing at the Tasting Room You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com If you want to get your event on GotMead Live, let us know at [email protected]

October 4, 2022 - Tonight we're headed to the west coast, to talk with Mark Tanner, owner of Seattle Mead Company and Deception Cellars in Washington state. Mark is a Seattle native, and retired Army Lt. Colonel. He's been homebrewing for over 25 years, and making mead professionally since 2018. Mark got interested in mead a while back, and was the first Washington resident to pass the BJCP Mead exam, and went on to teach prep classes for the first two BJCP Mead exams in Washington. Mark opened Seattle Mead Company in 2018, and just opened a tasting room in Anacortes, WA, just north of Deception Pass, as northwest as you can get and still be in the United States. Seattle Mead Co has a flagship mead line that is berry-forward and ranges from off dry to medium sweet. Deception Cellars offers meads designed to mimic dry fruit forward jammy red wines. They age on oak, and are positively made to age for decades (though you can drink them now too!). The Deception Cellars meads are currently taking about 18 months to properly age, oak and blend. He's gone on to take a number of medals with his meads, and most recently picked up a few at the Mazer Cup. Mark is very intense on his meadmaking, and we're going to dig deep tonight on what he's doing. Join us! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows October 18 - Keith Seiz, National Honey Board Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Let There Be Session Meads by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Oct 5 - Hierophant Meadery, Mead, WA - Drink Mead at Green Bluff Harvest Festival Oct 5 - Over the Moon Farmstead, Pittsfield, NH - Mead and Read - "At the Edge of the Orchard" by Tracy Chevalier Oct 6 - Bragging Rooster Beer and Mead, Warrenton, NC - Music Bingo Night Oct 8 - Meadiocrity Mead, San Marcos, CA - Open Mic Night and Mead Oct 8 - Ogden City Brew Supply, Ogden, UT - Mead Making Workshop Oct 8 - Starrlight Mead, Pittsboro, NC - Beginning Home Mead Making Class Oct 8 - Apis Mead and Winery, Carnegie, PA - Twilight Queen Release Party Oct 9 - Bragging Rooster Beer and Mead, Warrenton, NC - DIY Workshop! Oct 13 - Wildflyer Mead Co, Navasota, TX - Book Club - this month "The Last Thing He Told Me" Oct 15 - Bragging Rooster Beer and Mead, Warrenton, NC - Poses with Pints - Yoga Class Oct 15 - Graham Ordinary, Bedford, VA - Mead in the Mountains - Honeymoon Edition! Oct 15 - Honey & Hops Brew Works, Front Royal, VA - Music & Mead featuring Bearded Harmony Oct 15-16 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Meadtoberfest! Oct 21 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Autumn Mead Pairing Dinner Oct 22 - The Brimming Horn Meadery, Milton, DE - Mead O'ween Spooktacular Oct 29 - The Viking Alchemist, Smyrna, GA - Mead and Mischief '22 Oct 29 - Brix Urban Winery and Market, Sainte Genevieve, MO - All Hallows Mead You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com If you want to get your event on GotMead Live, let us know at [email protected]

9-20-22 - Tonight is a night of mead and madness, as we welcome the Minnesota Mead Mafia gang to the show. Right on the heels of the Valkyries' Horn Mead Competition, this bunch of maniacal mead makers have a lot of great info to bring, and even more craziness. Matt Weide likes to make mead. He is also on the AMMA home board, Founding board member of the Valkyries Horn Mead Competition, 2014 Mead Maker of the Year and a BJCP endorsed mead judge. However, he mostly likes to drink mead. Nathan Steigman is a Saint Paul resident. He got into Mead making back in 2017. Nate is a recovering competition addict. He appreciate all categories of Mead, discovering “new to him” honey, and experimenting with fruits, yeasts, spice flavors and wood/barrel aging. He still drinks the mistakes and eats his broccoli often. He sometimes asks profound questions and sometimes gets profound answers. Josh Holbrook has been home brewing for since 2011 and making mead since 2013. He discovered mead at his local homebrew club when a club member brought a bottle of an attempt at Curt Stock’s Triple Berry Melomel. Clouds parted, angels sang, and Josh became obsessed with mead. Josh has won numerous medals for beer, cider and mead, including AMMA National Mead Maker of the Year in 2020, and a couple Best of Shows at competitions such as Minnesota Mashout and Hoppy Halloween. He is also a certified BJCP judge and mead judge as well as a novice beekeeper, and one of the organizers for Valkyries Horn Mead Competition. One of Josh’s long term mead goals is to make mead with each of the 300+ varietal honeys found in the United States. He has 44 under his belt already and shows no signs of stopping. Al Boyce has been a homebrewer since the early 1990’s. He tasted his first mead at Bunratty Castle in Ireland, and was hooked. Orange Blossom is his favorite honey, Sangiovese is his favorite grape, and 71B is his favorite yeast. He is obsessed with Jamaican Sorrel (hibiscus), and vows to keep making Sorrel meads until he finally gets it right. He recently moved to a lake home in central Minnesota where he lives with his wife Beth and his Golden Retriever Cooper. In November of 2017 Adam Bystrom suddenly got a craving for that sweet nectar we all know; mead. With no meaderies in the area and little to no availability at liquor stores he decided to learn how to home brew. Since then mead has been the exclusive beverage he's fermented with a particular focus on session meads. He's been fortunate to win awards in a number of competitions all around the country and is a proud member of the Minnesota Home Brewers Association. Josh Mahoney has been making mead since 2008. He is a BJCP mead judge, and is addicted to collecting Mazer Cups. Josh thinks JAOM is underrated, and his favorite spice is vanilla. (and extra points if you can tell us who that pic looks like). This show should be both info-rich and a riot. Join us!! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows October 4 - Mark Tanner - Seattle Mead Company and Deception Cellars Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Let There Be Session Meads by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Sept 21 - Clear Skies Meadery, Gaithersburg, MD - Mind, Body and Mead Yoga class Sept 22 - Lilly Belle Meads, Lancaster, NY - Mead for Speed Run Club Sept 22 - Funktastic Meads, Midlothian, VA - 80's Trivia Night Sept 23 - Kvlt Mead, Tacoma, WA - Mortal Ashes Bleak Reality Tour Sept 24 - Starrlight Mead, Pittsboro, NC - Mead Day 2022 Sept 24 - Artivem Mead, Bellingham, WA - 2nd Annual Migration - 2nd Anniversary Celebration Sept 24 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Viking Night - dinner, mead, cider and a souvenir mead horn Sept 24 - Meadiocrity Mead, San Marcos, CA - Open Mic Night Sept 24 - Baxter's Bees - Cedar Grove, NC - Fermented Honey: Mead and Honey Lacto Fermentation Workshop Sept 24 - Hierophant Meadery, Mead, WA - Green Blu

9-6-22 Tonight at 9PM Eastern we're headed out to Colorado, to talk with Mike and DJ from Honnibrook Meadery. AJ and I met Mike and DJ at the 2019 MeadCon and MazerCup, and I was *blown away* by their salted mango session mead (and all their other meads). These guys are doing something right, and if you haven't tried it, you need to. Kevin visited them in 2022 and loved their meads. Honnibrook Craft Meadery has been open for 3 and a half years now and the guys are really dialing in on serving session meads, refreshing meads below 8% ABV that are easy drinkers. The meadery is located just a little over a mile south of downtown Castle Rock Colorado in industrial warehouse space and hosts a 12 tap tasting room in addition to a very modern production facility. They are up on Vinoshipper, so you can get their meads for your very own! Honnibrook is now looking at opening a second tasting room in the area, which should expand their local availability. And now they're doing several braggots in collaboration with some of the local breweries! DJ and Mike are both longtime home brewers that met at church and started brewing beer religiously every weekend for about ten years, experimenting with all the spectrum of styles. DJ even worked part-time as an assistant brewer at a very successfully Denver Brewery to learned a lot about the beer business. DJ also has a culinary degree and worked as executive chef at the local country club. Their experimenting was not limited to beer, and they made several meads too. The meads received such a positive response they changed their focus to mead completely. They have attended the mead making classes at UC Davis to hone their craft and understand the commercial side of mead making and tinkered on draft mead recipes for several years with the focus on being professional mead makers. They both have won awards individually and together in the amateur and professional mead competitions. DJ is working full time at the meadery and Mike has his day job working in IT, so the meadery is open Tuesday-Sunday evenings. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows September 20 - the Minnesota Mead Mafia (the Sugarbelt Gang) Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Let There Be Session Meads by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Sept 7 - Over the Moon Farmstead - Pittsfield, NH - Mead and Read - this one is A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw Sept 10 - Ridge Meadery, Richmond Hill, ON, Canada - Mead & Music Saturdays Sept 9-10 - Valkyries Horn Mead Competition, Minneapolis, MN Sept 10 - Meadiocrity Mead, San Marcos, CA - Open Mic night and Mead Sept 10 - Four Brothers Mead, Festus, MO - Twin City Days Sept 11 - Bragging Rooster Beer and Mead, Warrenton , NC - Woodworking workshop with AR Workshop Sept 13-17 - Mazer Cup International Mead Competition, Kansas City, KS September 24 - Starrlight Mead, Pittsboro, NC - Mead Day! Sept 24 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Viking Night - dinner, mead, cider and a souvenir mead horn Sept 24 - Baxter's Bees - Cedar Grove, NC - Fermented Honey: Mead and Honey Lacto Fermentation Workshop Oct 1 - Four Brothers Mead, Festus, MO - 3rd Annual Mead on Main Viking Festival You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com If you want to get your event on GotMead Live, let us know at [email protected]

Tonight at 9PM ET, we will be talking with Dan Kesterson at Antelope Ridge Mead in Colorado Springs, CO. Dan is the father of 2 boys, and he is an Army Veteran, Mechanical engineer, and the mead-maker at Antelope Ridge Mead. He started making mead when he received 30 lbs of local honey from hives on his Father-in-law's ranch in South Dakota. He immediately switched his focus from brewing beer to making mead after his first batch was a success. In 2019 they started planning to open a meadery where they live in Colorado Springs. Antelope Ridge Mead focuses on pyments, whole-fruit fermentation, and session meads. They pride themselves on high fruiting rates and strive for balance and drinkability in each mead - using only natural ingredients. Their most popular mead is their PB&J Grape session mead, which has already earned two medals (Orpheus and Mazer) in their first year in business. Dan has racked up some impressive wins with his meads: Gold Medal - Candy Crush - Pyment -2021 Orpheus Cup International Gold Medal - Conflux: PB&J Grape - Session Mead - 2021 Orpheus Cup International Bronze Medal - Direct Current - Melomel - 2021 Orpheus Cup International Gold Medal - CC Crush - Pyment - 2021 Mazer Cup International Silver Medal - Conflux: PB&J Grape - 2021 Mazer Cup International BEST OF SHOW MEAD - Sangria Azteca - Fruit Mead - 2022 Colorado State Fair Commercial Wine Competition Bronze Medal - Solstice - Spiced Mead - 2022 Colorado State Fair Commercial Wine Competition Gold Medal - And Then He Served Us Blueberry Pancakes - Anything Goes - 2022 Orpheus Cup International Silver Medal - Sangria Azteca - Specialty Mead - 2022 Orpheus Cup International Silver Medal - Winter Cranberry - Fruit and Spice Mead - 2022 Orpheus Cup International Bronze Medal - Conflux: PB&J Grape - Sweet Session Mead - 2022 Orpheus Cup International Bronze Medal - Solstice - Fruit and Spice Mead - 2022 Orpheus Cup International Come on and listen and hang out with us as we talk mead and explore what Dan's up to, and maybe find out how he's kicking medal butt with his meads! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Let There Be Session Meads by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Aug 13 - 14th Annual Mead Night - Temecula, CA - home and commercial mead sharing, backyard fire and a honey tasting. Bring bottles to share! Aug 13 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Fairy Hair for Everyone Aug 19 - Bragging Rooster Mead, Warrenton, NC - Dog adoption event Aug 22-23 - American Mead Makers Association - MeadCon 2022 in Baltimore, MD - tickets on sale now! Aug 27 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - A Visit with CLAWS - bird rescue Sept 4 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - First Sunday Sound Bath Sept 9-10 - Valkyries Horn Mead Competition, Minneapolis, MN - entries are open now! Sept 13-17 - Mazer Cup International Mead Competition, Kansas City, KS - entries are open now! September 24 - Starrlight Mead, Pittsboro, NC - Mead Day! You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com If you want to get your event on GotMead Live, let us know at [email protected]

