🍯 What Is Mead Made From?

The basic ingredients in mead are: Honey, Water and Yeast

Optional ingredients like fruits (known as melomels), spices and herbs (metheglins), or hops can be added to create different styles and flavour profiles.

🍯 How Is Mead Made?

The process of making mead is relatively simple but requires care and patience. Unlike beer brewing where a lot of the work is done in extracting the sugars from the malt, honey is a naturally occurring sugar and requires no processing in order to ferment (other than diluting with water)

The basic steps are:

Mixing honey and water to create a sweet liquid called ‘must.’

Adding yeast to start fermentation - the yeast consumes the natural sugars in the honey, turning them into alcohol.

Fermenting for several weeks or months, depending on the style of mead.

Ageing and bottling - some meads improve with time, while others are designed to be enjoyed straight away.

Modern craft meaderies, like us at Hive Mind, often experiment with different honeys, fruits and botanicals to produce unique, small-batch meads.

🍯 What Does Mead Taste Like?

Mead’s flavour depends on:

• The type / season of honey used - floral, citrusy, woody, or earthy notes
• Additional ingredients - fruits, spices, or herbs
• The strength and sweetness level - from bone dry to lusciously sweet

Some meads taste light and refreshing, others rich and warming. You’ll find sparkling meads, still meads, dry meads, and sweet dessert meads - there’s a style for everyone.

🍯 Is Mead the Same as Honey Wine?

Good question - honey wine is another name for mead, but traditionally, ‘mead’ is the preferred term in the UK and among craft producers. Both refer to an alcoholic drink made from fermented honey and water.

🍯 The History of Mead in the UK

Mead is one of Britain’s oldest alcoholic drinks, enjoyed by Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and medieval monks. It was traditionally served at feasts, weddings, and ceremonies - often seen as a drink of celebration, wisdom, and ritual.

Though mead fell out of fashion for a few centuries, it’s now enjoying a revival, with modern meaderies across the UK bringing it back to life in creative new ways.

Mead is often associated with monks as it was often made on-site at Abbeys or Monasteries. This is because beeswax candles were the only ones allowed to be used in these buildings as the alternative were candles made from animal fat (tallow). The animal fat candles made lots of black soot which would damage the decoration and tapestries. Honeybees were kept on site so the wax could be used to make beeswax candles, which burned much more cleanly. These bees were kept in hives called 'skeps' which encouraged the production of wax. The resulting honey would be harvested by squashing the wax, and the remaining wax would be washed in open water troughs. This would create 'must' (honey / water mixture) which would then ferment with the natural yeast present in the honey! The resulting mead was likely low strength and dry, (unless it was consumed during the fermentation) and safer to drink than most other things as the alcohol would keep bacteria at bay. 

🍯 Is Mead Making a Comeback?

Absolutely. The UK (and other countries around the world) is experiencing a craft mead boom, with independent meaderies popping up around the country. Consumers are looking for authentic, locally made, and sustainable drinks - and mead ticks all those boxes.

Many modern meads are lighter, lower in alcohol, and naturally gluten-free, appealing to today’s drinkers seeking alternatives to beer, cider, and wine.

At Hive Mind, we’re proud to be part of a growing movement, creating unique meads with honey from our own bees and local British producers.

What is real mead?

We strongly believe that a drink needs to be fermented on 100% honey to be called a 'Traditional Mead'. Mentioning no names, there are sadly some mass-market producers who make a drink from a white wine base, and add sugar and honey flavouring and call this mead - this is a cheap novelty, and not real authentic mead! 

Where to Buy Mead in the UK

You can find mead in:

Specialist craft bottle shops
Farm shops and farmers markets

Online from craft meaderies (like us)
Some pubs, festivals, and events celebrating local food and drink

Summary: What Is Mead?

Mead is an alcoholic drink made by fermenting honey and water

It can be still, sparkling, dry, or sweet

The world’s oldest known alcoholic drink, with a long history in the UK
Mead is enjoying a craft revival with modern styles and flavours

Naturally gluten-free and made from natural ingredients

Try Modern Craft Mead for Yourself

If you’re curious about mead, check out our range of traditional, sparkling, and flavoured meads, all made using honey from our own bees and trusted British beekeepers.