Life on the Sweet Side

Sweet Like Honey: Mead in Seattle Southside

What's the buzz? It's honey wine, and it's made from scratch right here in Seattle Southside in our meaderies hub.

When most people think about mead, they might picture people at a renaissance fair drinking out of silver tankards, or vikings sipping out of drinking horns. This ancient drink might not be familiar to you yet, but honey wine is all the rage in Seattle Southside, which is home to not one but three meaderies!

A Brief History of Mead

Mead, also known as "honey wine," has a fascinating history that goes way back. It's believed to be one of the oldest alcoholic beverages known to humanity. The ancient civilizations, from the Egyptians to the Greeks and Vikings, all had their versions of mead. It was considered a drink of the gods and was often associated with myths and legends. Making mead was a natural process, where honey, water, and sometimes fruits or spices were fermented together. With time, it became a symbol of celebration and tradition in various cultures, used in ceremonies, weddings, and feasts. Over the centuries, the popularity of mead fluctuated, but in recent years, there's been a resurgence of interest in this ancient drink, with modern craft meaderies experimenting with different flavors and styles, bringing the magic of mead back to life for a whole new generation of enthusiasts. While mead is often assumed to be sweet, it can range anywhere from the cloyingly sweet, like a dessert wine, to dry, tart, or even sour, depending on the yeast used.

There are many different styles of mead, but here are a few of the basic varieties that you may hear discussed, all of which sound like they've come directly from an alchemist's lab:

  • Traditional Mead: Made with honey, water, and yeast. That's it!
  • Braggot: A mead made with grains and hops in addition to honey, like a combination of beer and mead. Some bars will create a sort of braggot by mixing an already brewed beer with an already brewed mead, but a proper braggot is brewed together.
  • Melomel: These meads use fermented fruit in addition to honey to add notes of fruit to the sweetness of honey.
  • Cyser: A type of melomel in which the mead is brewed with apple juice or cider instead of water.
  • Pyment: Add in grapes to your traditional mead, and you have pyment. This is also technically a type of melomel.
  • Metheglin: Mead brewed with spices. Did you know? The word metheglin comes from the same linguistic root as "medicine" because these spiced meads were thought to have medicinal properties.
  • Session Mead: Mead that has a lower percentage of alcohol by volume (ABV) than most other meads, no more than 6.5% alcohol.

Modern-day Vikings at Oppegaard Meadery

Jon Oppegaard of Oppegaard Meadery stands in his tasting room with a bottle of mead and a small hand axe.

Oppegaard doesn't just sound like a viking name, Jon Oppegaard even looks like a viking, with his long, red beard and broad build. The owner of Oppegaard Meadery started out as a hobbyist brewer, making mead in his spare time ostensibly as a way to save money on drinks. Now, his focus on Pacific Northwest ingredients and rich, historical flavors have made him a hit in the growing craft mead industry. In addition to using locally produced honey, many of Oppegaard's meads are melomels that feature local Pacific Northwest fruits, like local berries and apples, so that you can get a real taste for our region. The tasting room in Tukwila looks like a tavern that vikings would have frequented, and the ceramic tasting goblets will make you feel like a viking yourself as you sip his rich, honey-centric brews. But don't worry, there are no raiding parties here - the tasting room is kid and dog friendly.

Jon Oppegaard invites other mead enthusiasts to join him in the Viking Club, an exclusive, 300-member club that pays quarterly dues to receive exclusive brews, get discounts on purchases, and gain inside knowledge on what brews may be releasing soon. The Viking Club has proven so popular that a waitlist has formed to join, so you could say that the viking raid on Tukwila has been a huge success!

Curiously Inventive at Contrivance

Conner Cayson from @FindMeInSeattle visits Contrivance

Winemaker Brandon “Cozmo” Walters at Contrivance Wine & Mead Co. doesn't know how to do things halfway. Wine and mead making began as a hobby, with small batches out of his kitchen, until it was eventually moved to its own room, then to a garage, then finally to the space in Tukwila that it now occupies, turning from hobby to full-time profession. They keep racking up awards, too, with two gold and two silver awards at the 2022 Washington Wine awards for their meads (plus another silver for their Riesling wine!). The dog and kid friendly Contrivance tasting room in Tukwila is themed around steampunk decor, with Cozmo is referred to as their "MeAD Scientist" cooking up new batches of mead in the meadery just behind the tasting room. Tours are offered if the time and circumstances allow, letting you get an up close and personal feel for the process of making mead.

And truly, the MeAD Scientist is an apt name, because Cozmo brews up some unusual delights. Where else can you get a chocolate cherry dessert mead, or the Lady Grey, an Earl Grey tea-infused mead? Or the Blueberry Pancake, which has maple syrup in addition to the honey to really make it taste like blueberry pancakes? You never know what curiously wonderful delights might come out of Contrivance's clockwork.

Brewed Locally, Enjoyed at Home

BeeHaven Beverages is a mead company that is brewed locally here in Tukwila, and while they do not have a tasting room open to the public, you can find their mead available for sale at local chain grocery co-op PCC Markets, which has a location in Burien here in Seattle Southside. These session meads are light and carbonated, making them an excellent mixer for cocktails or perfectly refreshing to enjoy on their own.

Wherever you go to get your mead, whether visiting a tasting room or a local market, it's plain to see that the buzz is all over Seattle Southside. Want to keep up to date with the latest happenings around town? Sign up for our newsletter!

Sign Up for Our Newsletter

You May Also Be Interested In...

Christy Maggio

Author

Christy Maggio

Content Wizard

Your trusty guide through the labyrinthine realms of nerdy wonders, gastronomic delights and adventures of epic or micro proportions.
Send An Email

Related Content: