I’d say it has a lot to do with manufacturing time.
Beer can be cranked from grain, water, hops & yeast into a bottled, ready for drinking product in just a few weeks. (especially light, mass produced, forced carbonated versions)
Mead takes weeks to ferment, then weeks in the bottle “aging.” Longer manufacture times, combined with more expensive ingredients, reduces the profits.
Mead is on my list of things to try to make at home, but it’s low on the list due to the excessive aging times required. I’ve got to build up my “big beer in aging” stocks before I get to that.
Now, now, that really depends on where you are. Here in Chicago, there’s a homebrew/winemaking supply shop whose owner owns an apiary and manufactures his own mead under the name Wild Blossom Meads. I believe they are being sold in a few liquor stores in the area, as well, but I always get my meads from the supply shop. My favorite is the sparkling cranberry mead.
Another favorite was rye whisky. George Washington had a distillery, and it was a lot more popular than British rum.
But it’s rare today, and far down from 20 years ago even. I can get only two brands at a major liquor outlet.
Pity, too, because rye is a nice contrast from the sweetness of bourbon. In fact, I generally prefer rye and my day-to-day whisky is Old Overholt. Here we can generally find three brands: Jim Beam Rye, Wild Turkey Rye, and Old Overholt Rye. Some bars even stock these (!). At the better liquor stores, you might also find Old Rip Van Winkle, Rittenhouse, and perhaps one or two others whose names escape me at the moment.
Mead is more like wine as far as the manufacture process, I believe (having never made wine). Needs a month or three to ferment, year or more to age.
The first batch I made was terrible after 2 months, very discouraging, but I didn’t need the bottles for anything so I stuck it in a corner of the basement for a year and it was sublime.
Or at least, not solely out of buckwheat honey. I’ve made some mead with a pound or two of buckwheat honey added (out of a total 15 pounds), and they turned out decently.
Honey is exceedingly expensive. You can argue all day about whether mead should be made thsi way or that, but the fact is that you’re making an alcoholic drink out of something that is, by weight, a hundred times more expensive than barley, and even more expensive than grapes. For drinks made and distributed on an industrial scale, beer is astoundingly cheap as compared to cider, For that reason alone, mead long ago lost the popularity battle.
Of course, there’s also that there’s no particular reason for mead to become popular. If you want a quick, refreshing alcoholic beverage, have a beer. Something to go with dinner? Wine’s everywhere. Want to get stinking drunk? Vodka!
Awesome. I’ve been following this thread out of interest, because I like mead, but I rarely buy it because I have to go out of my way to find anything good.
As it happens, I’m going to be in Chicago over the weekend, so if I can convince my in-laws to stop (and if we have time), I may have to pick up some mead.
6 pounds of malt extract - $13.50 at Midwest supplies, 5 pounds of orange blossom honey at Millers Honey - $8.00. Granted, I used to pay closer to $20 for 5 pounds of honey, but still not an unreasonable cost.
Never had mead but I do like Ethiopian honey wine, called “tej”. Very tasty and goes well with the food. Has anybody had both, and how do they compare?
If their website is indication, it seems they also do mail-order. But if you are in Chicago, they are located deep in the south/southwest side at 100th & Western. Basically, take I-94 (Dan Ryan) to 95th Street, head west until you hit Western (2400 W), and head south five blocks. It will be on the east side of the street. Call ahead for hours (they are closed Sunday and Monday) and availability of the the meads you’re looking for. I’m not sure if he stocks everything in-store or not.
You’re going to be able to make more beer with 6 lbs. of malt extract than you are mead with 5 lbs. of honey though. Like twice as much.
I’ve made mead, cider and beer and mead has always been the most expensive, with the possible exception of a Russian Imperial Stout I made exactly once due to the cost.
Perhaps but brewers use barley grain to avoid the cost of extract. Mead makers on the other hand don’t have that opportunity.
We’ll use your numbers (1 lb of extract costs $2.25, 1 lb of honey costs $1.60) and the $32 for 50 lbs of 2-row barley (1 lb costs $0.64) I found poking around.
5 gallons of beer needs 12lb of grain or 6 pounds of extract so the costs come to $7.68 and $13.50 respectively. 5 gallons of mead needs 10 pounds of honey costing $16.00. While I’m sure there are savings if we increase the amount of honey purchased I’m not sure we could cut the cost of mead in half.
Still, nowhere near “a hundred times more expensive”. I wasn’t trying to imply that it was cheaper, only that it’s nowhere near as expensive as suggested. A good commercial mead might run $20 for 750ml. That’s not 100 times more expensive than bottled water, much less beer or wine.
True but could honey production scale to meet the needs of mead producers if they wanted to capture 10% of the wine market? The US consumed 2.5 billion liters of wine in 2005. If mead were to capture 5% of the market mead makers would have to produce 125 million liters or about 33 million gallons. At 10 pounds of honey for every 5 gals of mead that would require 66 million pounds of honey.
The US produced 180 million pounds of honey in 2004 so if mead was to become more popular the price might jump to a price point above the 2:1.
But I would like to see more enjoyable meads, though mainly so I can see if the stuff I make is any good.
