Newb Question at it's... Newbiest?

[Brewing Clamper]

How newbish am I? Here's my question:

Do you drink mead chilled? Cold? Room Temp? Warmish?

The only mead I've tasted was at a sub-par wine tasting room and they had it heated up with some mulling spices. I assume the spice was to hide any off flavors, but really, what do I know. Anyway, I'm interested in the idea of meads and would love to try my hand at it, small batch to begin. Thanks!

 

[KevinM]

I'd say all the above is pretty possible. I've only tasted a few meads and only made one so far, but I've noticed that like wine or sake, different flavors come out at different temperatures. Some meads tasted better well chilled (the sweet and semi sweet mead)and some at somewhat cool temperature (the dry mead and the apple cyser) and somewhat room temperature (the berry mead, which was like a red wine)
I've had a cinnamon mead, but it was not heated and no spices were added to the mead post bottle, but like a mulled wine, I would think it would taste pretty good hot.

It's kind of like grape wine, some are best chilled, some not so chilled, some tepid and some hot.

 

[Golddiggie]

While I do think it depends on the actual mead, the ones I've tried were more on the chilled side. I would be more inclined to treat it like white wine when it comes to serving temps. That is, for straight mead. Anything with additional flavor elements, like melomels, could be completely different. Those might be better served like a red wine. One made more like a cider could be better of warmer. Of course, how dry or sweet the mead is can also impact at what temp it's best served at.

If there's any doubt, I would reach out to who made it to see what THEY recommend for serving temperatures. With all the effort put into making the mead, they should at least know that too.

I do have two traditional batches of mead that I'll probably serve chilled. Another batch that's a blackberry melomel that I'll try chilled, room temp and maybe between. I have another batch that's getting more flavors added. I'm inclined to chill that down more, just because of the flavors I'm going with (trying to replicate mocha chip ice cream, turned up to 11 )...

Personally, if someone heated MY mead up with mulling spices, I'd probably do something that they'd never forget, and maybe not recover to well from...

 

[KevinM]

Good points. My comments were based on my observation, but thankfully, Bnektar says many of the same things about their meads. They do mention that their Vanilla cinnamon would do well warm for example.
They were, however, all room temperature during the tasting, but on occasion I buy a few bottles either at the store or when I go to their tasting and I've tried it a few different ways. Not quite enough money to try it every way though. I'm also preferrable to drinking things on the cold side (less cloying for sweet, more minerally for dry). Especially sweet, or cherry or apple flavored drinks, so it's quite a bit of bias there.
I do believe that the producers had mentioned mixing two meads warm as well, perhaps it was the apple and the vanilla cinnamon. Definately listen to what the makers say, but try it your own way, maybe a different temperature highlights a characteristic you really enjoy from the particular mead where another person doesn't like that flavor. What the producers don't know won't hurt them.

 

[Golddiggie]

I would ask them for more definitive terms when they say "warm" since that could mean many different things to just as many people. Such as I might take 'warm' to mean ambient temp. Where someone else could take that as 100F, or anyplace between. Room temp could mean either white or red wine cellar temps too. While chilled could be anything from 40F down to below 30F (not sure if it would freeze, or at what temp it would go solid)...

If they could at least provide a thermal range in actual degrees, that would be very helpful. It could also help to know if they recommend serving in glass that's chilled (frozen or fridge?), room temp (60-75F), warmer, or something else. I think all of that will impact the flavor and characteristics of the mead.

I'm actually going to reach out to a semi-professional mazer that's in my area. Just to see what they recommend for the mead they offer... I was going to post his ecommerce page link, but he's only able to ship in state right now. I will post up when he replies to my email...

 

[MedsenFey]

The only hard and fast rule is sparkling meads should be cold.

Beyond that, you may want to take your mead and taste it at different temps to find where you like the flavors best.

 

[Brewing Clamper]

sparkling mead? Hadn't heard that one. So how do you make it sweet or semi-sweet? I thought honey ferments almost all the way. Anyway, thanks guys!

 

[MedsenFey]

sparkling mead? Hadn't heard that one. So how do you make it sweet or semi-sweet? I thought honey ferments almost all the way.

Generally you make them dry as the honey ferments completely. Trying to make a sweet sparkling mead can be dangerous (bottle bombs) though it can be done safely using the Methode Champenoise.

 

[Golddiggie]

As promised, here's the answer from a semi-pro mazer...

I think this is a good question, because the different temp can make a HUGE difference in how they taste and what comes through.

So, onto temp. All our wine should be drunk at cellar temparture, that is 50-60 degree's. The raspeberry is best in the middle at 55, the dry is best at around 59-60 and the sweet can be done a little cooler at 45-55.

Mead in my opinion (good mead anyway) should be drunk at cellar temp. Anything cooler and you are hiding a lot of the charecteristics, and anything warmer, and you are destroying the balance.

Now, a bad mead, you want to drink that puppy ice cold, less flavor coming through but at least you aren't wasting the $.

I am not a fan of warm meads personally (mulled) so I can not comment on how to experience that type of mead. I have a strong feeling though, that you won't spend 20+ dollars then destroy the balance by heating it up. You wouldn't do that to wine from California or France, so why mead?

If you're interested, his blog site is here

 

[OneCerebralSamurai]

I pondered this question quite a bit when I first started...

My first batch was a true Frankenstein, in that I had a couple 1-gal batches of cyser and a few 1-gal batches of “cranberry wine”. Turns out that fermenting cranberries (at least a lot of them) is a really bad idea – I really like the dryness of cranberry juice, but fermented it was like taking a mouthful of alcohol soaked sand.

I mixed all these batches together hoping that the sweetness of the cyser would balance the dryness of the cranberries. I also back sweetened it to ~ 1.012 and let it bottle carb (worked great – but be very careful if you try this).

Anyway... when cold this batch was sweet up-front, but the back end was still brutally dry and astringent from the cranberries. I got the idea to try one warm – and HOLY COW! The astringent-ness of the cranberries really faded and it tasted MUCH better. (the whole batch has gotten dryer as the bottle carbing has progressed).

I guess all this rambling is to point out that you should try your meads at a few different temperatures – especially if you like to be “creative” like me.

 

[cbraun77s]

I find that all fermented beverages are best at room temp. Anything else hides some of the flavors and characteristics you worked hard to attain.