Episodes

1-29-19 Tonight we're bringing in another speaker for the AMMA Meadcon.Steve Patik lives in Colorado with his wife and two daughters. He found a passion for Mead over a Thanksgiving table in 2012 and year later decided to try his hand at making this amazing beverage. For over 5 years, Steve has been making mead and doing so in some unconventional, yet successful, ways. Steve rarely has a mead that is older than six months and he has won awards for mead that was only 6 weeks old. As a successful ...

1-22-19 We're off and running this year with featuring people who will be speaking at the AMMA Meadcon March 12-14. Tonight we're talking with Tom Repas (we had a schedule change, and Steve Patik will be on next week). Tom is a master beekeeper who speaks all over the country, AMMA Meadmaker of the Year 2018, winner of many medals, including two Mazer Cup Best of Show awards (2015 and 2017) and 14 cups, farmer, doctor, and all around great guy. Tom spoke at the 2018 AMMA Mead Conference as well....

1-15-19 Part 2 of Mead Myths, because we had so many that came up from our listeners last week! Ryan, Vicky and AJ will be talking about the myths that have arisen on techniques in meadmaking, they pervade a lot of the internet and are passed around by people not aware that they are myths. Yes, mead is old as people, and yes, it has a long history (we're having a show on mead history next month), but we also have science, and as science has advanced, we've discovered or proven many things about...

1-15-19 Part 2 of Mead Myths, because we had so many that came up from our listeners last week! Ryan, Vicky and AJ will be talking about the myths that have arisen on techniques in meadmaking, they pervade a lot of the internet and are passed around by people not aware that they are myths. Yes, mead is old as people, and yes, it has a long history (we're having a show on mead history next month), but we also have science, and as science has advanced, we've discovered or proven many things about ...

1-8-19 We're back after our December time off to enjoy family and the holidays. And diving right in! Ryan is going to kick off the new year with some conversation on meadmaking, and some of the myths that seem to pervade a lot of the internet and are passed around by people not aware that they are myths. Yes, mead is old as people, and yes, it has a long history (we're having a show on mead history next month), but we also have science, and as science has advanced, we've discovered or proven man...

11-27-18 Tonight we are talking with Kenneth Jenkinson, manager at Savannah Bee Company and fellow mead maker. Kenneth is heavily involved with the Savannah Brewers Club, works on the Domras Cup competition. He's an avid meadmaker, and is very passionate about mead and honey. Especially honey. Savannah Bee Company strives to live as bees live: symbiotically with nature and in a manner that contributes positively to the world around us. Savannah Bee Company grew out of Ted’s passion for bees, ...

11-27-18 Tonight we are talking with Kenneth Jenkinson, manager at Savannah Bee Company and fellow mead maker. Kenneth is heavily involved with the Savannah Brewers Club, works on the Domras Cup competition. He's an avid meadmaker, and is very passionate about mead and honey. Especially honey. Savannah Bee Company strives to live as bees live: symbiotically with nature and in a manner that contributes positively to the world around us. Savannah Bee Company grew out of Ted’s passion for bees, bee...

11-20-18 We're continuing our exploration of mead recipes and flavor profiles this week. We asked in the GotMead Group on Facebook and on the Gotmead Page for some flavor profiles that people would like to try to create. We're going to spend tonight working on them, and seeing what we can come up with to help with creating recipes for those flavor profiles. Get your Flavor Bibles out, and join us on the live chat as we explore creating particular flavor profiles in mead. Some of the flavor conco...

11-13-18 OK, so recipes are taking longer to do than we had in one show, lol. Last show we went down multiple rabbit holes of mead making ideas from questions from the chat gang, so we're back this week with Recipes, Part 2. We promise to stay on target this week. No, really! Making mead is as simple, or as complicated as you'd like it to be. And recipes are the same. Making mead is like cooking, only liquid. So the flavors you like, the flavors you want, that is your basis for creating the bomb...

11-6-18 We're tickled to have Pete Bakulic, President of the Mazer Cup International Mead Competition, on with us tonight. Pete was one of the founders of the Mazer Cup International and has been actively involved with the growth and expansion of the competition ever since. Last year, the Mazer Cup International saw over 1100 meads judged. It is the largest mead competition in the world. Entries for the home side of the competition typically fill up several hours for home, and under 2 weeks for ...

10-30-18 Episode 123! Dang, they're piling up! We're back from a week off, because Vicky ran off to DisneyWorld last week (and found mead there!!). This week, Ryan is back again, and wants to talk about creating your own mead recipes. Probably the most asked question on the Gotmead Forums and the many mead social media groups is 'do you have a recipe for xxx'. Yeah, we do. But you'll never be able to make the same mead as us, because there are differences in regional honey, fruits, spices, etc. ...

10-16-28 Tonight we're off to cooler climes in Wyoming, and meeting with Michaell Jordan. Michael Jordan is a hobby mead maker looking to go commercial in the near future. He has been keeping honey bees now for over 20 years. Michael’s family has been making mead not only as a tasty beverage, but for medical usage. Michael blends herbs, and uses honey from all over the world for his medical meads. Michael has now grown into Colorado’s culture of cannabis. Infusing marijuana into honeys, using ca...

