How Popular is Mead?

[Joshlc]

Hi everyone,

I've recently started taking more of an interest in mead, up until now it's been largely drinking rather than brewing, although I'm currently taking my first tentative steps. I'm from the UK and you don't see mead anywhere, no one I know has ever tried it (I hadn't up until a few months ago) and most don't really know what it is. So, I was wondering...

How big is Mead in the US?

What is stopping it becoming a well established drink, akin to beer or wine?

Cheers.

 

[jrgtr42]

Mead is still a fairly niche product here in the States as well - though i'm surprised few people in the UK haven't at least heard of it.
It is slowly getting more popular - there are a lot of mead breweries out there.
It's also easy to homebrew - similar to wine in that you need to keep eyes on nutrients and off-gassing, since honey doesn't have the necessary nutrients that the yeast need.
But it easy in that you just mix things up and let it be - so easier than beer, which you have to mash, boil, cool, etc.

 

[Joshlc]

Mead is still a fairly niche product here in the States as well - though i'm surprised few people in the UK haven't at least heard of it.
It is slowly getting more popular - there are a lot of mead breweries out there.
It's also easy to homebrew - similar to wine in that you need to keep eyes on nutrients and off-gassing, since honey doesn't have the necessary nutrients that the yeast need.
But it easy in that you just mix things up and let it be - so easier than beer, which you have to mash, boil, cool, etc.

Ye, thanks that's interesting. I didn't make that very clear. I meant nearly everyone has heard of it but I was surprised at how few people knew exactly what is was other than old and alcoholic.

 

[bracconiere]

Closest i've come to mead was a few batches of cyser....

 

[Kent88]

In some parts of the states homemade mead is pretty popular. There is an impressive meadmaking community in Minnesota's twin cities area.

 

[bushpilot]

Yes, in is a niche product, but there is a market for it. A substantial portion of the population probably hasn't tried it, or they did once and "didn't like it" and moved on. Many don't realize there are many varieties of mead, not just the sweet traditional.

Cost is a factor as well, it isn't cheap.

 

[BruceH]

My interest came from reading Norse mythology. I've made some decent batches but it takes a long time for them to taste right, like over a year.

The only commercial mead I've had came from the UK. My youngest daughter brought it back after a trip to England. It was super sweet and over spiced, made for the partying masses or American tourists I would guess. If Amaretto was a mead this would of been it.

I've seen a few varieties of mead for sale at the local gas station that has 1,000 varieties of beer but haven't tried any, I'm pretty happy with my home made stuff.

 

[madscientist451]

There are almost 500 small meaderies in the US, but most places that sell alcoholic beverages don't have any mead on the shelf.
Mead is more expensive than beer or low priced wine and that will probably prevent most people from trying it.
I've had some commercial examples that I din't like and some that were just OK.
There are also many types of mead from low ABV "craft meads" to high ABV fruit and flavor bombs and everything from super sweet to super dry.
Many consumers don't really want to put all that much effort into selecting their beverages, they want to stay in established categories.
Last Christmas I sent some commercial mead to a relative as a gift and I heard back: "Thanks for the mead, but I'm a white wine person".
So some people don't really want to try new things.
I think what's stopping it from becoming a well established drink is the profit margin. Industrial brewers can take something like beer or hard seltzer that costs them $ .10 to .25 (or less) a serving in ingredients and make a product that sells for ten times that much at retail or even more when served in bar/restaurant. Honey will never be as cheap as corn syrup so the economics of scale will ensure that mead will remain a small segment of the overall beverage market.