European meads

Notes :

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• Prices are given by the meaderies, they are not necessarily up to date or applicable everywhere. For more details, please contact the meaderies.
• See tasting.

Lurgashall

English Mead

• Data from the winery:
  (12°5, 75 cl : £ 5,25) : Medium sweet fermented honey fortified with spirits. Serve mulled with spices in winter, over ice in summer.
  
  
• Review [January 2002] by 'Venom' published on beer advocate.com:
  Pinot Grigio appearance. Light suspended yeasties. Huge winey, honey, solvent alcohol aroma (like grapes soaking in crazy glue). Tart wine like acidity and honey sweetness, although not thick and cloying. Tastes like a sweetened Chardonnay. The alcohol aroma is unbearable though, very turpentine like. Distracting. Interesting floral aspects to the honeyed sweetness. If you like sweet wines you may like this (this does contain sulfites as well), I do not. Steer clear of main course foods with this one (and any open flames as well).
  [Scores: Appearance: 2.5 / 5, Smell: 1.5 / 5, Taste: 2 / 5, Mouthfeel: 2 / 5, Drinkability: 2 / 5, Total: 2 / 5]
  
  
• Review [April 2002] by Jacob Johnston published on beer advocate.com:
  It started out nicely. Nice floral aroma (I'd expect that since it comes from honey.) The flavor was very mild, but really interesting. The only problem was that it was fairly sweet and got sweeter as it warmed up and I drank more of it until it became too cloying to finish. Possibly better if served colder, but then the pleasant aromas would be stifled. Very winelike (you think? It's basically honey wine afterall) with some definite alcohol notes in the nose but less present in the taste.
  [Scores: Appearance: 3 / 5, Smell: 4.5 / 5, Taste: 2.5 / 5, Mouthfeel: 3.5 / 5, Drinkability: 2 / 5, Total: 3.05 / 5]
  
  
• Review [September 2002] by 'Yen157' published on beer advocate.com:
  Great compared to the last mead I had which was way to winey. Floral, sweet smell, and of course no head!! Very nice taste, honeyed but not too sweet. For some reason Moscato d'Asti comes to mind (sans the bubbles!!). At $9 a bottle, a nice buy once and a while as an aperitif or desert.
  [Scores: Appearance: 4 / 5, Smell: 3.5 / 5, Taste: 4.5 / 5, Mouthfeel: 4.5 / 5, Drinkability: 3.5 / 5, Total: 4.1 / 5]
  
  
• My review [April 2003]:
  The first nose is vegetal but when you start swirling the glass... it stinks. A strong, disgusting odor of chemical. We condescended to drink it anyway but it did not get any better. The after-taste was especially awful.
  [Score: 4 / 20]

Valentines' Mead

• Data from the winery:
  (12°5, 75 cl : £ 5,50) : A romantic, warming drink to share with the one you love.

Christmas Mead

• Data from the winery:
  (12°5, 75 cl : £ 5,50) : Over the centuries, this delicious drink, made from fermented honey has been produced in many forms unadulterated as the ale of the poor or spiced and fortified as the celebration liquor of kings. Today Christmas Mead is an ideal aperitif. For a festive winter warmer, just add the spices and heat.
• My review [April 2003]:
  Nice dark straw color, brilliantly clear. Woody nose, somewhat sherry-like too. The taste is very sweet with again something woody, not precisely what we expected in a mead.
  [Score: 10 / 20]

Special reserve

• Data from the winery: (16°5)
  
  
• Review [May 2002] by Matt Maples on beer advocate.com:
  Please someone tell me I got a bad bottle I've liked their other meads well enough but this stuff was not good. This is billed as their Special Reserve, mead that was aged in oak barrels that once held spirits. It is rather strong but quite smooth. Now the Importer gave a description that said dry, apricot, rum and oaky flavors. Frankly the stuff I tasted was nothing of the sort; it was very bland and sweet, the sweetness didn't even taste like honey. I would almost accuse someone of drinking the real mead and filling the bottle back up with something else.
  I am willing to give it another chance if I run across another bottle but damn was I disappointed. Another mead making friend of mine had tried it also and we both had the same opinion. No one liked it and I encouraged people to dump it and move on to something else (we had plenty of good stuff on hand). If anyone else has tried this stuff please email me so I can know if the bottle was bad or this is a mead I should just give up on.
  [Scores: Appearance: 4 / 5, Smell: 3.5 / 5, Taste: 2 / 5, Mouthfeel: 3 / 5, Drinkability: 2 / 5, Total: 2.9 / 5]
• My review [April 2003]:
  As for other meads from Lurgashall, it is not the appearance that is bad: the mead is brilliantly clear. The smell is strong and fresh, fairly enjoyable. But this mead is too strong and that is all that is left is our mind: alcohol.
  [Score: 11 / 20]

Milejów

Wawel

• Data from the importer:
  Wawel belongs to the group of fruit meads “trojniak” with the volume content of alcohol from 12 to 14%. This mead is made from bee honey (July honey and acacia honey) with the addition of suitable kinds of pasteurized fruit juices (apple, hip rose and blackthorn juices) which enables to obtain it, apart from the generous taste, full nutritive properties as a result of the increased content of vitamin C. During the process of production Wawel mead is aromatized by means of herbs, among which predominate hop and juniper. The obtained aromatic bouquet accomplishes this splendid mead, which recipe comes from the Royal mead factory, the oldest in Poland, Royal Castle "Wawel" I Cracow – the old Polish capital.

