Game of Thrones Mead

[jcalisi]

Last Friday at the Mazer Cup mixer, I had the opportunity to sample some 30 or so meads, and one - a capsimel - was a really nice balance between heat and sweet. So here is what I am going to make for this...

"Calisi's Capsimel"

4 gallon batch

10 lbs honey (will source all or part of this from Colorado if I can)
10 serrano peppers (also sourced here or neighboring New Mexico)
5 passion fruit (Daenerys Targaryen - Calisi - exudes passion!)
2 qts raspberries to add sweetness and color

OG should be somewhere around 1.12, FG around 1.020, around 11 or 12% of sweet hot goodness, just like Emilia Clarke!

I think your going to have to pay me for the right to use my name A six pack sampling will do...

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

RE: RE: Red wedding

I'm actually not doing the red wedding anymore, unless someone else was doing it too in which case I'm way out of line. Now Im doing The Cheese-monger's reserve. I had a bunch of pictures earlier in the thread. I still need to check the gravity on it and maybe rack it.

 

[jessebymail]

Not to harp or anything but I believe it's Khaleesi. I like the recipe, go for it!

 

[Pratzie]

Ive actually been thinking of trying my first big mead with blackberry. Might be calling this Blackwater's Blackberry Mead

 

[Marmike600]

I've been giving this Game of Thrones mead idea a lot of thought. Unfortunately I have a very limited brewing setup right now so it will take me forever to get through any of this stuff, but I have a basic plan lined up. I took a lot of inspiration from suggestions in this thread (particularly on the Lannister mead) but here's what I'm planning.

Winterfell/Starks - spiced cinnamon cyser with caramelized honey
Warm and inviting like the hospitality of the North. Imagine coming into a warm house after being out in the blustery cold and snow and getting a hot cup of it.

Casterly Rock/Lannister - Cherry vanilla melomel with 24k gold flakes
Heavy on the cherry so it's nice and deep red. 24k gold flakes a la Goldschlager for the classic red & gold Lannister color combo.

Eyrie/Arryn - strawberry melon melomel with mint
The Eyrie is high up on a mountaintop, with pretty consistent chilly winds. I wanted to represent that with an ultimately light, sweet and refreshing mead.

The Wall/Night's Watch - blackberry and black currant melomel racked over oak chips
Blackberry and black currant for obvious reasons

I'm totally stumped on Iron Islands/Greyjoy... a seaweed melomel with rocks and salt. yum.

For the Iron Islands/Greyjoy- maybe a salted caramel of some kind?

 

[Marmike600]

Was thinking about a mead called "Iron Price"

Salted caramel and oak chips. Not sure how to do the caramel but I have read some suggestions about meadowfoam honey.

 

[Zaffo]

For The Iron Islands, make your favorite mead. Call it "Silence", and tell your friends to "Shut up and drink it!".

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

Could also fortify a mead with Kraken Rum?

 

[Marmike600]

Could also fortify a mead with Kraken Rum?

That would be good and it would give it a black inky color. :rockin:

 

[drchris83]

Awesome thread! I immediately had some ideas:

- "Wild" mead for north of the Wall: a weak mead using wild fermentation, perhaps something using bits of the hive with it (can be bought at Turkish grocery stores)?
- Like the idea of adding dark berries and aging it on oak for the night's watch.
- For Winterfell and possibly the whole North, there's got to be some heather or juniper flavoring there! A juniper spiced bochet, or a heather-infused light mead, perhaps?
- for the Neck, bog myrtle would be an appropriate seasoning.
- The Eyrie: up in the mountains, the last trees that grow are pines. Where I live, there is pine honey and there are great meads made from it. Alternatively, a "normal" mead could be imfused with gentian root, which is the base of a popular bitter spirit in the Alps.
- Casterly Rock: I definitely love the idea of gold flakes. I think though, that the general taste in Westeros goes towards the sweet, so I think the mead of Casterly Rock needs to be heavy, strong, and sweet as well as ruby red in color. Also, they'd save up exclusive vintages for their feasts, and they have the capital needed for maintaining extensive cellars, so I think oak aging should be considered. Oh, and also, saffron is very useful for displaying one's wealth, so maybe something along those lines?
- The Riverlands: I can picturelush green meadows there, so I guess wildflower mead would be appropriate. Maybe infused with dandelion floewrs?
- Dorne: I think it has to be orange blossom, or maybe JAOM, there's an abundance of blood orange trees theree. Alternatively, one could imagine some of their strongwines or sweetwines not being wines per se but actually pyment, I should think.
- Dothraki: being nomadic, they couldn't carry oak casks or other such stuff with them, at least not in quantity. So, in order to have enough alcohol, I think they'd drink their brews very young. If the make mead at all - and I can see all kinds of supply problems regarding honey in the Dothraki sea - it would have to be hydromel drunk while still in primary or something like that.
- Slave Cities: these have access to all kinds of expensive spices and would probably use a lot of them to season their brews as well. Cinnamon, star anise, cardamom, saffron, pepper, etc. Maybe one "signature" spiced mead for each city, using one or at the very most, two spices? Some of the old Ghiscari cities seem to share some properties with ancient Greece or Byzantium, and rose aromas are prominent in their cuisines. Maybe a rose-flavored mead for one of them?
- Iron Islands: they look down on farming and probably only drink to get wasted. I think they wouldn't make any mead of their own but rather loot what they can from trading ships. The mead appropriate for them is probably any of the above, with some oak character and a sip of sea water or three.

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

Not a huge update, But I did rack my Cheesemonger's reserve This past weekend. I'll be back sweetening with more grape and pear juice, but it's already pretty nice.

 

[Pratzie]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f45/calling-all-game-thrones-fans-412457/#post5216099

Not quite about mead but entertaining nonetheless.