7-12-22 Tonight we're chatting with Jeremy Kyncl, co-owner of Hierophant Meadery in Washington with Michelle, his wife, with two locations on the Green Bluff loop in Mead, Washington and a tasting room on Whidbey Island. Jeremy and his wife Michelle have a background in herbs and are focused on local-sourcing their mead ingredients and creating a uniquely local product. They love the 'back-to-nature' aspects of mead making, and all the nuances that plants can add to the mix at various stages of growth. Jeremy is a trained herbalist and behind the deliberately crafted lineup of off-dry meads, and uses responsible sourcing practices and regional honey (often from fellow producers who work along the lush Green Bluff farming loop), both playing fundamental roles. Originally from Colorado, Jeremy Kyncl began homebrewing in college. He was making mead, gruit and beer – including saisons, doppelbocks and wormwood-infused ales – when he met his wife, a Central Valley High School graduate who had grown up in Liberty Lake, in 2008. They were both working on bachelor of science degrees in herbal science at Bastyr University in Kenmore, Washington, where they began to dream of starting a meadery. Michelle Scandalis is an Herbalist, Ayurvedic Practitioner & Meadmaker specializing in ancient herbal preparations and blending techniques. She holds a degree in Herbal Sciences from Bastyr University, where she met Jeremy. Her favorite meads to make are complex metheglin styles. She considers the act of making them, "Guerrilla Herbalism," and hopes to bring appreciate of plants back to the human palate. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows July 26 - Dan Kesterson at Antelope Ridge Mead in Colorado Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Let There Be Session Meads by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events July 15 - Big Lost Meadery and Brewery, Gillette, WY - Mead and Greet July 16 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Viking Night with mead and cider July 17 - White Winter Winery, Trego, WI - Great Northern Railroad Mead and Cheese Train Ride July 23 - Orpheus Mead Fest Tasting and Awards Ceremony, Golden, CO July 23 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Intermediate Mead Making Class July 27 - Over the Moon Farmstead, Pittsfield, NH - We Mead to Paint July 30 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - A Visit with CLAWS Aug 6 - Honey Girl Meadery, Durham, NC - Mead Day Aug 6 - Hunters Moon Meadery, Severence, CO - Mead Day Aug 6 - The BottleHouse, Cleveland, OH - Mead Day Aug 6 - Hierophant Meadery, Whidbey Island, WA - Mead Day Aug 6 - Amrita Park Meadery, Winter Mead Festival, Kin Kin, Queensland, Australia - Mead Day Aug 6 - Laurel Highlands Meadery, Greensburg, PA - Mead Day Aug 6 - Wandering Bard Meadery, Greenville, SC - Mead Day Aug 6-7 - B. Nektar Meadery, Ferndale, MI - Mead Day Aug 5-7 - Honeypot Meadery, Anaheim, CA - Mead Day weekend Aug 22-23 - American Mead Makers Association - MeadCon 2022 in Baltimore, MD - tickets on sale now! Sept 9-10 - Valkyries Horn Mead Competition, Minneapolis, MN - entries are open now! Sept 13-17 - Mazer Cup International Mead Competition, Kansas City, KS - entries are open now! September 24 - Starrlight Mead, Pittsboro, NC - Mead Day! You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com If you want to get your event on GotMead Live, let us know at [email protected]

Tonight at 9PM ET, we're hanging out with Bob Slanzi, beekeeper, meadmaker, industry influencer and general all around pretty cool guy. We're going to ramble around and talk mead both here in the US and in Europe. Bob Slanzi has been keeping bees and making award winning meads for years He is very active in the meadmaking, homebrew and beekeeping communities, having held offices in both his clubs in NY in the past. he is the past president of the Home Governing Committee of the American Mead Makers Association, and very active in helping bring the word of mead to everyone. He is the person who set up and maintains the monthly deals the American Mead Makers Association has for members. Bob was a speaker at the 2022 European Mead Makers Association Conference and judged at their Mead Madness Cup mead competition. He is known for his meads, and isn’t afraid to try new flavors, like seaweed or toasted walnuts. Bob likes to experiment, and talks about layering flavors in meads to get the result you want. Join us as we talk with and chat about what he's making, and what he's seen and learned. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Let There Be Session Meads by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events May 25 - Oppegaard Meadery, Tukwila, WA - Mead Tasting at Mariblu Southcenter - Active Adult Living 55+ May 25 - KingsView Mead & Cider, Lebanon, PA - Lebo Fun Run May 26 - KingsView Mead and Cider, Lebanon, PA - music by Derrick Beattie May 27 - KVLT Mead, Tacoma, WA - Beyond the Grid - music May 28 - KVLT Mead, Tacoma, WA - Safeword! Kinky Queer Comedy Show May 28 - Starrlight Mead, Pittsboro, NC - A Visit with CLAWS - Wildlife rehabilitation May 28 - Four Brothers Mead, Festus, MO - Memorial Day Party May 29 - WildFlyer Mead, Navasota, TX - Social Knit - knit, crochet and crafting (and mead) May 30 - Bryant's Dry Cider, Richmond, VA - Magic and Mead Mondays - play Magic The Gathering and drink mead May 31 - ARTifice Ales and Mead, Manheim, PA - Tuesday Night Trivia! June 1 - KingView Mead, Mt. Lebanon, PA - Buzzworthy Trivia Night June 3 - 1912 Brewing, Tucson, AZ - Mead and Music, featuring Superstition Mead June 3 - Windchaser Meadery, Williamsburg, VA - Advanced Meadmaking class June 4 - Four Brothers Mead, Festus, MO - Zoe Vox music June 9 - WildFlyer Mead, Navasota, TX - Book club - Jurassic Park June 10 - Wyrd Leather and Mead, Portland, OR - Wyrd's Moving Castle - a themed ambiance organized around the works of Miyazaki and the beloved Japanese culture June 10-13 Kvlt Mead, Tacoma, WA - Legions of the Order - Metal Band Festival - 3 day convocation for the Order of the Black arts June 13-19 - Maine Mead Works, Portland, ME - Mead and Cheese Pairing all week June 15 - KingView Mead, Mt. Lebanon, PA - Buzzworthy Name that Tune June 18 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Free Axe Throwing at the Mead Hall June 22 - KVLT Mead, Tacoma, WA - Decay and Decadence 2022 - a Metal Band evening Aug 22-23 - American Mead Makers Association - MeadCon 2022 in Baltimore, MD - tickets on sale now! You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com If you want to get your event on GotMead Live, let us know at [email protected]

4-26-22 Tonight on Gotmead Live, we're talking with Rachel Lipman, owner of Loew Vineyards, in Mt. Airy, Maryland, one of the oldest vineyards in Maryland. The mead production in the Loew family dates back to the mid-1800's in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with a few prominent meaderies and distribution all over Europe. Rachel is one of the youngest winemakers in Maryland (if not the youngest), and she's pushing the boundaries in a male-dominated industry. Rachel is the granddaughter of Wolfgang Loew, and he adopted the name William when he came to the US after World War II, having been the only member of the family to survive the Holocaust, and he did so by being in the Underground. William ended up in Maryland after some time in Indianapolis, and when he arrived, he felt compelled to start making wine at home, remembering his childhood and the smell of the barrels in his family's meadery. He practices and tweaked, and became very well versed in creating a palatable bottle of wine. He kept this up, and when he retired from his 'day job', Bill found a great 37 acre piece of land in Frederick County and planted grapevines. At the time there were only a handful of grape growers and wineries in Maryland. Now the torch has passed to the next generations, and Rachel, the eldest granddaughter, has taken over. Rachel grew up learning about the family history and the winery, and immersed herself in the industry, getting a Bachelor's of Science in Plant Science and a Bachelor's of Arts in Communication. She also studied in France, interned at an organic vineyard in the Loire Valley. She also completed the Washington State University Enology Program. Rachel now manages most aspects of the operations for the vineyard, winery and tasting room. Including winemaking. Rachel makes her families' mead. They have a dry, semi-dry and semi-sweet mead, and make a cyser and a pyment (which has multiple vintages). She spent quite a bit of time uncovering her families mead-making past. While things were shut down during Covid, she dug through Polish documents, magazines and newspapers to learn more about the family business. She learned that her families' meadery was in a district that had warehouses, vodka distilleries, several other meaderies, and a beer garden. Her families' meadery took up an entire city block! At the time in the 1800's when the Loew family were meadmaking, they distributed internationally. And of the ten kids that they had, two of them started meaderies of their own. The rest got into winemaking. One son established the first national meadery and beeswax facility in Poland. He and his wife had three sons, one of which was Wolfgang, Rachel's grandfather. Rachel is now carrying one the family winemaking, and has updated the winery with all new equipment, and is looking to a future of providing her family's wine and mead to the customers of the future. Join us as we talk with Rachel and explore the rich mead (and wine) history she is part of. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events April 28 - Burke Mountain Brew, Springdale, AZ - Mead and Wine Tasting April 28 - ARTifice Ales and Mead, Manheim, PA - Thirsty Thursday - free 4oz taster with a flight! April 29-May 2 - Bottles and Books, Bristol, UK - Sydney and Eden Bank Holiday Cider and Mead Festival April 29 - Antelope Ridge Mead, Colorado Springs, CO - Mural Unveiling and Cherry Limeade release April 29 - Honey & Hops Brew Works, Front Royal, VA - Music and Mead: featuring the Cold North April 30 - Haley's Honey Meadery, Fredericksburg, VA - Smithing and Mead - Blacksmith and Bladesmith demos April 30 - Gulf Coast Mead Fest, Anahuac, TX - Frascone Winery and Vineyard/Bistro - sample meads from 6 commercial meaderies from the Gulf Coast May 1 - Starr

4-12-22 Tonight at 9PM ET we'll be getting together with RJ Cassle, head brewer and meadmaker at Bragging Rooster Beer, Mead and Cider in Warrenton, NC, just a half hour from Vicky's place. RJ is hard at work in getting Bragging Rooster to opening, which should be very soon! Robert J. Cassle aka RJ is a level 43 character in this game called life. He calls himself a jack of many trades and master of some. RJ spent 10 years in the military, 4 years in law enforcement, a few years as a Subway sandwich artist, and 20 plus years as low voltage/security technician. RJ has a love for growing plants, throwing axes, and bringing people together. About 9 years ago he was told that the alcohol budget was too high and that he needed a hobby. Enter mead! RJ's best friend was doing home brew beer at the time, and they really didn’t need another excuse to hang out, but brewing became one. Except, the friend asked if RJ was interested in brewing mead. RJ had no idea what he was talking about, so he did some research. He absolutely fell in love with it. He thought the history was amazing, and wanted to learn more. He and his friend started brewing on weekends and RJ started volunteering at Honeygirl Meadery in Durham on bottling nights. Diane at Honeygirl was the best mentor to get him from homebrewing to commercial brewing. RJ imagined the whole Bragging Rooster as just a meadery until the day he was introduced to some people who wanted to open a brewery but had no commercial brewing experience. He partnered up with them and they took Bragging Rooster from just mead to beer, mead, and cider and that is what they are opening in Warrenton, NC. Join us to talk with RJ and find out what he's done with meads, and where he is planning to take Bragging Rooster when they go live! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows April 26 - Rachel Lipman - Loew Vineyards Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events April 13 - Drinking Horn Meadery, Flagstaff, AZ - Mead Hall Trivia Night April 14 - Wildflyer Mead, Navasota, TX - Book Club - April book is 'Britt-Marie Was Here' by Fredrik Backman April 15 - Kings Beer and Wine, Phoenix, AZ - Mead tasting featuring Celestial Artisan Meadery, Scale & Feather Meadery and Schramm's Mead April 16 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Mead and Making Floral Hair Wreaths April 16 - Build Guild, Ft. Wayne, IN - Mead Making workshop April 20 - Wyrd Leather and Mead, Portland, OR - DJ Lordfiregiant Metal - Rock and Roll night April 21 - Wildflyer Mead, Navosota, TX - Watercolor Basics April 22 - Three Leg Run!, Chester, VA - Blue Guitar Trio is playing (beer, wine and mead) April 22 - KingView Mead, Mount Lebanon, PA - Day One, playing acoustic music April 23 - Potter Township VFD, Monaca, PA - Knights of the Round Table Mead Tasting Fundraiser April 23 - Northerns Beekeeping Association, Pretoria, South Africa - Mead Making and Bee Venom Therapy Training Day April 23 - Four Brothers Mead, Festus, MO - 2nd Annual Sigurblot - 40 vendors, live combat, blacksmithing, belly dancing, food trucks, live music (and pirates will be invading) April 23 - Meadiocrity Mead, San Marcos, CA - Massive Makers Market and Honey Tasting - many vendors, bands, food vendors April 23 - Cape Town Mead Company, Cape Town, South Africa - Mead tasting of nine styles, many not commercially available yet April 23 - Ogden City Brew Supply, Ogden, UT - Mead Making workshop April 23 - Boutique Wines, Spirits and Ciders, Fishkill, NY - Palaia mead tasting April 24 - American Mead Makers Association - Mead Matters #8 - Making Mead with Kveik April 28 - Burke Mountain Brew, Springdale, AZ - Mead and Wine Tasting April 29-May 2 - Bottles and Books, Bristol, UK - Sydney and Eden Bank Holiday Cider and Mead Festival April 29 - Antelope Ridge Mead, Colorado Springs, CO - Mural Unveiling and Cherry Limeade relea