• Review [November 2001] by Matt Maples on MeadHQ: Polish Mead, Sweet, Strong, and Complex
  As with the other two meads from this meadery, Wawel is full sweet. It has a thicker body than any commercial U.S. mead I've tried. It is flavored with rowanberry, chamomile, cinnamon, and clove and has 14% alcohol. The spices are very subtle which is nice as clove can be overdone quite easily. The rowanberry gives it a slight fruity tartness after the initial hit of sweet honey.
  All of the meads from Milejów are aged at least two years in wooden casks before they are bottled. This gives them more depth and character than their U.S. counterparts. I have had one customer of mine who went to school in Poland say that in the bars they serve this mead HOT. I'm not too sure about that but I'll have to try it for myself and let you know.
  I assume that the U.S. labeling laws still apply even to imported goods. If this is true then these meads do not have any sulfites add to them, which I think is a plus.
  If you like the sweet meads this (as well as the others from Milejów) are definitely worth trying.
  [Scores: Clarity: 5 / 5, Taste: 4 / 5, Aroma: 4 / 5, Total: 4.5 / 5]
  
  
• My review [December 2002]:
  It tastes like a very sweet pineau des Charentes. It is of a dark brown-red color and has a lot of body. I found it some bitterness in spite of all the sweetness. My Cork sucked horribly and I had some precipitates at the bottom of my glass, hard to say if it is cork or not.

Litewsky

• Review [November 2001] by Matt Maples on MeadHQ:
  Sweet honey character with sherry notes
  As with the other two meads from this meadery, Litewsky is full sweet. It has a thicker body than any commercial U.S. mead I've tried, with 14% alcohol.
  I did ding it a little on clarity not because it wasn't clear but due to the fact that it was an odd dark color. Maybe it is suppose to be like that but I found the color to be unappealing.
  It has a great sweet honey aroma and the flavor has a bit of a nutty sherry like flavor. I really enjoyed this mead and I usually don't go for the sweet stuff. It was very interesting and has a depth of flavor that I have not had in mead before.
  This is a mead for everyone to try just because it is rather unique. Some people are saying that the sherry notes are from oxidation and not from the wood it is aged in. Either way I liked it a lot.
  [Scores: Clarity: 3 / 5, Taste: 4 / 5, Aroma: 4 / 5, Total: 3.5 / 5]

Koronny

• Data from the importer:
  Koronny translates directly to “CROWN”. This delicious mead is made with honey, black cherry and herbs. Koronny is brewed without preservatives or artificial aromas, in accordance with ancient recipes, which have been slightly modified. It is unusual in that it is a true dark mead, and has a brickish-garnet hue in the glass. It is very sweet, as dwojniak meads go. Koronny in one of the most popular of Polish meads. Koronny is aged a minimum 5 years in oaken barrels and up to 5 additional years in bottle before it is released. Koronny pairs surprisingly well with roasted nuts, roasted meats, foods in rich sauces, and with blue cheese, especially Stilton, or Roquefort.

• Review [November 2001] by Matt Maples on MeadHQ:
  BIG Cherry Melomel
  As with the other two meads from Milejów, Koronny is full sweet. It has a thicker body than any commercial U.S. mead I've tried. This is a cherry melomel , and it's a BIG one. It has a huge cherry flavor on it.
  The only reason that the cherry does not totally overpower the honey character is that is very honey sweet. At 16% alcohol it is very strong and the flavor reflects that.
  This is not for everyone. It was a bit over the top for my taste. If you love cherry and a big alcohol presence, then this is for you. I found the other two meads from Milejów to be much more drinkable.
  [Scores: Clarity: 5 / 5, Taste: 3 / 5, Aroma: 3 / 5, Total: 4 / 5]
  
  
• Review [March 2002] by Matt Maples on beer advocate.com:
  There is a line in which you have to draw the exceptable level of alcohol. Unfortunately this one crosses it in my opinion. It is very sweet (as is most of the Polish meads) and there is nothing wrong with that. It is the alcohol in the aroma that detracts from the big cherry/honey smell. Same too in the flavor, sweet, cheery and alcohol. Some of my customers love the stuff I just think it would have been a much more enjoyable product have they dropped the alcohol about 3 points.
  [Scores: Appearance: 4 / 5, Smell: 3.5 / 5, Taste: 3.5 / 5, Mouthfeel: 3.5 / 5, Drinkability: 3.5 / 5, Total: 3.8 / 5]