A Long Weekend of Mead

So its been a while since I blogged and after demolishing a bottle of Eglantine mead on Saturday, and a recent debate about crediting peoples works ref the history of Ethiopia, I thought I’d pontificate on a trip to Lurgashall home of my (still favoured) mead.

Then I may open a bottle of something completely different.

So I’d bought a pretty expensive bottle of Lurgashall English mead at the Hive, and I’d suggested to my sister in passing that one day we visit the meadery in the wilds of West Sussex. Over time she became keener on the idea than me, mainly I think as an excuse to bimble around southern England.

I was half thinking that we might end up at middle farm afterwards for a truly excessive mead shopping expedition. In hindsight this may have made things a tad too expensive.

So Lurgashall is a long way from most places, in the posh bit of Sussex near the Surrey border. On a drizzly day we expected the place to be deserted but must have timed our visit to hit rush hour, as there were like people there.

After several tastes, I bought the lot. Well one of each, at a price less than the hive. Oh and a bought some more of the dry as I think I’m developing a taste for more of the dryer meads. The set looked like this:

Christmas Mead
Spiced Honey Mead
Dry Honey Mead
Reserve Honey Mead
English Honey Mead

And I thought there was a Whiskey mead, but maybe I dreamt that bit.

I also bought some of the most delicious Gospel Green cider and my sister acquired some of Old Tom’s tipple (whatever the hell that is)

We demolished a bottle of the Dry that night with my dad and his partner, but I think I may save the review / notes for a different occasion. For now I’m off to the Oakdale….

An unlikely occurrence of Mead

A somewhat strange occurance last night at my favourite local.

After a successful meeting in Mabels Tavern, which (to a degree) represented the culmination of a years worth of conspiring to set up a new Peace & Disarmament network. A wee bit merry and by random chance I suggested getting together at the Oakdale for a few more beers.

The Oakdale is a strange pub. It’s a back street local but a most peculiar one. They do agood beer from the Milton brewery, a fine range of malt whiskeys and as I discovered a range of meads.

Also the landlord also is one of the tallest Goths I’ve met, and used to (I think) organise ‘synthetic culture’ back in the day. Of late the pub has installed great big aquariums full of Lizards, and on occasion the landlord encourages them to sit on patrons, which is kind of surreal. The juke box is full of old goth classics, and in case you can’t tell I like it here.

Anyhow last night I bought a beer, settled down for a drink and a chat. The bar tender then turned up with a couple of shot glasses as a free gift (you see it is dead nice here). Somewhat confused I looked at them, wondering what and why. My friend started to question if they were a mead, they were, and a familiar sweet smell suggested something strange.

The bar tender pointed out they weren’t shots but glasses of mead. My mind boggled as my friend suggested I was the biggest mead geek in history. I explained about this site and the bartender described the range of Moniack (a Cornish mead??), Gales and I think others.

The mead he’d donated to us was the Monaick and recognizable as such, after all I have drunk a fair amount of the stuff at various Witchfests.

But still completely surreal. My local real ale come Goth pub donating shots of mead on a Friday night. What great start to the weekend, and perhaps the Mead revival is not inconceivable.

Next time I’ll order a pint.