3-29-22 Tonight we're talking with Pierre Rodrigue, home meadmaker in Alberta, Canada. Pierre has been with us before, he's an award winning meadmaker who likes to work with juice, and like us, is a flavor maven. Pierre has been fermenting wine since 1985. 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 Show at Canada’s Mellarius Cup. His penchant for all juice meads is fairly well known on social media, where he moderates GotMead, Modern Mead Makers, Home Made Wine Making, and his own page, Mead and Wine Crafting. In his spare time you can find him drawing, baking, cooking, curing and smoking meats, or long distance target shooting. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows April 12 - RJ Cassle - Bragging Rooster Meadery in Warrenton, NC April 26 - Rachel Lipman - Loew Vineyards Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Mar 31 - HoneyGirl Meadery, Durham, NC - Queen Bee Virtual Mead Tasting of 3 meads from HoneyGirl. Order your tasting kits to join in! April 1 - Holter Museum of Art, Helena, MT - Spring Mead and Read April 2 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Sip and Paint with Cateleya Jewelry Studio April 2-3 Mountain Run Winery, Culpeper, VA - Mead and Mayhem 2022 - 2 day full contact armored combat fighting event April 3 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Honey and Mead Tasting Class April 3 - Skål Beer Hall, Seattle, WA - Spring Mead Festival - seven local meaderies on hand to pour: Æsir Meadery - Everett, WA Artivem Mead - Bellingham, WA Ethereal Mead - Battleground, WA Hierophant Mead - Freeland, WA Contrivance Mead - Tukwila, WA Oppegaard Meadery - Tukwila, WA Thunderland Mead - Duvall, WA April 3 - Meadiocrity Mead, San Marcos, CA - Sunday Sessions: Mead and Music April 6 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Mead and Chocolate Class April 9 - ARTifice Ales and Mead, Manheim, PA - 2022 Central PA Kiltcon! April 9 - Meadiocrity Mead, San Marcos, CA - Viking Raiding Party! Walk MS Fundraiser April 10 - Firefly Gathering, Barnardsville, NC - Magical Mead Making Class April 12 - Battle and Brew, Sandy Springs, GA - Mead and Minis - paint minis and drink Viking Alchemist mead April 23 - Potter Township VFD, Monaca, PA - Knights of the Round Table Mead Tasting Fundraiser April 23 - Northerns Beekeeping Association, Pretoria, South Africa - Mead Making and Bee Venom Therapy Training Day April 23 - Four Brothers Mead, Festus, MO - 2nd Annual Sigurblot - 40 vendors, live combat, blacksmithing, belly dancing, food trucks, live music April 24 - American Mead Makers Association - Mead Matters #8 - Making Mead with Kveik April 28 - Burke Mountain Brew, Springdale, AZ - Mead and Wine Tasting April 30 - Haley's Honey Meadery, Fredericksburg, VA - Smithing and Mead - Blacksmith and Bladesmith demos May 15 - AleCraft Brewery, Bel Air, MD - Mead Making Class May 21-22 - Honey and Pollination Center, UC Davis, Davis, CA - Mead: Getting Creative May 22 - Manic Meadery, Crown Point, IN - Sugar Belt Mead Festival May 28 - KVLT Mead, Tacoma, WA - Safeword! Kinky Queer Comedy Show Aug 22-23 - American Mead Makers Association - MeadCon 2022 in Baltimore, MD - tickets on sale now! You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com Got an event you’d like us to mention on GotMead Live? Send us an email at [email protected] and tell us about it!

3-15-22 Tonight at 9PM ET, we're talking with Ian, Adam and Isaac Rushing, owners of Honey and Hops Brew Works in Front Royal, VA. Honey and Hops Brew Works is a meadery started on a shoestring, and the Rushing brothers have gotten it to a thriving business. It started in 2019, with a Kickstarter that raised 11K in funds. Then the brothers went on to find a location, and secure that, and get the licensing started. Then along came 2020 (queue ominous music) and the pandemic (more ominous music). But the brothers from Alaska (now living in Front Royal, VA) were undeterred. Honey and Hops opened their doors April 10th, 2020, about 3 weeks after the world shut down (Virginia went into lockdown on March 18th, 2020). They started with 5 flavors, and by the end of the first year had released just over 20 of their small batch meads. Within 8 months of operating out of their first location, they had a signed lease on a space 3 times the size of their original space, directly on Main St in Front Royal. Owned and operated by 3 brothers (out of 8 siblings) that grew up in Alaska, they have grown steadily over the past 2 years since opening. Adam started home brewing beer in 2015. Adam is fourth out of 8 siblings. He is our lead mead maker, and is the creative genius behind most of our flavor combinations. Ian has a background in journalism and marketing. He is the oldest of 8 siblings, and somehow persuaded Isaac and Adam to move from Alaska to Front Royal VA to start this venture. Isaac is the third oldest of 8 siblings. He has spent many years in management, and was our first “full time” employee, managing our day to day operations. Join us to talk with Ian, Adam and Isaac and hear more about how they got things going on a shoestring in the middle of the pandemic, and what they're doing with their meads. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. If you could taste Hawaiian sunshine and aloha it would taste just like Wao Kele Honey. Raw unheated and unfiltered from the big island of Hawaii. All the honey is family produced on the family farm. Email [email protected] Upcoming Shows Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Mar 17-19 - ARTifice Ales and Mead, Manheim, PA - St. Patricks Day Weekend Mar 19 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - A Visit with Friends - CLAWS bringing winged friends, owls, hawks and ravens Mar 19 - Lincoln Fill Station, Snellville, GA - Mead Fest featuring 17 different meads, and a viking inspired meal Mar 19 - Zoll Vineyards, Dutton, VA - Cider and Mead Grand Tasting Mar 19 - Wildflyer Meadery, Festus, MO - Heley Woolbright Band Mar 20 - MoonJoy Meadery, Lenoir, NC - Mead and Mindfulness at the Wolf Moon Salt Cave Mar 2 - Apis Mead & Winery, Carnegie, PA - Axes at Apis - ax throwing Mar 26 - Viking Alchemist Meadery, Smyrna, GA - Mead and Metal Live Blacksmithing and local artists Mar 26 - Deep Water Vineyard, Wadmalaw Island, SC - Candlemaking and Mead Tasting Mar 26 - Resource Conservation District of Greater San Diego and Wild Willow Farm, San Diego, CA - Mead and Honey Workshop March 27 - Mead Geek Society @ Lost Cause Meadery, San Diego, CA - First meeting of 2022 - Dessert Inspired Meads w/ Unpossible Mead Mar 31 - HoneyGirl Meadery, Durham, NC - Queen Bee Virtual Mead Tasting of 3 meads from HoneyGirl. Order your tasting kits to join in! April 2-3 Mountain Run Winery, Culpeper, VA - Mead and Mayhem 2022 - 2 day full contact armored combat fighting event April 3 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Honey and Mead Tasting Class April 3 - Skål Beer Hall, Seattle, WA - Spring Mead Festival - seven local meaderies on hand to pour: Æsir Meadery - Everett, WA Artivem Mead - Bellingham, WA Ethereal Mead - Battleground, WA Hierophant Mead - Freeland, WA Contrivance Mead - Tukwila, WA Oppegaard Meadery - Tukwila, WA Thunderland Mead - Duvall, WA April 6 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Mead and C

2-15-22 Tonight we're hanging out with TJ Cline, past President of the Savannah Brewers League and Organizer of the Domras Cup Mead Competition, which was held two weekends ago. TJ describes himself as a 'novice mead maker', with 18 batches under his belt over the last six years. He says he's always learning, and his current favorite styles are braggots, bochets and black currant fruit meads. He has been involved with the Domras Cup for the last six years, and worked his way up, starting with steward, and progressing to judging and registrar. Along the way he also became Secretary and is now President of the Savannah Brewers League, and is now the Organizer for the competition. TJ managed to keep the Domras cup going through the pandemic (no easy task), and has learned a few things that he thinks are crucial to planning a successful regional competition. The Domras Cup just completed it's 24th year of competition, and and the 25th year will be on 2/1/23, making it one of the longest running competitions out there. The competition is named in honor of Chuck Domras, who was instrumental in bringing mead to the Savannah Brewers League and furthering the mead making craft. Join us as we talk mead, competing your mead, and the challenges of putting on a large mead competition. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows March 1 - Shawn Harris - Walkele Honey in Hawaii March 15 - Ian Rushing - Honey and Hops Brewworks Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Feb 16 - Clear Skies Meadery, Gaithersburg, MD - Mind, Body and Mead Tasting Yoga Feb 16 - Drinking Horn Meadery, Flagstaff, AZ - Mead Hall Trivia Feb 17 - Kinsale Mead, Ireland - Online Mead Tasting (get your kits ahead) Feb 19 - Windchaser Meadery, Williamsburg, VA - Meadmaker 101 Class Feb 19 - Temple Cellars, Singapore - Mead tasting with Gosnells (UK), Lone Bee (NZ) and Lion City (Singapore) Feb 19-20 - Texas Mead Works, Seguin, TX - Thorn Hill BBQ Feb 20 - Haley's Honey Mead, Fredricksburg, VA - Girl Scout Cookies and a Flight of Mead Feb 24 - Honeygirl Meadery, Durham, NC - Virtual Mead Tasting Feb 24-26 - European Mead Makers Association - Mead Madness Cup and EMMCon in Warszawa, Poland Feb 25 - American Mead Makers Association - Mead Matters Tasting with Prairie Rose Meadery Feb 26 - Texas Mead Association, La Grange, TX - Texas Mead Fest Feb 26 - Glass Jug Beer Lab, Durham, NC - Cider and Mead Tasting Feb 26 - Temple Cellars, Singapore - Gosnell's Mead Tasting Feb 26 - Four Brothers Mead, Festus, MO - Live Music with John Jarrett Feb 26 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Viking Night - Mead, Hard Cider, Dinner and a Viking Drinking Horn Feb 27 - Moonjoy Meadery, Lenoir, NC - Yoga and mead at Wolf Moon Salt Cave Feb 27 - Drinking Horn Meadery, Flagstaff, AZ - Mead and Painting Mini's Mar 4 - Honey & Hops Brew Works, Front Royal, VA - Music & Mead with Ryan Jewel Mar 10 - Wildflyer Mead Co, Navasota, TX - Book Club - No Words by Meg Cabot You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com Got an event you’d like us to mention on GotMead Live? Send us an email at [email protected] and tell us about it!

2-1-22 Tonight we're hanging with Ty Wheeler, mead maker, and host of the 'TK and Drinks' video podcast. Ty is a denizen of Arizona, and is a dad of two boys and purchasing agent in his day life. By night, he's a podcaster and is working on mead distribution. At the beginning of COVID, he got laid off and decided to make a career in the mead industry. Ty got into mead a few years back after re-connecting with a high school friend and former roommate, Jon Oppegaard of Oppegaard Meadery in Washington. He joined the Oppegaard Viking club, and started making regular purchases and visiting the local meaderies around him in Arizona. Ty hosts his TK and Drinks channel, and it's his mead advocacy venue. He started it to become a mead reviewer, and hone his skills to become a competition mead judge. and along the way it morphed into doing interviews and homebrewing/meadmaking videos as well. And now it's lead to doing mead distribution in Arizona. Join us to talk mead, meaderies, finding and distributing and whatever else we wander into at 9PM ET tonight! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows February 15 - Teejay Kline - meadmaker and homebrewer, the Domras Cup March 1 - Shawn Harris - Walkele Honey in Hawaii March 15 - Ian Rushing - Honey and Hops Brewworks Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Feb 3 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Temecula Homebrewer Night Feb 6 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - CLAWS event - raptor rescue Feb 7 - SE Michigan Pink Boots Society, Ann Arbor, MI - All About Mead with Bløm Meadworks Feb 10 - WildFlyer Mead Co, Navasota, TX - Book club and mead Feb 11 - Kutik's Everything Bees, Oxford, NY - Mead Making Extravaganza Feb 11 - KVLT Mead, Tacoma, WA - SAFEWORD - a Kinky Queer Comedy Show Feb 12 - Planet Bee Honey Farm and Honeymoon Meadery, BC, Canada - Meant to Bee Virtual Cheese, Mead and Honey Tasting Experience Feb 14 - Kinsale Mead, Ireland - Valentines Online Mead Talk 'Bee Mine' Feb 16 - Clear Skies Meadery, Gaithersburg, MD - Mind, Body and Mead Tasting Yoga Feb 17 - Kinsale Mead, Ireland - Online Mead Tasting (get your kits ahead) Feb 24 - Honeygirl Meadery, Durham, NC - Virtual Mead Tasting Feb 24-26 - European Mead Makers Association - Mead Madness Cup and EMMCon in Warszawa, Poland Feb 25 - American Mead Makers Association - Mead Matters Tasting with Prairie Rose Meadery Feb 26 - Texas Mead Association, La Grange, TX - Texas Mead Fest Feb 26 - Glass Jug Beer Lab, Durham, NC - Cider and Mead Tasting Feb 26 - Temple Cellars, Singapore - Gosnell's Mead Tasting Feb 26 - Four Brothers Mead, Festus, MO - Live Music Feb 26 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Viking Night - Mead, Hard Cider, Dinner and a Viking Drinking Horn You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com Got an event you’d like us to mention on GotMead Live? Send us an email at [email protected] and tell us about it!

