Visiting Helderberg Meadworks

Some of you may remember that I was lucky enough to interview Peter Voelker, the owner of Helderberg Meadworks. Apparently The Magical Buffet community made a good enough impression that I got invited over to actually see the mysterious, alchemical process that goes into making their varieties of mead! Squeee!

To be honest, it’s no serious mystery as to how mead is made. First you take some of this:

Then you add some of this:

Although Helderberg doesn’t use any old honey, this is raw honey direct from a local beekeeper. I got to taste it and it was amazing. It was sweet, but then it had a zingy flavor at the end. Peter explained that the zippy flavor comes from where the bees live and travel.

Lastly, you need some of this:

Then, you let it hang out and ferment.

After three months it’s finally ready to be filtered and put into bottles. Then it gets the cool wax top.

They put one of their bad ass looking labels on it.

And you end up with something beautiful.

Two people make all of THIS.

So that all of us can do this!

Available right now from Helderberg Meadworks is Heritage, which is a honey mead, and apple Mead, which is their honey mead blended with Indian Ladder Farms apples. Both are smooth and very drinkable. Personally, I like the Heritage at room temperature and the Apple cold.

I know what you’re thinking, those sound great, I’m going to go get me some of that! That is fantastic, you should do that. However you should know that in August they’re adding TWO MORE varieties to their line up! Oh and they both sound wonderful!

There will be Maple Mead. Much like the Apple Mead, the Maple Mead will start life with the honey mead base but by working with Wilderhook Maple Farm they will be adding maple to the mix. I didn’t get to try this one but I was told that it maintains a maple flavor without being overly sweet. I’m pretty excited to compare this one with their Heritage Mead.

Now for the grand finale, Feral Mead. This mead is made from yeast that was gathered and cultivated from right outside the Meadworks. Seriously. Peter told us about collecting it. How he would gather some and it would be all weirdly colored and just dump it out. But finally he got something that looked right, and smelled right, so then he set about using it for a small test. And then the last test, he drank the results! That takes some kind of balls people! I’m no longer impressed by the guy who took down the 10 point buck. Have you gathered your own yeast in the wild? No? Then move along. The most important part of this Feral Mead story is this, it tastes AMAZING! Just so, so good. It’s like Heritage Mead’s beautiful sister.

If you want to learn more about Helderberg Meadworks and where you can buy their tasty meads, you can visit their website.

Me with the Helderberg Crew