While browsing some mead recipes I saw that 2 of the top recipes on the front page for mead were:
Ode to H.O.D. Melomel, FG 1.080
That guy wins too much (Experimental Mead), FG 1.060
I don’t know if I have ever had a beverage with that kind of sugar content before. I have tasted my must at 1.080 before and the sweetness was extreme.
I am guessing these are being sipped and tasted, and not having anything close to a full glass of. My sweetest mead, which I think is the limit I will go, is 1.030 carrot ginger and complements it well, but can’t imagine 1.080 FG!
TLDR; Just looking for some enlightenment on the topic of extremely sweet meads in the 1.060-1.080FG range
I’m still pretty early in my mead making career so I don’t have an answer for you, except maybe having the alcohol helps balance out the high sweetness. It might also be a weird competition quirk too, like how bigger and hoppier beers tend to do better in their style category.
Would you mind sharing your carrot ginger mead recipe? How do you process the carrots? Steam and puree them?
Most American judges would rather have mead taste like honey and fruits and spices than an actual wine-like beverage. And judges don’t need to drink a whole glass – they can wet their palate with it and spit it out. And if they don’t, they’re trashed while they judge it, so then anything goes.
H.O.D. is Heart of Darkness by Schramm’s Mead. It is a wonderful balanced mead. Balance with that high FG? It is a melomel with a ton of fruit, so much liquid comes from the fruit that little water is needed. Fruit has acidity, sometimes a high amount. The high acidity is balanced by the residual sweetness. Ken Schramm has said that Black Agnes which uses only black currants for the fruit has the highest acidity and needs the high sweetness to balance it.
I will add that many of Moonlight’s meads are in that dessert wine style. There is plenty of acidity to balance the residual sweetness. A 1.050 mead can still be quite refreshing and enjoyable with the right acid balance.
Also, if your only point of reference is beer for FG’s, then you probably need to recalibrate for wine and mead. A “sweet” beer is rarely sweet the way a sweet wine is.
I enter to win, not for feedback. As such I’m trying impress judges. Intensity is the easiest way to do this, followed by giving them something they didn’t expect.
Giant sweet strong meads properly made can last for years. All I gotta do is grab bottles off a shelf and slap an entry label on them; done. In the chaos of tweaking multiple beer entries as a deadline looms, this quick decision on an entry is super welcome.
It doesn’t mean they’re “better” or even what I drink regularly. I’ve said before: I’m not markedly better than dozens of great AHA mead makers. I’m just a little better than most at giving the judges what they want. Make mead however you like. If I’m drinking more than a sip of mead it’s probably in the 1.009 range.
I’m going to take a tiny bit of credit and blame for the increase in 'Polish" Historical Meads. Less than a decade ago these were regularly cast aside, often with comments to the effect of “doesn’t taste like sherry: Fail”. Then some jerk won with one, went of a diatribe about it, then won the next year with “y’all really want sherry? Here you go”
Judges got better, and now more are entering their sweet monstrosities, lol. Some are even great.