Up to now, I’ve ignored the one blindingly obvious candidate for a Valentine’s Day bottle, namely mead, a drink that newlyweds used to be given for a month after their nuptials to promote fertility (hence the term “honeymoon”). To be honest, though, I’ve only ever found a couple of meads I actually liked, but that changed just before last Christmas, when I tasted one that Hive Mind made from the leftover honey (all 250 pots of it) submitted to the Great Taste Awards, and all profits from which go to the charity Bees Abroad, too.
Hive Mind is the kind of artisanal producer you find all over the place in the beer and cider worlds these days, but mead is still a relative rarity, honey being a rather more complicated proposition than hops or apples. Brewer Matthew Newell, however, has been keeping bees since he was 13, which gave him a significant headstart.
And it turns out that a lot of mead is made by adding honey to a fermented sugar or wine base, which makes it hard to discern the specific honeys being used explains, says Matthew’s brother Kit, a graphic designer who is responsible for the strikingly contemporary design of its labels: “We started out with no prior knowledge, but simply an idea of what we thought mead should be,” Kit explains. It all depends on the honey (theirs generally comes from the Wye Valley, and their meads have the character of intensely sweet dessert wine).
Another modern mead producer, Gosnells, meanwhile, makes a lighter style of mead in much the same way as a pet nat (pétillant naturel), a traditional way of making wine in which it’s bottled during the first fermentation, as well as a refreshing hibiscus mead (£3.20 Hop Burns Black, or £35 for 12 x 330ml cans from Gosnells, 4%), which looks like a sparkling rosé and which you could happily serve in a flute.
Meads can also be fruit-flavoured, which tends to diminish their honey character and makes them more like liqueurs. I was blown away, for example, by the Kinsale Hazy summer mead below, while Dreaded Mead’s pretty Raspberry Mead, which sells for £18 from their website, is also really appealing (and great with chocolate).
When and how should you drink mead, though? It helps to think about ingredients and dishes that honey goes well with – creamy blue cheese, for instance, or baklava and other Middle Eastern pastries. Lighter sparkling meads, meanwhile, would be great with a goat’s cheese or chicken salad. I like them chilled, but not over ice, because that dilutes them too much. Most are a relatively low ABV, too, which is welcome in itself.
Five meads to try for Valentine’s Day
Hive Mind Friends in Mead 2023 £20 (500ml), 12.5%. This has a soaring hit of thyme honey on the finish.
Gosnells of London Original £10.95 (750ml) Hop, Burns & Black, £12.50 Gosnells, 5.5%. Gently sparkling and honeysuckle-sweet. Basically a mead pet nat (and much nicer than from the can).
Kinsale Hazy Summer Mead £22.95 (700ml)_Amazon, 11%. OK, it’s February, not July, but this will make you dream of a summer’s afternoon. Utterly glorious, red berry fruit – would be heavenly with a white or milk chocolate dessert.
Moniack Mead £14.49 (750ml) Lyme Bay Winery, £18.95 Master of Malt, 14.6%. A more traditional style without quite the wow factor of the other four here, but more affordable (particularly if you buy direct from Lyme Bay). Stronger, slightly drier and spicier, with a hint of vanilla.
Afon Mêl Heather Mead £17.95 a half-bottle Cheers Wine Merchants, £22.95 (750ml) The Secret Bottle Shop, 13%. Delicate, fragrant mead with a beguiling taste of heather honey. Would be great with goat’s cheese or a mild blue.
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For more by Fiona Beckett, go to fionabeckett.substack.com
• This article was edited on 9 February 2024. An earlier version said the charity supported by Hive Mind for this project was Bees for Development when in fact it is Bees Abroad. This has been corrected.
