Episodes

5-20-25 Tonight we're hanging out with Joe and Tricia Marshall, owner of Lily Belle Meads in Lancaster, NY. This husband and wife team are kicking it outside Buffalo with their meads! Joe and Tricia's journey into mead was gradual but Tricia definitely led the charge on it. In 2004 Tricia got Joe a home brewing beer kit for his 26th birthday and got herself a winemaking kit for his 26th birthday! She made wines, Joe made beers. Tricia's personal goal was to make a delicious blueberry wine. She w...

5-6-25 - Tonight we’re talking with Alen RadoŠević with Fool Moon Meadery in Romania. Alen makes excellent mead and has a meadery that sells in Romania only (for now). Alen is owner and meadmaker at FoolMoon Transilvania - Romania. Alen is Certified through the Level 2 Mead Judging Program at the European Mead Makers Association. He is also winner of gold and silver medals at the 2025 Mead Madness CUP (MMC). Alen is relatively new to mead, but it hasn’t slowed him down at all. He’s been making m...

4-22-25 Tonight we’re talking with Arne Defurne, owner and head meadmaker of Clockwork Bee Mead in Antwerp, Belgium. Arne has a nano-meadery that is growing, and makes some pretty ‘ok’ mead, producing mostly dry and off-dry meads, which is uncommon. We will dig into this and see what Arne is up to over there. Back in 2019, Arne came to the 2 first European meadmakers conferences and at the end of the second one was told to bring his own mead next time. Little did they know he had started making ...

Tonight at 9PM ET, we will be chatting with Christian Mlotschek, a home meadmaker in Ontario, Canada. Christian is a newish meadmaker, and has jumped in with both feet to make meads. Christian’s brewing adventures started in 2022 when he joined the Society for Creative Anachronism. He’s brewed about 40 batches of mead, beer and cider including a few historical meads from various manuscripts. This past year he started competing in both beer and mead. His "Mixed up Mel" melomel won gold at the Ale...

3-25-25 Tonight we’re talking with Yoo Kwan, owner of Booze and Buzz Meadery in Seoul, South Korea. Kwan was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1988, but shortly moved out and spent most of the 90s and mid 2000s in Italy, Rome. There he was able to develop his palate on honey, as it was his first choice as a back sweetener on fruits that were usually to sour to eat (strawberry, apple etc). He also enjoyed making honey water, or sometimes with lemon juice, only to be drank cold as a energizer during h...

3-11-25 Tonight we’re hanging out with Jason Elder, a home mead maker from Kansas City. His name shows up regularly on the comp results, and I can confirm he makes some pretty ‘ok’ mead. Jason has been homebrewing in Kansas City since 2010 and started making Mead and Cider in 2016. He wanted to broaden his brewing experience and found that his love for making mead was higher than for making beer. He’s won awards at several competitions such as NHC and Mazer Cup. He’s considered the "Honey person...

2-25-25 Tonight we’re talking with Rob Ratliff, meadmaker and author of “The Big Book of Mead Recipes”, “Let There Be Melomels” and “Let There Be Session Meads”. An experienced meadmaker, Rob has been studying mead and its creative aspects since 2006. He has won multiple awards during competition with his meads at the Annual Mazer Cup International Mead Competition over the years and is regularly sought out for his input on recipe ideas. As a certified BJCP Mead Judge, Robert also enjoys offerin...

2-11-25 Tonight we're talking with Kirubell Araya, owner of The Heritage Winery, in New Jersey. Kirubell has taken over the making of t'ej from his father, and is now located in the old location for Melovino Meadery. The Heritage Winery has been open since 1978, making it one of the oldest honey wineries in the US. Araya Yibrehu, Kirubell's father, is a pioneer in bringing Ethiopian cuisine and Tej to the United States. He opened Sheba in 1978, argueably the first Ethiopian restaurant in the US....

1-28-25 We're hanging out with Traci Kufuss tonight, and talking about mead making, and putting recipes together. She's brought a couple of her recipes to share, and we'll dig into the mechanics of mead recipes and getting it to come out well. Traci Kuhfuss comes to us from Texas by way of Arizona. She ís been active as a homebrewer and mead maker for 20 years now, participating in brew clubs and competitions in all the places she has lived and traveled.. Traci is a professional graphic designer...

1-14-25 Tonight at 9PM ET, we're talking with Kyle Ducharme and Bill Boyer Bill is in the Minnesota Mead Mafia, and if you've competed, you know he makes good mead. Kyle is from Vermont and has been tearing up the mead world as well. We're going to be exploring what they've done with their meads, and how they put their recipes together. We'll also be talking about chocolate meads! Kyle Ducharme from Northern Vermont and is a home mead maker that has experience with quality assurance positions in...

12-3-24 We are headed for the warmer climes down in Mexico today for our last show of the year. We'll be talking with Alberto Leyva, owner of Hidromiel Aliens Kaab in Bacalar, Mexico. Alberto has been a Beekeeper in the Riviera Maya, Bacalar, Quintana Roo since 2013, and founded of Aliens Kaab in 2019. His expertise ranges from hive management to the fermentation of artisanal mead, ensuring a product that embodies the richness of local honey. Alberto is passionate about fermentation processes an...

11-18-24 Tonight we're headed to Alberta, Canada in the now-frozen north. We'll be chatting with her about mead in Canada, what she's doing with her meads, and what she's seeing for mead's direction. Kristeva's journey into the world of meadmaking began as a humble hobby beekeeper. In her third year of tending to her bees, they produced an impressive 450 pounds of honey. Knowing the incredible labor that goes into producing even a single teaspoon of honey, she was determined not to let this liqu...

