Pasteurizing still destroys some of the flavor characteristics of your honey. It is an uneeded step and results in an inferior end product.
I used to believe this too, but there are two sides to any coin. Boiling or heating may change the product, but I would hesitate to call it "inferior." As I've mentioned before, my hop metheglin has to be boiled as part of the process, and it's pretty damn good, and was extremely well received at Mead Day yesterday. (At risk of sounding cocky, which isn't my intent, I was *strongly* encouraged by a BJCP judge to submit it at the soonest available contest. Again, not being cocky, but I thought it was a very nice complement, and illustrates that a boiled mead can be great too.)
I challenge all of you to check out
this link where the author actually did the experiment challenging this notion, and put a boiled mead vs a no-boil mead up against each other head to head.
These links (
#1 &
#2) reference the double blind taste test results...