Visited a restaurant in the Philadelphia suburbs, General Lafayette Inn. They brew their own beer (you can watch the beermakers through a glass plank in the floor of the bar) and have this delectible raspberry mead that is served in wine glasses (the waitress said because of alchol content) but can be served in a glass when mixed with green tea or something else.
I don't know of many places that make mead ale and haven't see it in store shelves. Pity... it is quite the awesome drink.
I know that the few places in Ohio that Produce mead are regulated under the winery Regulations as opposed to the Brewery Regulations. but that is as far as the production aspects. the only places I have found mead Retail have been Specialty wine shops.
Brew it yourself. It's easy and the results from just a little effort can be most rewarding.
The current issue of Mid-Atlantic Brewing News has a cover story (written by yours truly) on mead, including abbreviated history, review of types, and a review of the Mid-Atlantic's producers, both winery-style and beer style. Grab it now, new issue is on the presses as I type.
In the latter, there's Dogfish Head's Midas Touch, Magic Hat's Thumbsucker-big-bottle-line Braggot, and Ramapo Valley Brewery (Suffern, NY) and its "Gluten-Free Beer" which is made with honey and molasses and no malt--though they refuse to think of it as a mead.
In the wine style, there's the Smokehouse Winery of Sperryville, Va. (all-mead), Earle Estates Winery of New York State, Kenco Farms of Sutton, WV, Manatawney Valley Winery of Pa., and a couple other wineries that also happen to do a mead or blend as well (Loew Vineyards of Maryland and Stonewall of Va., for example).
I've been to the Redstone meadery in Boulder. I gotta admit that I haven't really found a taste for mead yet - most of them are too sweet for me. Maybe a dryish version that wasn't mixed with fruit would be nice but I have yet to try one like that.
_Randal
The problem tends to be twofold along those lines:
1) the honeyed character of mead is most evident in a sweeter mead, whereas a dry mead is to many folks largely indistinguishable from dry white wine. Honey wine, at current prices, is more expensive to produce than grape wine, so meaderies would want to retain the mead's distinctive character.2) ask any winery or wine festival: sweet wine outsells dry wine. It takes a more sophisticated taster to appreciate dry wine than sweet.
I like the beers at the GLI but the food has been just so-so and the service about the worst I've seen in Montgomery County. I might have to stop by and try some of the raspberry mead though. Sounds interesting.
Jon
Bleh. I had that particular mead at the General a few years back. Really sweet and syrupy. I don't know of alot of brewers making mead, but that are a number of commercial meaderies. Perhaps the most common mead, usually found in the wine section, is Chaucer's Mead. I don't like it either. But I'm really curious to try the Apis Jadwiga Mead from Poland.
Expletive Deleted wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@linc.cis.upenn.edu:
As you should be. One of the most amazing substances I've ever had the privilege to drink.
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