11-5-24 We are abandoning the election stuff (in the US) tonight, and visiting with Raul de la Garza, owner of Freya Brewing Company in Monterrey, Mexico. Raul is also a guest host here on Gotmead Live! We got the chance to hang out with him when Kevin and Vicky went to the Copa Hidromiel mead competition in Mexico City. Raúl de la Garza, meadmaker at Freya Brewing in Monterrey, Mexico started making mead as a hobby in 2008 and later went professional in 2015. Over the years Raul has won several...

10-8-24 Tonight we're talking with Dominic Roth, a relatively new meadmaker in Australia. Dominic feels he's 'new' in that he thinks there is much more he can learn about making mead. We'll be talking technique, styles, recipes and more! Dominic is a home mead maker in Australia. He started making mead a couple years ago, as a replacement hobby following the birth of his most recent child. A dodgy mead recipe in a cookbook led him to the hobby, and then to more reliable sources! He thoroughly en...

9-24-24 Tonight we're talking with Frederick Rodriguez, Francisco Olachea and Rob Tyrrson in Mexico. Kevin and I were in Mexico for the Copa Hidromiel Mead Competition a couple weeks ago, and got to check out the meads that these folks produce, and we'll be talking about their methods, meads and plans. And bonus, we are bringing in a new guest host, Raul de la Garza, owner of Freya Meadery in Monterrey, Mexico. Francisco Olachea is a biochemical Engineer, and holds general Certificate in Brewing...

8-27-24 Tonight at 9PM ET we will be talking with Matthew Chrispen, with the Texas Mead Association and Texas Mead Cup, and we're doing a live demo of the BJCP Mead Exam tasting, and will be talking about getting certified and things to be aware of. Matt started brewing in November 2009 after a gift of Mr. Beer from a buddy and got hooked. He started blogging at Accidentalis.com a year later, focusing more as a journal focusing on personal progress, homebrewing perspectives, the Brew-Magic, Grai...

8-13-24 Tonight we’re talking with Kyle Ducharme in Vermont. Kyle has been doing a lot of mead making classes and education and helping more people with the love of mead. Kyle Ducharme is from Northern Vermont and is a home mead maker that has experience with quality assurance positions in the food and beverage industries. He has been making mead since the fall of 2019, really diving deep during the pandemic. He originally learned from podcasts/youtubers such as Gotmead, The Mead House, Doin the...

Tonight we'll be talking with newer meadmaker Stewart Jacobs. Stewart is in the Seattle area. We'll talk techniques, recipes and mead making in general. Stewart is an aerospace engineer in the Seattle area who has been making mead in 5 gallon batches since 2016. He has made at least a dozen unique batches with a variety of different additives since starting. He currently has a smoked apple mead awaiting bottling and has two unique batches in storage which he made after the birth of each of his k...

Tonight at 9PM ET we'll be getting together with Francisco Olachea, Elba Copado, Frederick Rodriguez and Andrés Torres, with surprise guest Raul de la Garza. Francisco, Elba and Frederick are the organizers of the Copa Hidromiel México, a BJCP competition in Mexico City. Between them they've an impressive collection of education and experience. We will also have Bob Slanzi, US Mead Ambassador to Mexico. Copa Hidromiel México 2024 is a mead competition organized with the purpose of supporting, di...

5-21-24 Tonight we're talking with Adam Bystrom, Josh Mahoney, Al Boyce and Josh Holbrook, members of the aptly-nicknamed 'Minnesota Mead Mafia'. Josh Holbrook has been home brewing for since 2011 and making mead since 2013. He discovered mead at his local homebrew club when a club member brought a bottle of an attempt at Curt Stock’s Triple Berry Melomel. Clouds parted, angels sang, and Josh became obsessed with mead. Josh has won numerous medals for beer, cider and mead, including AMMA Nationa...

5-7-24 Tonight at 9PM ET we will be talking with Christopher Clarke, Owner/Meadmaker at Four Fires Meadery and Head Brewer at HEAVY Beer Co. in Toledo, Ohio. Chris got into making mead after first getting into homebrewing. In late 2014 he took up homebrewing, a short half a year after first getting into craft beer. His brewing buddy at the time, Mack Garton, and he would brew every single Monday for a year and a half, and somewhere halfway through that they made their first meads. In the next fe...

Tonight we're talking with Bryce and Savannah, husband and wife owners of Fox and Raven Meadery in Carollton, Texas. Fox & Raven Mead is Savannah and Bryce, a husband and wife team, creating Meads inspired by the stories that enchant them. They met at a movie theater eighteen years ago where they worked (mainly for the perk of free movies). They are self proclaimed Bibliophies, cinephiles and just all around big nerds. Bryce initially began homebrewing beer as a hobby but switched to Mead making...

3-26-21 Tonight we're talking with Bray Denard, creator of the BOMM, Bray's One Month Mead. Bray Denard, PhD is the inventor of Bray’s One Month Mead (aka “the BOMM”), one of the more popular mead styles among home mead makers. Bray has continued to refine his methods over the years to create a never fail nutrient protocol that works with any yeast! In addition, Bray continues to provide mead making knowledge through consulting and OmniMead. OmniMead provides a free Mead Making Course as well as...

Tonight at 9PM ET, we're hanging out with Bob Slanzi, beekeeper, meadmaker, industry influencer and general all around pretty cool guy. Bob Slanzi has been keeping bees and making award winning meads for years. He is very active in the meadmaking, homebrew and beekeeping communities, having held offices in both his clubs in NY in the past. he is the past president of the Home Governing Committee of the American Mead Makers Association, and very active in helping bring the word of mead to everyon...