Heroic Dreams - All Things Medieval

You probably know that I am a mead maker Well, if you are a mead maker you probably often think about bees just like I do. Beehives and Mead go hand in hand of course. Well, this weekend I opened up the hives to start out the new season. This is a start out the new year right kind of thing. I inspected them and fed them a good dose of sugar water.

 The bees started out the day kind of sluggish but after a while they really got irritated and were pretty angry. I had taken their hives pretty much apart. They calmed down after a while.

 It is a fun and interesting pursuit and I will keep you posted as to how the season goes and how much honey I get. The more honey I get the more mead I make - YAY!

I have some pictures of the hives and some videos too. You can check out the pictures on my website here: Checking out the Beehives. The videos will be coming soon. The picture above shows my two hives and the picture below shows one of the honeycomb frames.

Mead is a bit of a strange brew and if you will excuse the obvious reference it is also a bit of an anachronism.   A lot of people who are interested in Medieval subjects are also very interested in Mead. But it has been my experience that very few people have actually tasted it. It isn’t readily available in your local wine shop, although, this is slowly changing over the past few years. And you can now get it online (depending on what state you live in).

And this brings me to the actual topic of this blog post. What do you do if you want to give mead a try but can’t find it local?

Yesterday I received a bottle of Peach Mead from Hidden Legend Winery and of course, I had to break it open. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is gentle and flavorful and it seems to me that this mead is a great introduction to the art and craft of mead. It has that distinct Mead taste and it has what I consider to be what makes mead beautiful and unique. It has that ability to morph itself to a wide palette of flavors. This is the real beauty of mead as compared to regular wine from grapes. Mead is a blank canvas that lends itself to flavoring. You can get mead in just about any flavor imaginable from Cranberries to pumpkin, apple, pear, and well you get the idea.

But there is one little thing about mead you should know. It has the long standing reputation of being a strong brew that will put hair on your chest, and there is a bit of truth to this. Mead can have a bit of a bite, all depending on the recipe. So, in my opinion, you have to find a mead that is a bit gentler. And the peach mead from Hidden Legend fits this requirement perfectly, it is a subtle mead that will give you a good sense of peach and of what mead is truly all about - in my opinion anyway.

So, if you are looking to try Mead for the first time i recommend you get two bottles. First you should get a bottle of plain mead which is just honey-wine; This way you get to taste a basic mead;  and second you should get a bottle of flavored mead so you can experience what mead truly is all about.  Here are a couple of resources for you.  Mead makes a great conversation piece come holiday visiting.

Hidden Legend Winery - They are in Montana and ship to roughly 15 states so you should check their list of states to see if they can ship to you. And, the delivery has to be signature accepted by someone over 21 years of age - You can’t let the kids take this delivery!

And, if you don’t already know, I have a mead making site where you can learn everything you ever wanted to know about making mead, including lots of video tutorials. The Joy of Mead.

Wassail! and you will get your mead in time for the holidays

Here is the label of the Peach Mead I just tried:

I have spent the past couple of days working on the medieval website and have added a lot of things.

These things include:

•  a section on medieval words which has a bunch of stuff like the weapons and armor of knights.
• And I have included a drawing and the parts of the medieval armor of a horse.
• I also have a new section on Medieval Shields which includes drawings of the major types of shields
• The Medieval Castles calendars are out for 2010 I have a page here.
• A selection of Medieval Chess sets is also something you might want to look at
• Medieval Christmas Gifts - seeing as Christmas is almost here!

All in all I have done a lot of work on the medieval websites in the past couple of days! Buzz on over and take a peek: All Things Medieval

Also, if you are a mead maker I have made a couple of additions to the mead making website which include Mugs, Goblets and wine glasses for mead drinking.

 So, what else have I been up to?

Lot of stuff going on with me and I am still on track to finish my next novel (The Left Handed Sword) by the end of this calendar year. I am also quite a bit done with a new book on how to make fantasy dioramas. Lot of it complete but I am not sure when it will be published. I also am working on a how to make mead book. Lots of fun stuff coming

I have just posted a couple of new things to my mead making website (The Joy of Mead Making) First off I have posted an interesting new recipe for making a rose petal mead. It is quite simple because you can follow any plain mead recipe and just add rose petals to it. The recipe is halfway down on my mead recipe page. If you are looking for an interesting new mead recipe this one could be the ticket.

Also, I have posted a hilarious story from a new mead maker who…err… bottled his mead way too soon. Well, if you are familiar with mead making you know what happened to his bottles of mead. Read the story here: The first time was awkward, explosive, and messy!

 I got an email from somebody about a Mead he picked up at Whole Food Markets. It’s called “Honeyrun Mead Ragnar’s Reserve”. He describes it as tasting somewhat like grapes which I found interesting. I have a couple of thoughts about this and first off I am so glad to see that Mead is getting to be more and more available to the general public. Nice to see it in Whole Food Markets and I am going to have to take a ride out to my local Whole Foods to see what they have. Anyhoo, I have never tasted Mead from HoneyRun Winery and I am curious about it. If you have tasted this mead leave me a comment of send me an email.

I perused their website Honeyrunwinery.com and they have a nice selection of meads like Cherry, Blackberry and Elderberry. And they have a nice little section on food pairings which is something wine lovers are familiar with but mead lovers tend to overlook.