Yes, we know. There is a lot going on with this weeks Friday Beer. Is it a Mead? A Pale Ale? Braggot? Well, to try and be as concise as possible. Mead has no barley or hops. Braggot can have hops (but not always). And a Pale Ale is everything we try to stand for that has both barley and hops. Confused? Not to worry, read on and we’ll try and get into what the Melaurea Mead Braggot Pale Ale is all about.
We first spotted the Melaurea Mead Braggot Pale Ale at the Fools&Fans Beer Festival earlier this year. What initially peaked our interest was that they were peddling mead, something we had heard about but never tried. A quick visit to Wikipedia and we get a definition – Mead is an alcoholic beverage created by fermenting honey with water, sometimes with various fruits, spices, grains, or hops. The defining characteristic of mead is that the majority of the beverage’s fermentable sugar is derived from honey.
Now, they have taken their mead and created a braggot which is a form of mead. It’s made with both honey and malts (as much as 50%). Then they’ve thrown in some hops for good measure and presto, the Melaure Mead Braggot Pale Ale was born. When we dropped Ernst from Melaurea Mead a mail to check we were right he added that Mead is also the oldest fermented beverage known to man.
We must apologise for getting into more of the nitty gritty than we usually would but we do think that the efforts that have gone both into the Mead and the Braggot Pale Ale deserve some recognition. If you would like to try it and we obviously suggest you do we pulled a list of stockists for you.
Johannesburg
- Tops Radiokop
- Craft Cartel
- Green Craft Bar
- Loco Liq
- Blairgowrie
- Blue Bottle Craighall
- Machics Ale House
- Liquor City Groenkloof
- Craft Beer Library
- Dry DockTops
- Stop and Go
KwaZulu Natal
- Tops Hillcrest
Western Cape
- Liquor City Claremont
- Barkeeper
- Roeland Liquor
- Biggest Little Beer Shop
If you get a chance to try it please be sure to tag us in your social media pics and let us know your thoughts. You can find the Melaurea Mead Company social profiles below.
Social: Instagram
Cheers!