Celebrate Mead Day the First Saturday in August

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If you’ve never tried mead, you’re not alone. At one time it was immensely popular, but it’s been an obscure drink for so long you could be forgiven for thinking it doesn’t actually exist any more.

But it does. And it’s making a comeback. Even better, it has its own day: Mead Day. It’s celebrated on the first Saturday in August every year.

You know you’ve arrived when you have a day!

By that definition, Mead arrived (again) in 2002. That’s when the American Homebrewers Association (AHA) created the day to “increase mead awareness and foster camaraderie among meadmakers.”

So, salud!

 

What is Mead

Mead is the oldest fermented beverage known (at least 20,000 years old). It contains three basic ingredients: honey, yeast, and water. The honey is the reason it’s sometimes also called honey wine.

You might expect something called honey wine would be sweet. But it doesn’t have to be. Like wine, mead can be sweet, dry or anything in between.

Like wine and beer, you can add extras to the basic ingredients to flavor your mead:

• Fruits
• Vegetables
• Herbs
• Spices
• Hops (yes, just like beer)

 

Also like beer and wine, there’s good and bad mead (sometimes very bad!). So if you’ve never tried it, don’t assume you don’t like it if your first taste is bad. It might just be a bad mead.

Scroll down for some ideas on celebrating this unofficial drink holiday.

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Celebrating Mead Day

Drink mead, make mead, enjoy mead.

Done!

If you’ve planned ahead and made some mead to drink on this day, well crack it open and enjoy!

You can buy some excellent meads, too. Now, we’re not mead experts (in fact we’ve only ever tried one, but it was fantastic! … now if only we could remember its name …), but these meads seem to have gotten good reviews:

• HoneyRun 3-Bottle Sampler: Mead, Blackberry, Elderberry
• NV Hidden Legend “The King’s Mead”
• NV HoneyRun Winery Ragnar’s Dry Mead

 

While you’re enjoying your mead (but before you drink too much!), start a new batch. If you have friends who enjoy mead as much as you do, make it a group project.

(If your friends don’t enjoy mead, get new friends!)

Try one of these recipes:

• An English Braggot
• Super Berry Melomel
• Raspberry Mead
• 10 of the Best Mead Recipes : A list from someone who loves mead … At least that’s what he claims. We’ll take his word for it, since these do look fantastic.

 

Or consider one of these books:

• The Compleat Meadmaker: Home Production of Honey Wine From Your First Batch to Award-winning Fruit and Herb Variations, by Ken Schramm
• The Complete Guide to Making Mead: The Ingredients, Equipment, Processes, and Recipes for Crafting Honey Wine

 

If you’ve never made mead before, this One Gallon Mead Starter Kit can let you try without investing too much, in case you decide mead-making just isn’t for you.

The Homebrewer’s Association offers a lot of useful information too:

• How to make mead
• Should you heat your honey?
• Free Downloads – articles about mead from the Association’s magazine.

 

If there are any breweries, wineries, or meaderies (yes, that’s a word!) near you, see if they’re having any Mead Day events, like tasting or educational sessions.

Not sure if there are any meaderies nearby? Check this meadery directory at Gotmead.com.

Spread the word on social media to encourage your friends to celebrate, too.

 

Dates for Future Mead Day Celebrations

We know you wouldn’t want a single Mead Day celebration, so here’s the dates for the first Saturday in August for the next few years.

Enjoy!

• 2019 – Saturday, August 3
• 2020 – Saturday, August 1
• 2021 – Saturday, August 7
• 2022 – Saturday, August 6
• 2023 – Saturday, August 5
• 2024 – Saturday, August 3
• 2025 – Saturday, August 2
• 2026 – Saturday, August 1
• 2027 – Saturday, August 7
• 2028 – Saturday, August 5
• 2029 – Saturday, August 4

 

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