I know what you're probably thinking...
"Hey, jackhole, I come to this blog to check out sweet new beers, not some weird mead. What, you think you can just review whatever the hell you want? Why don't you just start reviewing the last quinoa salad or better than usual bowel movements you had while we're going off on tangents? How about staying in your lane, dude?"
...or something along those lines. But here's the thing: Making mead isn't all that different from making beer. And more and more bottleshops are starting to carry mead. So let's just check out this mead business and if it sucks, I'll never review another mead again. Deal? Deal.
Before we get too far into this, let's learn a little bit about what mead is. Mead is made using honey. A lot of it. From what I've found online, if you want to make a good mead, you're going to need at least 3 pounds of honey for every gallon of water used. That's a crap load of honey. After you've mixed the honey and water together, you add yeast and let it ferment, taking readings throughout the fermentation process to make sure the yeast is working properly. After fermentation is finished, the mead is aged and then bottled. And that's about it.
The mead I'm going to be reviewing is from a meadery in Michigan called B. Nektar Meadery. Their meads just hit shelves in Southern California recently and they have some tasty looking offerings. I decided to go with one called Necromangocon- a mead brewed with mango and black pepper.
Necromangocon pours a very pale, almost champagne-like, yellow color. Even after a pretty vigorous pour, the mead yielded no head, whatsoever. I have next to no experience with meads, so I had no idea what this puppy was going to smell like. As you would expect, there was a good amount of fermented honey in the smell, but with it came a ton of floral notes. It reminded me a lot of St. Germain liqueur. Very interesting.
The taste opened up sweet, but it wasn't the blast of pure honey sweetness that I expected. Instead, I got a touch of honey mixed with a hint of mango and some pear, white grape juice and a Moscato-like wine note on the finish. There was just a trace of heat left on the tip of my tongue on the finish, which I can only assume was the black pepper in this beer. The mouthfeel was slick and a touch oily without ever getting too sticky and sweet. I'm not gonna lie- I kind of enjoyed this. But don't worry, beer fans, this blog isn't about to become "Walker's Top Meads." Back to beer!
Final Grade: B+
Top 250 Beers Tasted: 131
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