A guide to mead styles

Mead is wine made by fermenting honey with water. Adding fruit, spice, grain, or other ingredients gives each style its own name. Below is every style on this site, with a short definition and its recipes, followed by the brewing terms the recipes use.

Traditional

Honey, water, and yeast only. The honey's own character carries the whole mead. A strong, sweet traditional is called a sack mead.

Traditional Wildflower Mead · 12.2% ABV, semi-sweet
Dessert Sack Mead · 14.4% ABV, sweet

Melomel

Mead fermented with fruit, such as berries, cherries, or stone fruit.

Pacific Northwest Blackberry Melomel · 11.3% ABV, semi-sweet
Raspberry Melomel · 11.6% ABV, semi-sweet
Tart Cherry Melomel · 11.8% ABV, semi-sweet
Blueberry Melomel · 11.8% ABV, semi-sweet
Summer Peach Melomel · 10.9% ABV, semi-sweet
Strawberry Rhubarb Melomel · 10.6% ABV, semi-sweet

Cyser

A melomel made with apples: apple juice or cider replaces some or all of the water.

Orchard Cyser · 13.7% ABV, semi-dry

Pyment

A melomel made with grapes: grape juice or wine grapes ferment alongside the honey.

Concord Grape Pyment · 13.4% ABV, semi-sweet

Metheglin

Mead flavored with spices, herbs, or other botanicals such as cinnamon, ginger, vanilla, or coffee.

Winter Spice Metheglin · 11.8% ABV, sweet
Spiced Orange Starter Mead · 12.5% ABV, sweet
Ginger Lemon Metheglin · 11.3% ABV, semi-dry
Cold Brew Coffee Mead · 11.4% ABV, sweet
Vanilla Oak Mead · 12.5% ABV, semi-sweet

Bochet

Mead made from honey that has been cooked until it caramelizes, giving toffee and toasted flavors.

Caramelized Bochet · 10.8% ABV, sweet

Braggot

A hybrid of mead and beer, fermented from honey and malted grain or malt extract, often with hops.

Pale Braggot · 9.6% ABV, semi-dry

Acerglyn

Mead made with maple syrup as well as honey.

Maple Acerglyn · 12.2% ABV, semi-sweet

Capsicumel

Mead flavored with chile peppers.

Jalapeño Lime Capsicumel · 11.2% ABV, semi-dry

Rhodomel

Mead flavored with roses, usually dried petals or rose hips.

Rose Petal Rhodomel · 11.6% ABV, semi-sweet

Hydromel

A low-alcohol mead, roughly 3.5–7.5% ABV, often sparkling. Sometimes called a session mead.

Sparkling Session Hydromel · 5.9% ABV, dry

Mead brewing terms

Original gravity (OG): The specific gravity of the must before fermentation, measured with a hydrometer. Higher OG means more sugar and more potential alcohol.
Final gravity (FG): The specific gravity once fermentation is finished. A lower FG means a drier mead; above about 1.010 tastes noticeably sweet.
ABV: Alcohol by volume, estimated as (OG − FG) × 131.25.
Must: The unfermented mixture of honey, water, and any fruit or other fermentables.
Staggered nutrient addition: Adding yeast nutrient (such as Fermaid-O) in several doses over the first days of fermentation instead of all at once. It keeps yeast healthy and prevents off-flavors.
1/3 sugar break: The point where a third of the sugar has fermented. For a must starting at 1.105, that is around 1.070. The last nutrient dose usually goes in here.
Racking: Siphoning the mead off the sediment (lees) into a clean vessel.
Backsweetening: Adding honey after fermentation to raise the sweetness. The mead must be stabilized first, usually with potassium sorbate and metabisulfite, so it does not ferment again.
Primary and secondary: Primary is the vigorous first fermentation. Secondary is the vessel the mead is racked into afterward, where it clears and where fruit, spice, or oak are often added.