 

[honreth]

Never tried brewing a mead before, Mostly because I've only brewed two things and only started this year, but I was reading the forum and thought to myself
"This sounds fun"
Has anyone thought about making a peppermint-vodka and pitching it post fermentation for the Mead? The cooling bite of peppermint seems in line with Jon Snow as he has taken the black is in the frosty northlands...(at least as of the last time I watched the show..... NO SPOILERS!!!!! Or I will have to come and viciously beat you about the head and shoulders with a wet noodle!!!!!)

 

[TheWeeb]

good to keep this thread alive! Honreth I like the idea ... but would consider using peppermint leaves in the secondary to be more true to the idea of ingredients that can be found locally or in the wild. Good stuff!

 

[Vikings]

I just came across this thread and I LIKE it! Right now I have a Blood Orange & Ginger sack mead fermenting away. I think I'll dub it Wolfblood, or maybe Ulvblod.

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

Is there still discussions of Trading finished meads; and if Regular members could be involved? I only made a bit over a gallon so trading a 750ml I think would suffice.

 

[TheWeeb]

Is there still discussions of Trading finished meads; and if Regular members could be involved? I only made a bit over a gallon so trading a 750ml I think would suffice.

YES. We need to set up an exchange...

 

[Yohef]

1 gallon
3lbs local wildflower honey
Juice/pulp from raspberry, blackberry, and blueberry
Cuvée or ec-1118 and will halt anywhere between 1.020-1.010

 

[Yohef]

1 gallon
3lbs local wildflower honey
Juice/pulp from raspberry, blackberry, and blueberry
Cuvée or ec-1118 and will halt anywhere between 1.020-1.010

Calling it: The Wildberry-ling

 

[timbudtwo]

Calling it: The Wildberry-ling

Why not just Wildling Berry?

 

[Yohef]

Why not just Wildling Berry?

Yeah, Wildling Berry does sound better.
...and has anyone done a good "shade of the evening mead"? ya know, something to turn your lips blue and your mind soft. Perhaps a blueberry melomel with high ABV?

 

[Aoife3Sheets]

Hey all!

I'm so excited to see this thread! I manage a Game of Thrones brewing blog (www.gameofbrews.com), and would love to have some new folks toss ideas around! My favorites so far have been a red apple wine, and a heather ale.

 

[ErinRae]

I'd trade a bottle..think I can fedex from Canada? I just did a straight wildflower honey mead. Never just tasted the basics! It's clearing right now and going to rerack one more time..hopefully bottle in a month or so. I'm planning to bottle in 375 ml

I'm about to start another one..since I wasn't too creative the first time maybe ill try this time. So far for my next mead I have a can of vinters harvest cherry and will be using wildflower honey again...rerack on some black cherries maybe
? Gonna brainstorm a couple more ingredients. I can never pinpoint my favorite characters or areas in Game of Thrones...think I'm too busy keeping up with it all!

 

[ErinRae]

May have to try and get a blood red tint in the black cherry mead I'm gonna do...and name it after yesterday's episode! Haven't read the books...think my jaw dropped!

 

[huesmann]

Red Wedding Mead?

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

For those interested I had a recipe for a Red Wedding mead at the beginning of the thread. I ended up doing something from book 5 so its up for grabs.

The Red Wedding

4 lbs honey
1.5 cups raspberries
3 cups blackberries
2 cups lingenberry concentrate
2 cinnamon sticks
2 cloves
Water to 1.5 Gallons
Half teaspoon pectic enzyme
Pasteur red yeast

Dissolve honey in room temp water. In a clean and sanitized blender add lingen concentrate and berries (leave out 2 cups of blackberries). Blend to a very fine smoothie. Add smoothie to must and move must to fermenting bucket. Bring level to 1.5 gallons and pitch yeast. Ferment to completion in bucket. Rack as much as possible to 1 gal carboy excluding fruit paste and lees and store extras for topping off. With the blackberries, blend them and run pulp through coffee filters to strain pulp. Age to clear.

 

[The_Happy_Dachshund_Brewe]

I saw somebody talking about Greyjoy mead made on seawater, so I made it. Just a small batch and actually not a real mead (the bees wasn't ready to let us harvest the honey yet)

But I collected some gallons of Baltic seawater and started.

1.7 L distilled seawater
150 g sugar
4 g lemon zest
Juice of half a lemon
14 ~ 1.54 g juniperus
6 ~ 0.18 g staranis seed
1.02 g dry rosemary
0.68 g dry bay leaves
10 ~ 0.35 g black pepper corn
1.5 teaspoon peppermint essenes

I gave it some port wine yeast i had harvest from a apple mead

My OG is 1028

I'm thinking let it fermenting for about two weeks, then remove the spices, split the batch in two, ad about 250 g of sugar to the one part, collect some stones from the beach, heat them up and throw them in the part of the batch witch the extra sugar, let it stand to it is cool and mix the two together again for a couple of weeks and see what happened.

Hope my English is understandable, I have dyslexia and English is not my first language

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

haha I also mentioned the distilled seawater, but not a recipe. I'd love to try that one just for curiosities sake.

It's going to be a long year aging my Cheese-monger's reserve. I may be adding more grapes and some oak soon. The pears really didn't do anything.

Edit: Also watch out that those stones are dry. Heating wet stones can cause them to blow up.

 

[Marmike600]

Red Wedding Mead?

Sunday's episode destroyed my brain. I am technically a zombie now.

I was literally screaming at my tv.

I was soon thereafter contemplating a mead to do it justice. Still thinking on it but I like the name "Red Wedding Mead"

 

[TheWeeb]

the only mead to do it justice would contain milk of the poppy, in large quantities.