Is Mead Sweet?
Mead can be sweet, but it doesn't have to be.
Because mead is made from honey, people often assume that the finished drink will be very sweet. In reality, mead can range from completely bone dry through to rich dessert-style sweetness. How sweet it ends up is a decision made by the mead maker.
Why isn't all mead sweet?
Mead starts with honey and water. Yeast then ferments the sugars in the honey, converting them into alcohol.
If fermentation continues until all of the fermentable sugar has been consumed, the result can be a very dry mead. If more of the honey’s natural sugar remains in the finished mead (or is added back in after), it will be sweeter.
That gives mead makers a very wide range to work with. Two meads can start with honey and finish as completely different drinks: one crisp and dry, another rich and sweet.
So honey is the source of the sugar, but using honey doesn't automatically make a drink sweet.
How sweet should mead be?
There isn't one correct level of sweetness for mead.
In our experience making mead in New Zealand, different varieties of honey have their own natural flavour profiles. The level of sweetness in the finished mead can make a significant difference to how those flavours come through.
Some honey varieties work particularly well when fermented quite dry. Others benefit from more residual sweetness, which can carry their richer flavours and aromas.
This is one of the things that makes mead interesting to make. The mead maker isn't simply deciding how sweet they want the drink. They're deciding what level of sweetness best expresses the honey they're working with.
How sweet are Undisturbed meads?
Our range provides a good example of how much mead can vary.
Kānuka Mead is our driest expression. Kānuka honey has citrus, caramel and summer-fruit characteristics, and we find these work particularly well with a drier, structured finish.
Rhubarb Mead has more noticeable sweetness, balanced by the natural acidity and tang of rhubarb. It is sweet and smooth up front before finishing with that rhubarb character. The balance is closer to the experience of drinking a rosé.
Mānuka Mead sits at the richer end of the range. Mānuka honey has a strong flavour of its own, with vanilla, warm spice, woodiness and earthy characteristics. We leave more sweetness in the finished mead to carry those heavier flavours.
Forest Mead is an interesting case. Made from South Island beech forest honeydew, it tastes soft and sweet while remaining relatively low in sugar. Flavour and perceived sweetness aren't always the same thing.
So, is mead sweeter than wine?
It can be, but sweetness isn't something that defines mead. Sweetness from honey is much softer and more palatable than sweetness from grapes, which can be cloying. For this reason, meads are generally a little sweeter than wines.
Liking dry wine, does not mead you’ll prefer dry mead - mead is a different flavour experience. It’s worth ordering a mead flight and finding out what you enjoy.
Just as wine can range from very dry to very sweet, mead can be produced across a broad spectrum of sweetness. The important difference is the fermentable sugar it begins with: grapes provide the sugars for wine, while honey provides them for mead.
If you've tried one very sweet mead, you've tried one style of mead. A dry mead made from a different honey can be a very different drink.
At Undisturbed, we make each mead to the level of sweetness we think best suits the honey and other ingredients we're working with. That's why our Kānuka, Rhubarb'd, Mānuka and Forest meads can all taste quite different despite belonging to the same category.
