My introduction to mead occurred several years ago at the Toronto’s Festival of Beer, which I attended because a friend won four tickets from a local radio show. It was great! We spent several hours wandering the grounds (Old Fort York), and we all had a fantastic time drinking exotic and unique beers. While there we all tried an interesting red liquid, which was quite sweet and tasted not unlike kool-aid. Once we finished drinking our sample and decided to move to another stall, our heads swam in a haze. The sweetness of the beverage temporarily masked the potency of the drink (a technique I would later employ), and we were amazed.

That was my first taste of mead.

After that experience, we tried desperately to locate some mead at The Beer Store or the LCBO. We did find a beverage, but it wasn’t as good as the mead we had at the beer festival. Needless to say we were disillusioned and soon after these events, we promptly forgot the name mead.

Skip forward several years, and while discussing our favourite beverage with some colleges over lunch, a friend pined about a mead from back home. Apparently there is an abbey located on a miniscule island off the coast of England near his parent’s home, and the monks that live there make and sell a fantastically delicious mead. This story reminded me of the mead I had tasted several years earlier, and having never found anything its equal since. At which point I pondered: How hard could it be to make your own mead?

After that discussion, I began to research mead making online. I found several good sites, but by far the most helpful is The Joy of Mead. Not only does this site provide plenty of instructions, advice, recipes and equipment recommendations, but more importantly for me was a series of instructional videos. While watching those videos, I kept thinking to myself: I could do that!

Not more than a week after that lunch-time discussion, I had purchased a wine kit from a local wine supply store (minus the grape concentrate) and made my first batch of mead.

Please have a look at my youtube channel, I will be posting the occasional video describing my mead making endeavours.

Mead Manuscript