Mead is one of the oldest fermented drinks in the world, but the modern versions becoming interesting again have very little to do with the heavy, overly sweet styles most people expect.
A lot of the best producers now approach mead more like wine, cider, or mixed fermentation beer, focusing on acidity, texture, tannin, fermentation character, and the quality of the raw ingredients rather than simply making something strong and honeyed. The result can range from bright and mineral to deeply savoury, oxidative, herbal, floral, or wild.
Honey obviously sits at the centre of everything, but different honeys behave almost like grape varieties or apple cultivars. Some bring citrus and flowers, others darker spice, smoke, wax, herbs, woodland notes, or earthy richness. Once fermentation starts, those flavours shift again depending on yeast, ageing, botanicals, fruit additions, oak, or oxidative handling.
That’s probably why mead has quietly started crossing over into the worlds of natural wine, farmhouse beer, cider, and low-intervention fermentation. There’s a shared interest in texture, acidity, native ingredients, and unconventional fermentation styles rather than straightforward sweetness.
Some bottles drink almost like sharp white wine with floral edges. Others lean closer to saison, cider, dessert wine, oxidative sherry, or botanical aperitifs. Dry sparkling meads can feel incredibly fresh and mineral, while barrel-aged examples can become richer, darker, and more savoury over time.
At The Beerhive we tend to favour mead producers making balanced, fermentation-driven styles with proper structure and drinkability, bottles that feel interesting to beer drinkers, wine people, and cocktail nerds alike rather than novelty “honey wine”.
Mead still sits slightly outside the mainstream, which is part of the appeal. The category is loose, experimental, and evolving quickly, with producers borrowing ideas from brewing, winemaking, cider making, and distillation all at once. That freedom means the best bottles can be genuinely difficult to categorise, which is usually a good sign.