1-18-22 Tonight we're talking with Mike and Cathy Rape, owners of The Ferm Meadery in Conroe, TX. They're making great mead and having a good time spreading mead, music and food around to their customers. Cathy and Mike are native Texans, and grew up in Conroe, TX. They've been married 26yrs and have 3 grown kids and a grandchild. They also own and operate a company that provides temporary power and temperature control mostly for live events. Around the time their kids became teenagers (Because "teenagers") they started home winemaking as a hobby that they could both enjoy together. They were introduced to mead on a business trip to Georgia at the Savannah Bee Co. After that, they were hooked and started focusing almost exclusively on mead making and dreaming of starting a meadery someday. They visited as many meaderies as they could find and attended classes on mead making at UC Davis and the Winemaker Magazine Conference. They also apprenticed ourselves under local meadmakers Bruce and Bridget Leslie of Griffin Meadery (now Punkin Vinyards) as well as Jon Odom of Enchanted Manor Meadery. Once it became apparent that "14 days to slow the spread" was looking more like the end of live events for the foreseeable future & their event business came to a halt they started talking about moving "someday" to now. With lots of time to spare during the lockdowns, they signed a lease on a 1940's building on the Downtown Conroe square and began renovation. They were thrilled to discover they were part of a movement to revitalize the Downtown Conroe food and beverage, nightlife, and live music scene. They opened their tasting room in March of 2021 offering a variety of still meads, sessions, charcuterie boards, and live entertainment. Join us as we talk mead, meadmaking, and starting a meadery (during a pandemic!) tonight at 9PM ET. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com The Ferm: Historic Downtown Conroe's own meadery established in March 2021 serving standard strength mead, carbonated sessions, and charcuterie boards in a nostalgic 1940s building with live local music. Check it out! If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows We are off for December! Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, and we'll see you January 11, 2022! Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Jan 20 - Apis Mead and Winery, Carnegie, PA - South Hills Run Jan 20 - Artivem Mead Co, Bellingham, WA - Lunch and Learn Jan 21 - Haley's Honey Meadery, Fredricksburg, VA - Paint and Mead Jan 22 - Four Brothers Mead, Festus, MO - Mead and Music Jan 22 - BottleHouse Brewery and Meadery, Cleveland, OH - Burns Night celebration Jan 23 - Moonjoy Meadery, Lenoir, NC - Mead and Mindfulness with Wolf Moon Salt Cave Jan 28 - Matawi Mead, Cape Town, South Africa - See them at the Ultimate Beverage Showcase at the Cape Town International Convention Centre Jan 28 - 1912 Brewing Co, Tuscon, AZ - Mead and Music, featuring Superstition Meadery meads Feb 3 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Temecula Homebrewer Night Feb 7 - SE Michigan Pink Boots Society, Ann Arbor, MI - All About Mead with Bløm Meadworks Feb 10 - WildFlyer Mead Co, Navasota, TX - Book club and mead Feb 11 - Kutik's Everything Bees, Oxford, NY - Mead Making Extravaganza Feb 24 - European Mead Makers Association - Mead Madness Cup and EMMCon in Warszawa, Poland Feb 25 - American Mead Makers Association - Mead Matters Tasting with Prairie Rose Meadery You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com Got an event you’d like us to mention on GotMead Live? Send us an email at [email protected] and tell us about it!

11-23-21 Tonight we’re venturing back into the world of mead sensory analysis. Stephen from experimeads.com will be joining us again to talk about the latest mead experiments he's been conducting. Stephen is a home mead maker, three time Canadian mead maker of the year, and BJCP certified beer and mead judge. In the process of honing his craft, he has been testing the parameters of mead fermentation and conducts formal sensory analysis to compare methods. Given the lack of scientific evaluation of meads relative to wine and beer, he has been sharing his findings with other mead makers via experimeads.com to try and push mead quality to the next level. We will be talking to him on how and why to design experiments on sensory analysis. Whether conducting triangle tests or bench trials, why is formal evaluation needed to take your mead consistently to the next level? He will cover recent findings from experiments on water chemistry, nutrient off-flavor thresholds, acidity, nutrient levels for ale yeasts, and the effect of kieselsol and chitosan. We find out why he has been focused on session meads, and how the experiments on nutrient timing, pitch rates, nutrient types, dried vs wet yeasts, and alternative ale yeasts inform his recently published recipe? Also, we chat with him about evidence that online calculators can lead to off-flavors. Why does he suggest that the next generation of calculators should formalize the risk from Go-ferm and vary the YAN recommendations by pitch rates, oxygenation regimes, acidity, and temperature? Finally, we will also get an exclusive sneak peek of results from other experiments that have not been published on experimeads.com. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows We are off for December! Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, and we'll see you January 11, 2022! Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Nov 26 - Antelope Ridge Mead, Colorado Springs, CO - Mead Black Friday Nov 27 - Starrlight Mead, Pittsboro, NC - CLAWS - Wild bird rescue Nov 27 - Chubby Cheeks Mead, Temecula, CA - Live music and mexican food from their kitchen Nov 28 - Viking Alchemist Meadery, Smyrna, GA - Mead and Metal Artists Market Dec 4 - Wandering Bard Meadery, Greenville, SC - Advanced Mead Making Class Dec 4 - Wines & Wares, Jacksonville, NC - Dansk Meads tasting Dec 4 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Viking Night - mead, hard cider and a souvenir horn Dec 7 - Two Seasons Meadery and the Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, AK - Urban Harvest: Turning Honey into Mead Dec 9 - Wildflyer Mead Co, Navasota, TX - Book Club Dec 16 - Wandering Bard Meadery, Greenville, SC - Mead & Read Book Club Dec 17 - Haley's Honey Meadery, Fredricksburg, VA - Paint and Mead Dec 17 - Meadicocrity Mead, San Diego, CA - Movies and Mead - showing "It's a Wonderful Life" You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com Got an event you’d like us to mention on GotMead Live? Send us an email at [email protected] and tell us about it!

11-9-21 Tonight we're headed to Texas to talk with Wendy Rohan and Rosie Haines at Rohan Wines and Meads in La Grange, situated between La Grange, Round Top and Fayetteville in south central Texas. Rohan Meadery is at Blissful Folly Farm. The farm is home to Rohan Wines and Meads, Blissful Folly hard ciders and La Grange Brewing Co. All the beer, wine, mead & cider is made on site and served at the tap room on the farm. Wendy & John Rohan started with the meadery first in 2009, then slowly built the business and added different items over the last 12 years. The farm is a working farm with guinea fowl, chickens, ducks, a 2 acre vineyard, fruit trees, bees, goats, sheep & donkeys. The couple practices sustainable farming methods, and the farm is bee friendly certified. Wendy & John were avid homebrewers in the 90s and both have background in the sciences. They make their meads on the principle that the freshest ingredients, locally- sourced when possible, will have the best end result. To that end, over 90% of the honey used in their meads is Texas wildflower or huajilla honey & much of the fruit used is organic. Rosie Hanes came on board as production manager and mead maker in the summer of 2020. She brings a wealth of homebrewing experience, and creative ideas that have resulted in some unique and amazing offerings this past year. Rohan Meadery makes over 15 styles of meads; some are seasonal, others available year-round. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows November 23 - Steve at Experimeads Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Nov 11 - WildFlyer Mead Co, Navasota, TX - Mead and Read - Book Club Nov 12 - Copenhagen Mead Company, Copenhagen, Denmark - Sparkling Elderflower Mead Launch Nov 13 - The Bee Store, Lake Ridge, VA - Honey and Hops Brewworks mead tasting Nov 13 - Deseret Hive Supply, Ogden, UT - Basic Mead Making class Nov 18 - Keys' Meads, Florida Keys - Mead and Greet - Author signings Nov 19 - Haley's Honey Mead, Fredericksburg, VA - Paint and Mead Nov 20 - Kvlt Mead, Tacoma, WA - Deconsecration Mead Release Nov 21 - Moonjoy Meadery, Lenoir, NC - Mead and Mindfulness Nov 26 - Antelope Ridge Mead, Colorado Springs, CO - Mead Black Friday Nov 28 - Viking Alchemist Meadery, Smyrna, GA - Mead and Metal Artists Market Dec 4 - Wandering Bard Meadery, Greenville, SC - Advanced Mead Making Class Dec 4 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Viking Night - mead, hard cider and a souvenir horn You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com Got an event you’d like us to mention on GotMead Live? Send us an email at [email protected] and tell us about it!

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 pitched their first batch in January 2020, and had planned to open fully in April, but COVID raised it's ugly head. So the grand opening became a soft opening with family and friend in March, and then they had to shut their doors when the lockdowns hit. But they managed to pivot to completely online and remote business. The meadery started out with 8 1-BBL conicals and 6 1-BBL brite tanks. And they're working towards a full scale production facility with 2 30-BBL and 6 10-BBL conicals. And adding a canning line and kegging capacity. Yancy is the meadmaker, and has been making mead and home brewing and making mead since 2003 in Gaithersburg, MD. He has a scientific background in chemistry and epidemiology and left the Federal workforce in March of 2021 to work at Clear Skies Meadery full time. His interest in mead began at several renaissance festivals and since then, he has won local, national, and international awards for his meads. He is excited to introduce this craft beverage and become a part of the local Gaithersburg business community. Manisha is the business operations head, and was born and raised in Mumbai India. She is a former biotechnology industry professional and a military spouse. She inherited her family’s entrepreneurial skills and industrious spirit. She was excited about the idea of producing and marketing mead. Beginning in January 2019 she has channeled her energy into Clear Skies Meadery. She has lived and worked in Maryland, Pacific Northwest, Korea and North Carolina. She is passionate about local cuisines, diverse culture, and building new communities. Jacob, the assistant brewer, grew up brewing with his family starting at the ripe age of 5. After college, he worked in environmental consulting and research while also pursuing his passion for home-brewing. Naturally, he jumped on the opportunity to contact with Manisha and Yancy when he heard they were opening Clear Skies Meadery. While working there, he completed the American Brewers Guild IBS&E program to further his education. Besides brewing, Jacob enjoys cooking, disc golfing, wood working, and spending time with his family. Join us as we talk with them about mead (of course), the challenges of going pro, and what is going on with mead in the Clear Skies world. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows November 9 - Wendy Rohan - Rohan Mead November 23 - Steve at Experimeads Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Oct 1-31 - Humblebee Meadery, BC, Canada - Huck it in the Bucket: A month-long special promoting HumbleBee Meadery and Axewood Axe Throwing at the Whistler Racket Club’s Courtside Cafe, Patio, and Bar Oct 27 - Drinking Horn Meadery, Flagstaff, AZ - Mead Hall Trivia Oct 28 - Artifice Ales and Mead, Manheim, PA - Wolgemut Live Oct 29 - Beer & Wine Nation, Merrimack, NH - Grand tasting, including Moonlight Mead, Ancient Fire Mead, Hermit Woods, and more Oct 30-31 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Mead-o-ween bash Oct 30 - Maryland Beer, Wine and Spirits Festival - Clear Skies Meadery, Maryland Meadworks and the Buzz Meadery will be pouring Oct 30 - Viking Alchemist Meadery, Smyrna, GA - Mead and Mischief Oct 30 - Crooked Pecker Brewing Company, Chagrin Falls, OH - Mead making class Oct 30 - Meadiocrity Mead, San Marcos, CA - Hallow-mead party Oct 30 - Brix Urban Winery and Market, Sainte Genevieve, MO - All Hallows Mead Oct 30 - Four Brothers Mead, Festus, MO - Whiskey Wylds and the Jalepeño Poppers musical e

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 college kid going to do with a bunch of surplus honey anyhow? Of course he fermented it. It seemed like a great idea for a business someday, as there was very little available anywhere at that time, and when you could find or order it, choices were usually very limited. The knowledge base for making mead at that time was also very limited, particularly with regards to yeast strains, care and feeding of the yeast, etc. he remembers looking up some of the early example recipes on GotMead.com. He took what he was able to find and did several large controlled experiments over the years, doing a few batches of a control recipe, and working out which variables had the largest impact on taste. Needless to say 25 5 gallon batches running in parallel was not always the most easy of things to find a person willing to host early on. In early 2014, James and a good friend were looking to invest their time in something in the craft beverage industry. After some hard looking, Andrew and James circled back to mead because we felt like it was a relatively untapped opportunity that they could bootstrap. From early on their focus was on lighter, lower abv products, and predominantly canned ones, primarily because they enjoyed drinking them on a daily basis, and friends highly encouraged those as a very drinkable option. Covid has certainly been a big hit, but going from 1200 sq ft a few years ago to 10,000 in just a few years has been an interesting ride. The Charm City Meadworks taproom is at 400 E Biddle St, Baltimore, MD 21202. [break] This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Rated the very best winery in Colorado! Visit our state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free draft taster! Google H-O-N-N-I Brook for hours and directions. They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows October 26 - Yancy Bodenstein - Clear Skies Mead November 9 - Wendy Rohan - Rohan Mead November 23 - Steve at Experimeads Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Oct 14 - Capital Hive Meadery, Leesburg, VA - October Mead Up Oct 14 - Wildflyer Mead Co, Navasota, TX - Adult Coloring Night Oct 14 - Victory or Valhalla, Dixon, CA - Ax throwing venue is hosting a mead making class Oct 16 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - NC Wine Festival at Koka Booth Amphitheater in Cary, NC Oct 16 - Cape Town Mead Company, Maitland, Cape Town, South Africa - Mead Tasting Oct 1-31 - Humblebee Meadery, BC, Canada - Huck it in the Bucket: A month-long special promoting HumbleBee Meadery and Axewood Axe Throwing at the Whistler Racket Club’s Courtside Cafe, Patio, and Bar Oct 16 - Michigan Mead Cup - Awards Ceremony - 5PM ET Oct 16 - Bos Mead Hall, Madison, WI - Mad Laughs: Stand up Compedy and Mead Oct 17 - Skål Beer Hall, Seattle, WA - Fall Mead Festival, featuring Æsir Meadery - Everett, WA, Artivem Mead - Bellingham, WA, Ethereal Mead - Battleground, WA, Hierophant Mead - Freeland, WA, KVLT Mead - Tacoma, WA, Oppegaard Meadery - Tukwila, WA Oct 21 - AMMA Mead Matters - Honey Tasting with Z Specialty Food Oct 23 - Wandering Bard Meadery, Greenville, SC - Advanced Mead Making Class Oct 30 - Maryland Beer, Wine and Spirits Festival - Clear Skies Meadery, Maryland Meadworks and the Buzz Meadery will be pouring Oct 30 - Viking Alchemist Meadery, Smyrna, GA - Mead and Mischief Nov 6 - Suwanee Wine Fest, Suwanee, GA - featuring Etowah Meadery from Dahlonoga, GA Nov 6 - Wandering Bard Meadery, Greenville, SC - Beginning Mead Making Class Nov 9 - Oppegaard Meadery, Tukwila, WA - Mead Making Class - everything provided! You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com Got an event you’d like us to mention on GotMead Live? Send us an email at [email protected] and tell us about i

