Lyme Bay Christmas Mead (£11.50, 75cl, 14%)

Now I’ve never been a fan of Christmas, it seems to be a festival devoted to stress, family arguments, idiotic behavior and it has always brought the worse out of my parents sometimes with violent results.

So for the last couple of years I’ve been avoiding going home, although last year I seem to have been tricked into a) cooking Christmas dinner for friends and then b) visting family on Boxing day with the usual results.

After various excitements on the Rainbow Warrior this year I wanted to follow a friends advice and simply go to Quinns, his local Irish pub. I’d already planned an exciting new year with my sister on Knoydart, the UK’s last wilderness (well sort of) and so an especially grumpy Christmas seemed ideal.

Having enjoyed a few pints we headed back to his, where it turned out he’d cheated and laid on some festive cheer (bastard) in the form of a Turkey thing. I’d come prepared with a bottle of Lyme bay Christmas mead from the trip to Dorset.

As a new adventure, and perhaps a Christmas tradition we heated the mead, and what a delightful experience it was. Warm, sweet and full of spices. Similar to a mulled wine but much nicer and without the artifice of adding sugar to a cheap bottle of red plonk. Mead was clearly designed to be served hot to sooth the winters chill.

To be honest I can’t remember a huge amount of details regarding the precise taste and the spices may well have masked the subtly of the honey and bitters. Still I’ll very happily drink many more Lyme Bay meads and before the winter is out, I’d like to try a few more evenings of hot mead.

The only fly is the description on the website regarding the Christmas mead:

A rich, smooth honey Mead blended with festive spices.
Awarded One-star Gold at the 'Great Taste Awards' 2009

Which suggests I should be stockpiling more for Christmas 2011

Quest for Scandinavian Meads

So in the way strange opportunities that come together I’ve just spent 3 weeks (and a bit), sailing on the Rainbow Warrior on a wee trip around Scandinavia on the way to the climate summit at Copenhagen.

I’ve blogged elsewhere as to the highs and lows of the trip, from the peace price in Oslo, to the arrival in Copenhagen, to the final days, but somewhere in the mix the idea for a quest for Scandinavian mead evolved. Honest this wasn’t the only plan.

The bars in Oslo broke new boundaries, and I’ll never complain about the price of beer again. At £8.50 for a 33cl bottle of cider, I’m not surprised the natives went Viking. The cheapest beer I found at £4.50 in an Oslo metal bar, provided a pleasant end to the visit. Scouring the supermarkets and questioning the natives turned up nothing in the Mead. Maybe in the countryside or in medieval theme parks, there may be mead, but not in Oslo.

Copenhagen in comparison proved pleasantly cheap, or just bloody expensive and after a weeks searching of a great many more bars, tourist shops, deli’s and every plausible outlet I still turned up nothing in the way of Mead. I thought the Vikings were famous for the drink of the gods. Things must have badly declined in the last 1000 years.

So nothing this time, but I’m sworn to return, to see Copenhagen on a different day ( the bars were really nice, the police were bastards) and somewhere out in the countryside I’m certain the gods await.