September Meeting – Mead Demo

By Nick Wiseman, Editor

Mead-making took centre stage this month with Dominic “Bro
Fatboy” Staun instructing the club on the finer points of brewing the popular
drink.

Providing a demo in front of an almost silent crowd, Fatboy
displayed his skills and shared his knowledge each step of the way, he also had
several examples of his meads available for members to taste.

Describing the drink later Fatboy said sipping mead was like
the sensation of angels dancing on your tongue!

The growing crowd threw all types of questions at him to
which he had an answer to almost everything describing in detail and also
talking of other mead-based drinks such as Metheglin, Melomel, Cyser and
Braggot.

He did stress however that the making of mead takes good
time and can really benefit from extended aging.

His guide to making mead is attached and has welcomed
members to get in touch with him if they want any further information.

A small crowd gathered, keen to learn Mead making

The night also featured ‘The Committee is dead’ range of
IPA’s with the brewers talking to the club about their choice of hops and how
they went about brewing it.

The single hop IPA’s were inspired by BrewDog’s
‘IPA is Dead’ with Stewart Bowman, Head Brewer at BrewDog, kindly providing
feedback on both the malt bill and hopping regime. 

Bruce Arnold brewed his with Pilot, Chris ‘Growler’
De La Rue made his with Kohatu, Tom ‘Dicko’ Dixon used Herkules and Ben ‘Mashhead’
Harmer chose Rakau.

 Our social secretary spoke of next month’s exciting meeting which
happens to be Oktoberfest and for those who were not there or want more
information check out the forum to get your name down so as not to miss out on
this fantastic night of great beer and food.

The Brewers Showcase featuring four single hop IPA’s

Click here to see the rest of the photos.
Download Mead Making notes here.