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 or two! And we'll be talking about the awful damage done to meaderies during Hurricane Ida, and what people and meaderies are doing to help out. Bob Slanzi has been keeping bees and making award winning meads for years He is very active in the meadmaking, homebrew and beekeeping communities, having held offices in both his clubs in NY in the past. he is the past president of the Home Governing Committee of the American Mead Makers Association, and very active in helping bring the word of mead to everyone. He is known for his meads, and isn’t afraid to try new flavors, like seaweed. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: It's now mead slushee season, and we are celebrating with four rotating flavors. Each one is a dangerously delicious glass of heaven. Visit the state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free slushee taster! They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows September 28 - James Boicourt - Charm City Meadworks - Baltimore, MD Sponsor: Having trouble keeping accurate brew logs? Construct recipes and manage tasting notes with Adventurous Brewer. Adventurous Brewer has your needs in mind--generate staggered nutrient additions, create timers and calendar events, and track active batches. You can even split batches mid-brew to experiment with different flavoring agents in secondary. Visit https://adventurousbrewer.app/login.html today. Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Sept 30 - Clear Skies Meadery, Gaithersburg, MD - Mind, Body and Mead - Yoga class Oct 1 - Honey & Hops Brew Works, Front Royal, VA - Music and Mead with Gunner Heathe Oct 2 - Bos Meadery, Madison, WI - Live on the Patio: Elements new single release, and featuring Sigra and Flow Poetry Oct 2 - Four Brothers Mead, Festus, MO - 2nd Annual Mead on Main - A Viking Festival Oct 2 - Nordic Moon Meadery, Lebanon, CT - Charter Oak Mead Cup at the CT Renaissance Faire - get entries in! Oct 2 - Orpheus Mead Cup Meadfest Tasting, Golden, CO Oct 6 - Vineria Fine Wines and Spirits, Shreveport, LA - Mead Tasting Oct 9 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Intermediate Mead Making class Oct 9 - Batch Mead, Temecula, CA - Viking Night! Souvenir Horn and Pizza! Oct 14 - Capital Hive Meadery, Leesburg, VA - October Mead Up Oct 14 - Wildflyer Mead Co, Navasota, TX - Adult Coloring Night Oct 14 - Victory or Valhalla, Dixon, CA - Ax throwing venue is hosting a mead making class Oct 16 - Cape Town Mead Company, Maitland, Cape Town, South Africa - Mead Tasting Oct 1-31 - Humblebee Meadery, BC, Canada - Huck it in the Bucket: A month-long special promoting HumbleBee Meadery and Axewood Axe Throwing at the Whistler Racket Club’s Courtside Cafe, Patio, and Bar Oct 3 - Tennessee Honey Festival, Nashville, TN- featuring Honey Tree Meadery, music, food and tons of fun Oct 16 - Michigan Mead Cup - Awards Ceremony - 5PM ET Oct 30 - Maryland Beer, Wine and Spirits Festival - Clear Skies Meadery, Maryland Meadworks and the Buzz Meadery will be pouring Nov 6 - Suwanee Wine Fest, Suwanee, GA - featuring Etowah Meadery from Dahlonoga, GA You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com Got an event you’d like us to mention on GotMead Live? Send us an email at [email protected] and tell us about it!

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 commercial brewery in London, and when it closed down, they decided to get their own space. Tom is really fond of Spanish orange blossom honey, which is quite nice. They have it blended with some other European honeys to get a custom blend that they use in many of their meads. they make session/hydromel strength meads, and carbonate them. They launched their can line in August 2019 and their customer base really loved it. Their meads run from a hibiscus session to a complex sour mead. Gosnell's uses flash pasteurization to stabilize their meads, and Tom has done a lot of research into this, and is a big fan of pasteurization for meads. Gosnells is very export focused, sending a lot to southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Singapore and is in 24 US states, and the US market is growing for them. You can find them in the US in Total Wine and More stores. During COVID Gosnell's pivoted to an online model, like many meaderies around the world. But they saw a 20 times spike in sales in the UK when they did this. This led to other ideas to keep customers interested, like an online tasting product with Instagram Live sessions to let people try the mead in a virtual tasting. He’s even doing corporate tastings for companies to do virtual gatherings with their employees Once things opened back up, Tom partnered with London breweries Anspach and Hobday in their taproom space and gardens. And now they've a full space for their weekend gardens events. Come listen to Tom! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: It's now mead slushee season, and we are celebrating with four rotating flavors. Each one is a dangerously delicious glass of heaven. Visit the state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free slushee taster! They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows September 14 - Keith Seiz - National Honey Board for Honey Month September 28 - James Boicourt - Charm City Meadworks - Baltimore, MD Sponsor: Having trouble keeping accurate brew logs? Construct recipes and manage tasting notes with Adventurous Brewer. Adventurous Brewer has your needs in mind--generate staggered nutrient additions, create timers and calendar events, and track active batches. You can even split batches mid-brew to experiment with different flavoring agents in secondary. Visit https://adventurousbrewer.app/login.html today. Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Sept 2-5 - Orchid Cellars, Middletown, MD - releasing Alchemist, black currant mead with notes of passionfruit, red grapes, vanilla and allspice Sept 3 - Bos Meadery, Madison, WI - KatH Presents: Seesaw, Mock Nine, DJ Femme, Noir, Amethyst Von Trollenberg and more Sept 4-6 - Starrlight Meadery, Carrboro, NC - Starrlight 11th Birthday Party Sept 9 - Wildflyer Mead Co, Navasota, TX - Book Club night Sept 10 - Grimsby Hollow Meadery, Middleville, MI - Friday night FLOW - Fantasy League of Wrestling RPG Sept 9 - A Bee Friendly Company, Cheyenne, WY - The Knottingham story by drinking braggots Sept 11 - McAlpine Meadery, Beach City, OH - live - Oddmall Uncensored Sept 24 - Starrlight Mead, Carrboro, NC - Meadfest! Sept 25 - Chubby Cheeks Meadery, Temecula, CA - Mead Making Workshop September 25-26 Metal and Beer Fest, Philadelphia, PA - Brimminghorn Meadery will be pouring at this festival Oct 30 - Maryland Beer, Wine and Spirits Festival - Clear Skies Meadery, Maryland Meadworks and the Buzz Meadery will be pouring You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com Got an event you’d like us to mention on GotMead Live? Send us an email at [email protected] and tell us about it!

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 his local supermarket of honey, dumped it in a bucket with some yeast…… the rest is history! Three years homebrewing, whilst being a tramping trucker, and an ever increasing circle of friends (strange that!) and then he met Ann in 2012. Easter 2013, Ann figured she earned enough (self employed teacher) to keep both of them and suggested he start the meadery. Three months later, Ann was laid off from her job, and joined Gordon at the meadery. Lancashire Mead was started in Nov 2013. Their first mead was available for sale Feb 2014. They expanded their space by 50% Sept 2014. In Oct 2014 they were asked to supply Michelin restaurant L’Enclume (Owned by Michelin starred chef Simon Rogan) – and are still supplying them. In October 2015 their product was used on BBC’s Great British Menu (women’s institute). They expanded again by 100% in 2016. They were ranked second in the UK mead chart in the Independent Newspaper. And won their first Mead Madness medals in 2019 and second medals in 2020. Their premises are currently 5x bigger – they started with 1034 sqft, and now are at 5170 sqft. The philosophy that Gordon and Ann have at Lancashire mead is 'be natural'.In line with their spiritual beliefs, they wanted to keep their Mead as natural as possible. This means, firstly, that the honey they use is raw, unpasteurised, and un-sterilised. For the technically minded, throughout the process at their suppliers, the honey has never been heated above 44 degrees Celsius (112 Fahrenheit). It also means that throughout their process it has never been heated above 40 degrees Celsius.Secondly, it means that there are no chemical additions throughout the whole process, with the exception of the yeast nutrients which are digested along with the sugars in the honey during fermentation. They do not use “fermentation stoppers” or “stabilisers”, the yeast naturally dies off and sediments without the aid of any finings (usually animal products like isinglass). Join us as we hang out with Gordon and Ann to explore their mead! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: It's now mead slushee season, and we are celebrating with four rotating flavors. Each one is a dangerously delicious glass of heaven. Visit the state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free slushee taster! They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows August 31 - Tom Gosnell - Gosnell's Mead, Great Britain (recorded episode) Sponsor: Having trouble keeping accurate brew logs? Construct recipes and manage tasting notes with Adventurous Brewer. Adventurous Brewer has your needs in mind--generate staggered nutrient additions, create timers and calendar events, and track active batches. You can even split batches mid-brew to experiment with different flavoring agents in secondary. Visit https://adventurousbrewer.app/login.html today. Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events Aug 21 - Folklore Brewing and Meadery, Dothan, AL - Brunch with Bill Cole LIVE with special guest Austin Horne Aug 21 - Bos Meadery, Madison, WI - Live music with Kat and the Hurricanes and Lucas Powell Aug 21 - Forthright Cider and Mead, Youngsville, NY - Cyser Social, a pop up event with Mike McQuiston Aug 22 - Grimsby Hollow Mead, Middleville, MI - Second Breakfast - every Sunday - Brunch for two! Aug 25 - Clear Skies Meadery, Gaithersburg, MD - Open Mic Night with Greg Kneller Aug 26 - American Mead Makers Association - Mead Matters - Perfecting your Palate Aug 26 - Wandering Bard Meadery, Greenville, SC - Greenville Humane Society Charity Night Aug 27 - Big Lost Meadery, Gillette, WY - Nate Champion Band with Kellan Smith Aug 27 - Bos Meadery, Madison, WI - Live music with Zeroed Hero and Help Desk Sept 4-6 -

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 early age, he was always interested in the old sagas, myths and legends. There was a lot about mead in those stories, and he only really knew it was made from honey. Life goes on, and after high school, Danique joined the military, and after his service became a police officer. And as a police officer, he realized after a traffic accident that he couldn't help out the injured people, and decided to study nursing. Whew! Busy man!! Once he completed his nursing studies and was working as a nurse, he picked up various activities, like doing national strongman competitions.....and making mead. Making mead became his passion. While he was doing an international internship for nursing, he was invited to a Medieval festival, where he was given a horn of mead. And he was off and running. He decided to make mead for himself, and when he got home to the Netherlands, he dug up an online mead recipe, and proceed to make a really bad mead. Everything he could do wrong, he did wrong. (Don't we all? LOL) A few years later he went to another Medieval festival, and had more horns of mead. He decided to try again. One carboy became two, which became four, and before he knew it, he'd taken over an entire room of his house with buckets of mead. He was taking it to parties, and his friends starting 'paying for supplies' and he was breaking even. This was looking good, so he applied for the licenses, got a location, and opened Northern Mead. He was in the process at the time of switching from handicapped healthcare to forensic nursing, and when he asked for a day a week to work on the meadery from his job, they said no, then he took a gold and two silver medals at the Mead Madness Cup and his decision on what to do was made for him. Danique quit nursing, and jumped into meadmaking full time professionally. Now Danique is bringing mead to the larger public. People were confused with what mead really is, since it's 'new' to so many. He changed his meadery name to 'De Noordelijke Mederij' (The Northern Meadery) where he makes regular mead (Northern Mead), braggots (Viking Mjød) and session mead (Nord Mead). This way, people can differentiate between the different products and they don't have problems with the pronunciation of the meadery itself. Danique won 3 bronze medals at the Mazer Cup last year and 1 gold medal, 2 silver medals and Grand Champion of 2020 at the Mead Madness Cup. But the most important thing for him is to share my passion with everyone. Join us tonight at 9PM EST to talk mead with Danique! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: It's now mead slushee season, and we are celebrating with four rotating flavors. Each one is a dangerously delicious glass of heaven. Visit the state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free slushee taster! They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows July 27 - Danique Staal- De Noordelijke Mederij, Netherlands August 17 - Gordon Baron - Lancashire Mead, Great Britain August 31 - Tom Gosnell - Gosnell's Mead, Great Britain (recorded episode) Sponsor: Having trouble keeping accurate brew logs? Construct recipes and manage tasting notes with Adventurous Brewer. Adventurous Brewer has your needs in mind--generate staggered nutrient additions, create timers and calendar events, and track active batches. You can even split batches mid-brew to experiment with different flavoring agents in secondary. Visit https://adventurousbrewer.app/login.html today. Show links and notes Top, Middle and Base Notes: A Comprehensive List The Herbal Medicine Maker's Handbook: A Home Manual - James Green and Ajana Food Pairing website The Flavor Bible The Flavor Matrix - the Art and Science of Pairing Common Ingredients to Create Extrordinary Dishes On Foo