10-9-18 Tonight we're going across the pond, in a recorded episode with Mateusz Blaszczyk, who is putting on the European Mead Makers Association's first Mead Conference, November 8-9 in Poznan, Poland. The group Kings of Mead YouTube channel will also be putting on two mead competitions, the Mead Madness Competition one for home meadmakers and one for professional meaderies. Currently it is expected that 10 or more countries will have meadmakers attending the conference, so they're off to a gre...

10-2-18 We're dropping into teaching mode again tonight, and bringing in Ryan to talk mead. He'll be digging into pairing yeasts to your mead recipes, continuing the conversation from last week. Possibly one of the larger questions in mead making is 'what yeast do I use?'. And a big question is is indeed. There are hundreds of yeasts out there, for wine, beer, cider and even a few mead specific yeasts. But which one to choose? That is the question. Ryan is going to try to help you narrow this do...

9-25-18 We're dropping into teaching mode tonight, and bringing in Ryan to talk mead. He'll be digging into pairing yeasts to your mead recipes. Possibly one of the larger questions in mead making is 'what yeast do I use?'. And a big question is is indeed. There are hundreds of yeasts out there, for wine, beer, cider and even a few mead specific yeasts. But which one to choose? That is the question. Ryan is going to try to help you narrow this down, so you can make more focused yeast choices for...

9-18-18 We're headed up to Pennsylvania tonight, to talk with Scott Neeley, head meadmaker at Kingview Meadery. Scott has been making mead since 2011, and did a lot of work at it, until he began to enter competitions in 2015. He has since picked up a number of medals, and a couple BoS medals. He ended up starting a meadery after visiting a number of meaderies around PA and OH, and as a man of German descent, and a lover of bees, felt it was the right move for him to make. Scott is adamant about ...

9-11-18 Today we're getting together with Thomas Hubbe, co-owner of Bee Seasonal, a purveyor of Brazilian Honey. Thomas and Larissa founded Bee Seasonal because they love honey. Larissa noticed that in Europe, they routinely stock seasonal honeys from around the world, but in the US, not so much. So she and Thomas set out to rectify this. Their mission is to source organic honeys from beekeepers devoted to their bees, their communities and the land. They want to generate transparency by connecti...

9-4-18 We're back after my trip to Australia (yes, we'll talk about the mead there too). And our first guest now that we're back is none other than Susan Ruud, co-founder of Prairie Rose Meadery in Fargo, ND. Susan makes pretty amazing mead, and when last I was there, last summer, I ended up getting nearly every one of her meads, because I just couldn't leave them out. All were excellent. Susan spoke at the AHA Convention this year, and talked in depth on oaking meads. We're going to dig into th...

8-7-18 We're skipping over to Wyoming this week to visit with Sam Clikeman, owner of Big Lost Meadery. Sam started making beer back in the early 2000's in Logan, UT with a buddy. In a forest service cabin in the middle of the woods. No running water, very little electric, and not much by way of supplies. That takes dedication! It actually worked out better than you might think it would, and a couple years later, Sam discovered mead. Sam didn’t want to waste a year for a five gallon carboy of mea...

7-31-18 Mountain Rose Herbs is an online purveyor of the highest quality organically grown herbs and spices, teas, essential oils, & botanical goods. They focus on sustainability and offer one of the most thorough selections of certified organic herbs, spices, and botanical products today. Organics are their first choice regardless of price or profit. They try to stay as close to zero waste as they can, and have a Platinum ranking for Zero Waste Certification. Their herbs are certified organic, ...

7-24-18 Tonight we're talking with Justin LeVaughn, who is the Quality Assurance and Quality Control Officer at Ethereal Brewing in Lexington, KY. Justin does the microbiological and sensory analysis there, and maintains their yeast stocks. Justin started home brewing beer about 10 years ago in college, and combined his formal biology training with the hobby. He fell into the mead world about 4-5 years ago, and was hooked. His main passions are carbonated session meads and metheglins, but he reg...

7-17-18 We're baaccckkk!! Tonight we have on the show Alison Heath, owner of Apothecary Mead in Sherwood Forest (yes, that one) in the UK. Alison is the first female commercial meadery owner in the UK, and her meadery is a small artisan business, making cold-fermented mead over time. Her operation is on the historic Welbeck Estate in North Notthinghamshire. Alison is huge into recycling her mead materials, and uses miminal electricity, and is also a beekeeper, so her meadery operation is very gr...

6-19-18 Tonight we're up to a couple of things. We're going to do some chat tonight around our to-brew lists, mistakes we've learned from, equipment we didn't know we needed when we got started, and other things. AND, we're happy to welcome Fred Minnick, author and speaker. Fred gave the Mead Cocktails talk at the 2018 AMMA MeadCon. Wall Street Journal-bestselling author Fred Minnick loves his bourbon so much that he’s written three books on the subject: Whiskey Women, Bourbon Curious and Bourbo...

Enlightenment Wines started out as a small part time farm winery in 2009 by Raphael Lyon. In 2015 Lyon reached out to Anthony Rock and Arley Marks with the intent to join forces and grow Enlightenment Wines into a full scale production meadery with a tasting room and cocktail bar in Brooklyn New York. Enlightenment is a little different from many meaderies, in that they are heavily focused on 'natural' or 'wild' meadmaking. They work with wild yeasts, unfiltered honey, and local herbs to create...