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 production through consumption. They have a detailed view of what they'd like to create with this venture: Getting a tasting protocol published and distributed with the goal of getting prominent wine writers to write about it. Educate the general population on mead terminology, including the process of how it is made and standards for quality. Achieve regular coverage of mead in beverage alcohol publications and media outlets. (“Beer, mead and cider” should be the standard of description for the “craft” beverage family.) Introduce mead as a premium beverage, able to be placed on the beverage lists of premier restaurants across the world and hold its own against the best beers and wines in the world. They also want to build up a Mead Institute library of premium commercial meads they can send out when needed. Create a curriculum for the education of individuals involved in the many aspects of mead making and sales. Create a scholarship fund to provide education for mead professionals. Establish a honey database - to include GCMS, HPLC and MRS data of major varietal honeys, to document authenticity markers and enable yeast and honey compatibility analysis pre-fermentation. After establishing a mead market nationally, define and enable regenerative honey to deliver on the promise of mead transforming the honey industry regenerative for the benefit of the earth, bees, beekeepers and consumers. Alyson Schramm Naeger cofounded Schramm's Mead in 2013 and currently serves as the CEO there. She is a Certified Specialist of Wine, a Certified Specialist of Spirits, a Certified Cicerone, a BJCP Mead Judge and a Certified Sommelier. She co-founded the Mead Institute in 2020 and envisions a mead industry that endures and thrives for 1000 years. Frank Golbeck cofounded Golden Coast Mead in 2010 and currently serves as the President there. He is a BJCP Mead Judge and co-founded the Mead Institute in order to establish a forum for the Mead Industry to discuss and formalize standards of quality in a professional and transparent way so that the industry can thrive as it grows. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: It's now mead slushee season, and we are celebrating with four rotating flavors. Each one is a dangerously delicious glass of heaven. Visit the state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free slushee taster! They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows July 27 - Danique Staal- De Noordelijke Mederij, Netherlands August 17 - Gordon Baron - Lancashire Mead, Great Britain August 31 - Tom Gosnell - Gosnell's Mead, Great Britain (recorded episode) Sponsor: Having trouble keeping accurate brew logs? Construct recipes and manage tasting notes with Adventurous Brewer. Adventurous Brewer has your needs in mind--generate staggered nutrient additions, create timers and calendar events, and track active batches. You can even split batches mid-brew to experiment with different flavoring agents in secondary. Visit https://adventurousbrewer.app/login.html today. Show links and notes Top, Middle and Base Notes: A Comprehensive List The Herbal Medicine Maker's Handbook: A Home Manual - James Green and Ajana Food Pairing website The Flavor Bible The Flavor Matrix - the Art and Science of Pairing Common Ingredients to Create Extrordinary Dishes On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Unlock'd - Historical mead recipes Wellcome Mead by Laura Angotti Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Take part in Kevin Meintsma's Hydromel Study - email [email protected] and he'll send you questions Upcoming Events July 24 - Stardust Cellars and Taproom, Wilksboro, NC - Meadeival Festival featuring meads from Stardust and Moonjoy and

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 cheap German swill) that made his stomach dissolve. He was sure that he could make something more palatable himself and got to experimenting. In retrospect his first mead must've been quite horrible - no technique, no Idea of fermentation management, no nutrients other than raisins (hey, it was the dark ages, right?). His very first mead was a JAO clone I got from stormthecastle.com. It was abysmal, but compared to the "mead" available at the festivals it was like amazing. Ortus Phoenix (his group) liked it instantly (doing the friend thing) and they got other reenactors to try it. They liked it as well. What ensued was not unlike the story of the bucket of mead with the bottle of aspirin on top. Luckily Gert started reading (The Compleat Mead Maker among others), and discovered GotMead? This upped his game fairly quickly and some people started badgering him to go pro. Which he did in 2016. The first official batch he made was for the wedding of a couple of friends. He'd been making mead in his basement but that rapidly became too small. This hindered the growth of the meadery in a big way. His batch sizes were limited to 120 liters at a time. This year they moved to a bigger location and the production took a huge leap. ...and now the new location is becoming too small.. They used to produce drier meads, traditionals and melomels, and the occasional braggot (being a Belgian he had little choice there...). Fairly quickly he got into the sweeter stuff -after tasiting some of Ken's meads- and that's now the main stay in their production. Every now and again they still make a dry traditional. He loves working with fruit, especially berries, apples and pears. A while ago Gert discovered the joys of barrel aging. Like there wasn't already a problem space-wise. They're continuing to grow, have some interesting collabs going on and on the docket, and their name is starting to get peoples attention. Interestingly, Gert's son, Ares, (10 YO) discovered their meads on a craft beer bar menu and promptly declared that he did like having a famous dad. Gert nearly shot a € 12 Lambic out of his nose. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Having trouble keeping accurate brew logs? Construct recipes and manage tasting notes with Adventurous Brewer. Adventurous Brewer has your needs in mind--generate staggered nutrient additions, create timers and calendar events, and track active batches. You can even split batches mid-brew to experiment with different flavoring agents in secondary. Visit https://adventurousbrewer.app/login.html today. If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows July 13 - Frank Golbeck and Alyson Schramm-Neager - The Mead Institute July 27 - Danique Staal- De Noordelijke Mederij, Netherlands August 10 - Gordon Baron - Lancashire Mead, Great Britain August 31 - Tom Gosnell - Gosnell's Mead, Great Britain Sponsor: It's now mead slushee season, and we are celebrating with four rotating flavors. Each one is a dangerously delicious glass of heaven. Visit the state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free slushee taster! They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com Show links and notes Top, Middle and Base Notes: A Comprehensive List The Herbal Medicine Maker's Handbook: A Home Manual - James Green and Ajana Food Pairing website The Flavor Bible The Flavor Matrix - the Art and Science of Pairing Common Ingredients to Create Extrordinary Dishes On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Unlock'd - Historical mead recipes Wellcome Mead by Laura Angotti Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Take part in Kevin Meintsma's Hydromel Study - email [email protected] and he'll send you questions Upcomi

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 when his dad started as a hobby beekeeper. Just before his dad passed, he suggested Kon continue with the bees, and those bees arrived shortly after the funeral. Those bees brought Kon closer to his dad, and helped him in his grief at his loss. His wife Julie was big on encouraging him with his bees. Now, the Paseschnikoffs have around 250 hives, and three kids ranging in age from 23 down to 16 who all help to run the honey business. They named the business BeeBoyzz after the 'boys' tending the bees. As they grew, they realized that they wanted to diversify and stand out in the honey business. So they created a line of flavoured honeys and got them into local stores. At that point Kon said, 'we need to make mead'! Kon and Julie went off to mead classes at UC Davis in California, and got hooked. They figured their prairie honey would make great mead (we all know how flavorful that prairie honey is!), and they were right. So they hired a talented mead maker who was a hobby meadmaker to help them ramp up production. They started off with a traditional they called Harvest Gold, and have since expanded to several meads, including canning now. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! Sponsor: Having trouble keeping accurate brew logs? Construct recipes and manage tasting notes with Adventurous Brewer. Adventurous Brewer has your needs in mind--generate staggered nutrient additions, create timers and calendar events, and track active batches. You can even split batches mid-brew to experiment with different flavoring agents in secondary. Visit https://adventurousbrewer.app/login.html today. If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows June 22 - Gert Smet - Blacksmiths Meadery, Belgium July 13 - Frank Golbeck and Alyson Schramm-Neager - The Mead Institute July 27 - Danique Staal- De Noordelijke Mederij, Netherlands August 10 - Gordon Baron - Lancashire Mead, Great Britain Sponsor: It's now mead slushee season, and we are celebrating with four rotating flavors. Each one is a dangerously delicious glass of heaven. Visit the state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free slushee taster! They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com Show links and notes Top, Middle and Base Notes: A Comprehensive List The Herbal Medicine Maker's Handbook: A Home Manual - James Green and Ajana Food Pairing website The Flavor Bible The Flavor Matrix - the Art and Science of Pairing Common Ingredients to Create Extrordinary Dishes On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Unlock'd - Historical mead recipes Wellcome Mead by Laura Angotti Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Take part in Kevin Meintsma's Hydromel Study - email [email protected] and he'll send you questions Upcoming Events June 16 - Leaky Roof Meadery, Buffalo, MO - Live music by Jessie and the Rips with food vendor Firelight Pizza June 17 - Viking Alchemist Meadery, Smyrna, GA - Live Music - Video Game Alliance June 18 - The Honeysuckle Meadery, Chapel Hill, NC - Wine & Design: Acrylic Pour Wine Glasses June 19 - Wandering Bard Meadery, Greenville, SC - Summer Solstice Celebration June 19 - National Homebrew Watch Party (online) June 20 - Kinsale Mead, Ireland - Midsummer Solstice Virtual Mead Talk and Tasting June 26 - Monarda Apiary - Online Mead Making Class June 26 - Islamadora Brewing, Florida Keys - Let's Make Mead Online Class July 3 - White Winter Meadery, Cidery and Distillery, Iron River, WI - 25th Anniversary Celebration July 24 - Stardust Cellars and Taproom, Wilksboro, NC - Meadeival Festival featuring meads from Stardust and Moonjoy and Honeysuckle meaderies September 25-26 Metal and Beer Fest, Philadelphia, PA - Brimminghorn Meadery will be pouring at this festival You can buy mea

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 the local beer club – Askim Beerclub, back in 2017. Both guys had then been homebrewers for several years, and Anders had one brewery behind him as well as just started up Slakteren Brygghus (The Slaughter Brewhouse) in the next city. Jarl-Magnus studied phytotherapy - commonly defined as the study of the use of extracts of natural origin as medicines or health-promoting agents. At the tasting session, they tasted some mead, and it sudden hit them that they could do this better. And so the test brews started up. After the first rounds of test-batches, using local summer blossom honey, herbs, fruit and/or berries, they tested the mead upon two chefs and a wine sommelier. After considering their feedback, they understood that their mead was a bit on the sweet side, and lack of acid. So they did new batches, and they came out great. The Askheimer name comes from a rewrite of the old name of the city Askim, located in Viken county. The cities' name in the Viking age was Askheimr. They chose this name to show that this is where the idea of starting a meadery was conceived. It also describes the desire to use as much local products as possible. And Anders and Jarl-Magnus use Norwegian or Nordic ingredients as much as they can. After Superstitions Meadery's Jeff Herbert gave them good feedback at a between sessions tasting at the Mikkeller Beer Celebration 2019, they decided to go commercial. When they got home from Denmark they started to planning the meadery. After months of preparations and plenty of paperwork they got their permits in early 2020 and the company was offically founded in April,.2020. They moved into the meadery production location in May 2020. Their first meads hit the market in November 2020. In their first year of operations, they won two gold medals at the Mead Madness Cup 2020, which got them off to a great start! Anders was kind enough to send mead samples to us, and we'll be tasting them tonight on the show! Join us on the live chat! Sponsor: Having trouble keeping accurate brew logs? Construct recipes and manage tasting notes with Adventurous Brewer. Adventurous Brewer has your needs in mind--generate staggered nutrient additions, create timers and calendar events, and track active batches. You can even split batches mid-brew to experiment with different flavoring agents in secondary. Visit https://adventurousbrewer.app/login.html today. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows June 15 - Kon and Julie Paseschinikoff - Bee Boyzz Honey and Meadery - Manitoba, Canada June 22 - Gert Smet - Blacksmiths Meadery, Belgium July 27 - Danique Staal- De Noordelijke Mederij, Netherlands August 10 - Gordon Baron - Lancashire Mead, Great Britain Sponsor: It's now mead slushee season, and we are celebrating with four rotating flavors. Each one is a dangerously delicious glass of heaven. Visit the state-of-the-art meadery and tasting room south of downtown Castle Rock, Colorado, in a converted man cave. Mention the Got Mead Podcast this month for a free slushee taster! They love visitors! www.honnibrook.com Show links and notes Top, Middle and Base Notes: A Comprehensive List The Herbal Medicine Maker's Handbook: A Home Manual - James Green and Ajana Food Pairing website The Flavor Bible The Flavor Matrix - the Art and Science of Pairing Common Ingredients to Create Extrordinary Dishes On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Unlock'd - Historical mead recipes Wellcome Mead by Laura Angotti Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Take part in Kevin Meintsma's Hydromel Study - email [email protected] and he'll send you questions Upcoming Events June 11 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Lavender Mead Release June 11 - Sap House Meadery, Ossipee, NH - Oyster shucking night (every Friday until September) J

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 Kollektiv he makes small batch Dessert style meads, often very fruit heavy, made with modern mead practices. His fermentation journey started with beer in 2015, with mead entering the picture around 2017. Inspired by great examples from the U.S. (Think NEIPA's, Pastry stouts, Dessert and Pastry style meads) he makes meads based heavily based on science rather then artistry. He learned a lot at the Mead Making 301 course at U.C. Davis, was present at the first ever EMMA conference and became a MJP certified judge. all the while making more and more mead. Kollektiv Mead was started on pretty much a shoestring budget causing batch sizes to be on the smaller side. Mead is hardly known at all in The Netherlands and when it's already known, it's from the medieval or fantasy angle. That has proven both a challenge as well as an opportunity, as a new path could be paved. From the 3-5 other commercial meaderies operating in The Netherlands, Kollektiv has clearly positioned itself on the modern craft side, introducing complex and intense meads.In response to a demand that is continuously rising, the decision was made to transform Kollektiv to a membership meadery with currently 120 spots and a waiting list several times that size. Currently Jeroen divides his time between occupying and permitting Kollektiv Meads first very own production facility, introducing a brand new session mead style beverage, current production at Kollektiv, starting a hot sauce brand and a full-time job in IT. Join us on the live chat! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows May 25 - Kon and Julie Paseschinikoff - Bee Boyzz Honey and Meadery - Manitoba, Canada June 8 - Anders Reising & his partner Jarl- Askheimer Meadery, Norway June 22 - Gert Smet - Blacksmiths Meadery, Belgium July 27 - Danique Staal- De Noordelijke Mederij, Netherlands August 10 - Gordon Baron - Lancashire Mead, Great Britain Show links and notes Top, Middle and Base Notes: A Comprehensive List The Herbal Medicine Maker's Handbook: A Home Manual - James Green and Ajana Food Pairing website The Flavor Bible The Flavor Matrix - the Art and Science of Pairing Common Ingredients to Create Extrordinary Dishes On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Unlock'd - Historical mead recipes Wellcome Mead by Laura Angotti Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Take part in Kevin Meintsma's Hydromel Study - email [email protected] and he'll send you questions Upcoming Events May 12 - American Mead Makers Association - MeadCon week 3 - Carvin Wilson on mead judging and Billy Beltz on building and operation a successful tasting room May 13 - Sweet Rebel Honingwijn, Antwerp, Belgium - Copenhagen Mead tasting May 15 - Haley's Honey Meadery, Hopewell, VA - every Saturday at the Williamsburg Farmers Market May 15 - Rohan Meadery, La Grange, TX - The Sidewinders live music May 19 - American Mead Makers Association - MeadCon week 4 - Pierre Rodrigue on steam juicing and Laura Angotti - putting historical recipes in your mead arsenal May 21-22 - UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center - Mead: Getting Creative May 22 - Sugarbelt Mead Festival - put on by Manic Meadery, Crown Point Indiana May 26 - American Mead Makers Association - MeadCon week 5 - Sergio Moutela - so you want to open a meadery? and Ash Fishbein - club memberships and the money funnel May 28 - St. Ambrose Mead, Wine and Cider, Beulah, MI - Jen Sygit and Mike Lynch live music June 1 - Leaky Roof Meadery, Buffalo, MO- Open Jam with food vendor Ben’s Hotdogs & Brats June 12 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Fairy Hair for Everyone! June 19 - National Homebrew Watch Party (online) July 3 - White Winter Meadery, Cidery and Distillery, Iron River, WI - 25th Anniversary Celebration July 24 - Stardust Cellars and Taproom,

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 partners) made their first traditional in 2012 and increasingly made more and more batches during the next few years. This was partly due to the fact that making a batch of mead took far less hours than brewing a batch of beer, so every time he felt like brewing but didn’t have the time, he just made a batch of mead instead. In the beginning, few of them were good but eventually he bought Ken Schramm’s book and started upping his game. He started toying with the idea of opening up a meadery around 2014, as there were no other meaderies in Norway at the time. In 2015, he decided to put a crew together and try to materialize my dream. He resigned from being the leader of Bergen Ølfestival, the biggest beer festival in Norway to run the meadery. In the fall of 2016, after a lot of planning and paperwork, Mjøderiet (the name simply means “The Meadery” in Norwegian) was launched as Norway’s first meadery. Although it has been quite a struggle being alone in the mead business in Norway, with customers having no realistic notions of what mead is and can be and running our operation small-scale and part-time (except for Benjamin, all of the five people running the meadery have had full time jobs all along), he is pretty happy with what they have achieved. In 2019, they won two gold medals in the first Mead Madness Cup (for “Barrel Aged Meadlife Crisis” and “Julemjød”). They have opened up the beverage market in Norway for the public in terms of mead, with an increasing number of people being conscious about mead as an option on the menu. He also feel really pleased that we have resurrected mead as an ancient cultural drink in Norway – a country that actually has a rather famous historical relationship to it through the viking sagas and era. It’s a shame that modern-day Norwegians to a large degree still don’t know much about mead, but this is starting to change now, largely due to their efforts and hard labor. Also, two other meaderies (Askheimer and Marlobobo) were launched in 2020 and are doing well, so mead is slowly starting to come back from the veil of history in Norway. Stian is positive and excited about the future of mead in Norway and internationally, as well as the prospects of Mjøderiet. Mead is back, and it’s here to stay. Join us on the live chat! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows May 11 - Jeroen Krikke - Kollektiv Mead - Netherlands May 25 - Kon and Julie Paseschinikoff - Bee Boyzz Honey and Meadery - Manitoba, Canada June 8 - Anders Reising & his partner Jarl- Askheimer Meadery, Norway June 22 - Gert Smet - Blacksmiths Meadery, Belgium Show links and notes Top, Middle and Base Notes: A Comprehensive List The Herbal Medicine Maker's Handbook: A Home Manual - James Green and Ajana Food Pairing website The Flavor Bible The Flavor Matrix - the Art and Science of Pairing Common Ingredients to Create Extrordinary Dishes On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Unlock'd - Historical mead recipes Wellcome Mead by Laura Angotti Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Take part in Kevin Meintsma's Hydromel Study - email [email protected] and he'll send you questions Upcoming Events April 28 - AMMA MeadCon April 29 - Wappu Mead Competition (online) April 30 - Charm City Meadworks - Online Mead Tasting May 7 - Hierophant Meadery, Green Bluff, WA - Meadmosa Mother’s Day May 7-8 - Folklore Brewing and Meadery, Dothan, AL - Music: Joseph Brooks May 8 - Blom Meadworks, Ann Arbor, MI - Third Birthday Party!! May 9 - Talon Wine/Meadery of the Rockies, Palisade, CO - Paint and Sip event May 10 - el Bait Shop, Des Moines, IA - Mead Week - Tapping kegs from Schramm's Mead, Moonlight Meadery, B. Nektar, East Grove Farms. Bottle pours from Superstition, Moonlight, Schramm's and more. May 13 - Sweet Rebel Honingwijn, Antw

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 Show at Canada’s Mellarius Cup. His penchant for all juice meads is fairly well known on social media, where he moderates GotMead, Modern Mead Makers, Home Made Wine Making, and his own page, The Modern Art of Wine and Mead. In his spare time you can find him drawing, baking, cooking, curing and smoking meats, or long distance target shooting. Join us on the live chat and don't be afraid to call in if you want to! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows We'll let you know soon! Show links and notes Top, Middle and Base Notes: A Comprehensive List The Herbal Medicine Maker's Handbook: A Home Manual - James Green and Ajana Food Pairing website The Flavor Bible The Flavor Matrix - the Art and Science of Pairing Common Ingredients to Create Extrordinary Dishes On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Unlock'd - Historical mead recipes Wellcome Mead by Laura Angotti Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Take part in Kevin Meintsma's Hydromel Study - email [email protected] and he'll send you questions Upcoming Events April 14 - Scale and Feather Meadery - Beer Talks - Online April 17 - Point Lookout Vineyards, Hendersonville, NC - Mead Tasting and Mead History April 18 - MoonJoy Meadery, Lenoir, NC - Mead and Mindfulness April 22 - Bulgarian Craft Mead, Plovdiv, Bulgaria - Launch Party - Get Buzzed! April 24 - Four Brothers Mead, Festus, MO - Sigurblot - A Viking Festival April 30 - Charm City Meadworks - Online Mead Tasting May 10 - el Bait Shop, Des Moines, IA - Mead Week - Tapping kegs from Schramm's Mead, Moonlight Meadery, B. Nektar, East Grove Farms. Bottle pours from Superstition, Moonlight, Schramm's and more. May 21-22 - UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center - Mead: Getting Creative May 22 - Sugarbelt Mead Festival - put on by Manic Meadery, Crown Point Indiana June 1 - Leaky Roof Meadery, Buffalo, MO- Open Jam with food vendor Ben’s Hotdogs & Brats June 20 - Orchid Cellar Meadery, Middletown, MD - Father's Day Flight of Spice - try their spicy meads July 3 - White Winter Meadery, Cidery and Distillery, Iron River, WI - 25th Anniversary Celebration You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com Got an event you’d like us to mention on GotMead Live? Send us an email at [email protected] and tell us about it!

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 companies and was available almost in every better supplied liquor store. After tasting many of them and his first try of Jadwiga półtorak he was hooked and it became his favorite drink for special occasions and celebrations. There were several other styles of mead produced and each regional manufacturer would have some sort of historically or locally connected special edition usually with a nice story or legend behind it. After moving to the US he was only able to get mead while visiting Poland or very seldom in ethnic stores in areas densely populated by emigres from Central Europe. This situation was not satisfactory for him and since he also had become a beekeeper and had an abundant supply of honey, he decided to try reproducing some of the favorite meads on his own. This in turn led to searching for knowledge, learning about mead history and also meeting like minded people. The first group he got in contact with was an online forum frequented by many polish home meadmakers. The guidance and help he got from them was priceless. It is from them, that he learned about American competitions and online resources. He was not aware that mead was gaining popularity and had such following on this side of the Atlantic. He signed up for mead making classes at UC Davis, became a member of GotMead Forums, signed up for AMMA and National Homebrewers Association, attended MeadCon and Mazer Cup few times. In 2018 he entered his first mead competitions; MidWinter, Mead Free or Die and Domras Cup. To his surprise won BOS mead at MidWinter competition and few 1st, 2nd and 3rd placings at the others. 2019 brought even more prizes and a few BOS placings. In 2020 he participated for the first time in Mazer Cup competition and his Buckwheat and Sour Cherry historical Polish mead was rewarded BOS placing and two other meads placed second. Scot Schaar is head brewer at Crawford Brew Works and former distiller at Mississippi River Distilling Company. He is a BJCP beer and mead judge. Scot was the 2017 AHA Meadmaker of the Year (MMOTY) and shared the 2019 MMOTY award with Michael Wilcox and Carvin Wilson. He was the 2015 East Coast MMOTY; has won multiple mead, beer, and cider bests of show; and has had his recipes professionally made by Moonlight Meadery and Prairie Rose Meadery. Scot and his wife Karen earned their Level 5 certification in the European Mead Judging Programme this past year while judging the Kings of Mead competition in Poznań, Poland. Scott is very active in meadmaking, and turns up often in the Modern Mead Makers and GotMead Facebook groups. He was one of two people awarded an honorary Polish 'passport', along with Bob Slanzi, for his Polish style meads, which are excellent. Scott has also been active in promoting mead in his area and in his homebrew club, the St. Paul Homebrewer's Club, which also, in conjunction with the Minnesota Home Brewers Association puts on the Minnesota Mashout, one of the larger homebrew competitions in the US. Join us on the live chat and don't be afraid to call in if you want to! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows We'll let you know soon! Show links and notes Top, Middle and Base Notes: A Comprehensive List The Herbal Medicine Maker's Handbook: A Home Manual - James Green and Ajana Food Pairing website The Flavor Bible The Flavor Matrix - the Art and Science of Pairing Common Ingredients to Create Extrordinary Dishes On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Unlock'd - Historical mead recipes Wellcome Mead by Laura Angotti Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Take part in Kevin Meintsma's Hydromel Study - email [email protected] and he'll send you questions Upcoming Events March 31 - All Things Mead with Bill Quirk, of HarBee Beekeeping April 12 - Bochet Mead with D

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 midst of the Great Depression, when Clint Walker Sr. started with 150 hives. Over the years, the business has expanded and grown to encompass bee operations all over Texas. Clint is a third generation Texas beekeeper. Like his father and grandfather before him, he is a full-time beekeeper. His son, Jonathan— became lead beekeeper in 2018. That makes him the fourth generation in the Walker family since 1930 to choose beekeeping as a profession and lifestyle. During Clint's lifetime their family has operated bees for profit—either pollination services for a fee or for honey production—in every ecoregion of Texas except the Trans Pecos. Chase Cohagan has been Dancing Bee's mead maker since 2014, specializing in meads that appeal to wine drinkers. The choice to call ourselves Dancing Bee Winery rather than Meadery was deliberate. Most of Dancing Bee's meads are still, in a corked bottle, and around 12-14% alcohol by volume. We also make carbonated session meads on tap, for growler fills or canning. Chase also helps with beekeeping and honey extracting at Walker Honey Farm. Join us on the live chat and don't be afraid to call in if you want to! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows March 16 - Chris Plizga and Scott Schaar - Amazing Meads Show links and notes Top, Middle and Base Notes: A Comprehensive List The Herbal Medicine Maker's Handbook: A Home Manual - James Green and Ajana Food Pairing website The Flavor Bible The Flavor Matrix - the Art and Science of Pairing Common Ingredients to Create Extrordinary Dishes On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Unlock'd - Historical mead recipes Wellcome Mead by Laura Angotti Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Take part in Kevin Meintsma's Hydromel Study - email [email protected] and he'll send you questions Upcoming Events Mar 4 - Bishop's Bees - Online Mead Making Class Mar 5 - Mjødladen, Odense, Denmark - Online Mead Tasting Mar 5-6 - Kinsale Meadery - Kinsale, Ireland - Online Mead Talk and Tasting Mar 6 - Starrlight Meadery - Pittsboro, NC - Fairy Hair for Everyone party Mar 7 - Starrlight Meadery - Pittsboro, NC - First Sunday Sound Bath Sound Therapy - Online Mar 12 - Honeygirl Meadery - Durham, NC - Queen Bee Honey and Mead Virtual Tasting Mar 13 - Wandering Bard Meadery - Greenville, NC - Mead Making for Beginners Mar 20 - Online Class - Meadmaking Without Equipment Mar 24 - Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science and Honey and Pollination Center at UC Davis - Sips and Bites: Mead - The Best Thing You've Never Tasted Mar 26 - Ancient Fire Mead and Cider - Manchester, NH - Virtual 3rd Anniversary Celebration April 17 - Point Lookout Vineyards, Hendersonville, NC - Mead Tasting and Mead History You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com Got an event you’d like us to mention on GotMead Live? Send us an email at [email protected] and tell us about it!

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 range info on the packets, and fermentations often end where you want to make adjustments after it finishes. It may need more acid, or tannins, or need sweetness or flavors from fruits, spices or a honey varietal adjusted to get to the final result you want. And that is where bench trials come in. Figuring out what needs to be added or adjusted to get that final mead flavor profile is a process, and we're going to dig into that tonight. Dustin Deisher started brewing with his former band mate and best friend Jeremy Goehring in 2013 after binging on Skyrim. After getting some equipment and some pointers from the local homebrew shop they were on their way to conjure up some liquid gold! In 2014 they met other fellow mead makers when they joined the Lincoln Lagers Homebrew Club. After their first medal at a major competition (2nd with a wildflower traditional at the 2014 Mead Free Or Die) they were hooked. They spent many years competing with standard strength meads. It wasn’t until the last couple of years they really started pursuing session meads. After applying some techniques used in brewing beer they could add new elements such as carbonation to their arsenal! Dustin started using different beer yeasts and post fermentation additions to produce balanced and sparkling melomels. This eventually led them to the Mazer Cup where they were able to put their hydromels to the real test. They had the pleasure to do a scale up of one of their 2019 M3A Mazer Cup winners at Boiler Brewing Co. Along with competing, Dustin became a Certified Beer and Mead BJCP Judge. Becoming a judge has helped him develop a better palate for varietal honeys. When they used these in their hydromel batches it took everything to a whole new level. Last year they saw the fruits of their labor when they placed 2nd BOS under Ken Schramm at The Valkyries Horn. Dustin's next step in his mead making career is to bring sparkling hydromels to his local craft brew industry. Jeff Anderson been homebrewing for 8 years. His main love is brewing traditional German styles of beer but after Curt Stock visited his brew club for their annual Sower's Cup competition several years ago, Jeff fell in love with the idea of making fast turn around hydromel strength meads and specifically fruit and berry meads. Most of his inspiration is pulled from his culinary experience and he really just loves to experiment with different flavor combinations. Currently, he is also a BJCP certified beer and mead judge. Before covid, Jeff was on track to round out the trifecta with a cider cert as well until NHC was cancelled. He really loves education in homebrewing and makes it a goal to continually add new techniques to his brewing toolbox. Join us on the live chat and don't be afraid to call in if you want to! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows Feb 2 - Clint Walker, Walker Honey Farms - Beekeeper and Meadmaking, and guest host Tom Repas Show links and notes Top, Middle and Base Notes: A Comprehensive List The Herbal Medicine Maker's Handbook: A Home Manual - James Green and Ajana Food Pairing website The Flavor Bible The Flavor Matrix - the Art and Science of Pairing Common Ingredients to Create Extrordinary Dishes On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Unlock'd - Historical mead recipes Wellcome Mead by Laura Angotti Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Take part in Kevin Meintsma's Hydromel Study - email [email protected] and he'll send you questions Upcoming Events Feb 25 - American Mead Makers Association - Mead Matters - Online Tasting Event with Upper Reach Meadery Feb 25 - Upper Reach Meadery, Perkasie, PA - Online event - Cabot Cheese Tutored Tasting Feb 25 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Mead Club release event Feb 27-28 - Vermont Winter

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 Rim Honey Bees, providing bees and honey in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Tom speaks on beekeeping all over the country, and has presented several times at the AMMA MeadCon on both beekeeping and meadmaking. Tom has won a large number of awards for his mead as well. Tom is a 4th generation beekeeper, and has been working with bees since he was a kid. He kept bees and sold the honey for extra money in high school. He went into professional beekeeping while he was still active as a medical doctor, and has developed a cross for bees that are gentle, overwinter well, and are mite resistant. On the mead side of things, Tom is a very talented mead maker who consistently wins medals with his meads, and has a skill for thinking outside the box for flavor profiles. His mushroom mead was the talk of the mead community for some time when he brought it out to taste. I got to try it, I was stunned at how good it was. Of course, Tom uses his own honey, as well as honeys from other providers and areas, and they're all good! Tom says his meads are 'ok'. We think they're better than that, lol. Join us on the live chat and don't be afraid to call in if you want to! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows Feb 2 - Clint Walker, Walker Honey Farms - Beekeeper and Meadmaking, and guest host Tom Repas Show links and notes Top, Middle and Base Notes: A Comprehensive List The Herbal Medicine Maker's Handbook: A Home Manual - James Green and Ajana Food Pairing website The Flavor Bible The Flavor Matrix - the Art and Science of Pairing Common Ingredients to Create Extrordinary Dishes On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Unlock'd - Historical mead recipes Wellcome Mead by Laura Angotti Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Take part in Kevin Meintsma's Hydromel Study - email [email protected] and he'll send you questions Upcoming Events Feb 6 - Domras Cup, Savannah, GA - third round of judging Feb 6 - McAlpine Meadery, Beach City, OH - Online live music with Final Chapter Feb 6 - Empire State Honey Producers Association Winter Conference Feb 12-14 - Starrlight Meadery, Pittsboro, NC - Mead and Chocolate Feb 13 - Wandering Bard Meadery, Greenville, SC - Meadmaking for Beginners Class Feb 13 - Etowah Meadery, Dahlonega, GA - online live music with Chad Bowmar Feb 13 - Wandering Bard Meadery, Greenville, SC - Mead Tasting Class, Ciders, Cysers and Sessions Feb 13 - Rohan Meadery, La Grange, TX - Music with J&B Duo Feb 14 - Etowah Meadery, Dahlonega, GA - online live music with Ryan LittleEagle Feb 22 - Group Brew Day (online) set up by Michael Jordan Feb 25 - Upper Reach Meadery, Perkasie, PA - Online event - Cabot Cheese Tutored Tasting Feb 27-28 - Vermont Winter Renaissance Faire, Essex, VT- Artesano Mead, Groenfell Meadery and Sticky Paws Meadery will be pouring there You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com Got an event you’d like us to mention on GotMead Live? Send us an email at [email protected] and tell us about it!

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 were serving in the taproom. The AF women came to work, and stayed to learn meadmaking and got involved in the process at the meadery. The first release was "SHE-nanigans" a key lime pie inspired draft mead which debuted on Valentine's weekend. The release weekend turned into one of the busiest weekends in AF history and the women of AF were thrilled to be serving their product to happy customers SHE-nanigans has been produced a second time since its release and remains a customer favorite. In 2020 there were two additional MaidMakers releases: "Colada Love" a pineapple and toasted coconut draft mead and "Gingy's Juice" a gingerbread inspired draft mead with cinnamon, allspice, ginger and avocado and buckwheat honey. The next release will be in Q1 of 2021 "Am I Right" will be an amaretto inspired draft mead featuring hints of cherry and vanilla. Ancient Fire Mead & Cider was founded in 2018 by Margot and Jason Phelps.The Phelps opened Ancient Fire after homebrewing Mead, Wine and beer for over 15 years. Ancient Fire produces Draft Style mead, Honey Wines and Ciders. Their products are available in the taproom, by the glass, pint and flight. Draft product is available to go in growers or bottles. Standard honey wines are available by the bottle. Ancient Fire is dedicated to creating an inclusive and welcoming environment in their taproom and we do significant work in their community to give back. Working with their team and AF family we have donated to The American Cancer Society, The NH Food Bank and other organizations. They are proud that during the challenging times of 2020 their charitable giving increased due to the generosity of their AF community. Join us with the ladies this evening to chat about making mead, and their journeys as they learned about it. Join us on the live chat and don't be afraid to call in if you want to! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows Feb 2 - Tom Repas - Beyond Secondary - Stabilization, acid balancing and backsweetening Show links and notes Top, Middle and Base Notes: A Comprehensive List The Herbal Medicine Maker's Handbook: A Home Manual - James Green and Ajana Food Pairing website The Flavor Bible The Flavor Matrix - the Art and Science of Pairing Common Ingredients to Create Extrordinary Dishes On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Unlock'd - Historical mead recipes Wellcome Mead by Laura Angotti Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Take part in Kevin Meintsma's Hydromel Study - email [email protected] and he'll send you questions Upcoming Events Jan 20 - Viking Alchemist Meadery, Smyrna, GA - Yoga and Mead Jan 22 - Honnibrook Meadery, Castle Rock, CO - Live Music with Scott Brown Jan 22 - Viking Alchemist Meadery, Smyrna, GA - Team Trivia Jan 22 - Etowah Meadery, Dahlonega, GA - Live Music with Chris Wayne Jan 24 - Viking Alchemist Meadery, Snyrna, GA - Dungeons and Dragons Jan 29 - Honnibrook Meadery, Castle Rock, CO - Live Music with Paul Frost Jan 29 - Wandering Bard Meadery, Greenville, SC - Live Music with Chris Wayne Jan 29 - McAlpine Meadery, Beach City, OH - Online live music with Slap Fiasco, Loss of Memory and Jonny Bennett Feb 6 - Domras Cup, Savannah, GA - third round of judging Feb 6 - McAlpine Meadery, Beach City, OH - Online live music with Final Chapter Feb 6 - Empire State Honey Producers Association Winter Conference Feb 13 - Etowah Meadery, Dahlonega, GA - online live music with Chad Bowmar Feb 13 - Rohan Meadery, La Grange, TX - Music with J&B Duo Feb 14 - Etowah Meadery, Dahlonega, GA - online live music with Ryan LittleEagle Feb 22 - Group Brew Day (online) set up by Michael Jordan Feb 25 - Upper Reach Meadery, Perkasie, PA - Online event - Cabot Cheese Tutored Tasting Feb 27-28 - Vermont Winte

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 things like local sourcing, honey crystallization and anything else we come across with questions from listeners and that we come up with as we talk with Evan. Evan is a member of the Sales & Marketing Team at family-owned honey packer, Dutch Gold Honey, Inc. With a focus on ingredient sales, he uses his exposure to the wholesale honey market and his prior life experience with handling bulk ingredients in a startup wholesale bakery operation to support honey (and maple syrup) customers of all sizes. Evan prepares and delivers tailored technical presentations to mixed groups of marketing, purchasing, operations, quality assurance, and R&D food industry professionals using his degree and first career as a high school mathematics teacher. A man of multiple hats, he also manages marketing project for Dutch Gold. In his free time, Evan serves in the Army National Guard, remains dedicated to health and fitness, and is dedicated to health and fitness. He enjoys living in Columbia, PA and spending time with his wife Sarah. Come hear Evan talk honey, and we'll have tons of questions for him! Join us on the live chat and don't be afraid to call in if you want to! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Upcoming Shows January 19 - Margot Phelps and the lady meadmakers at Ancient Fire Meadery Show links and notes Top, Middle and Base Notes: A Comprehensive List The Herbal Medicine Maker's Handbook: A Home Manual - James Green and Ajana Food Pairing website The Flavor Bible The Flavor Matrix - the Art and Science of Pairing Common Ingredients to Create Extrordinary Dishes On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Unlock'd - Historical mead recipes Wellcome Mead by Laura Angotti Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Take part in Kevin Meintsma's Hydromel Study - email [email protected] and he'll send you questions Upcoming Events Feb 6 - Domras Cup, Savannah, GA - third round of judging Feb 22 - Group Brew Day (online) set up by Michael Jordan Feb 27-28 - Vermont Winter Renaissance Faire, Essex, VT- Artesano Mead, Groenfell Meadery and Sticky Paws Meadery will be pouring there You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com Got an event you’d like us to mention on GotMead Live? Send us an email at [email protected] and tell us about it!

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).