Mead is the world’s oldest drink consisting mainly of honey, water and yeast. It’s like making wine using honey instead of grapes. Aristotle wrote about it and Vikings downed it like water – what else are they going to do between conquering foreign lands? And we can just imagine the Knights of the Round Table enjoying mead in jewel-encrusted goblets. Mike and Juliana Tripka, owners of Bee-Town Mead & Cider in Old Town Bluffton, have just opened the first mead production facility in South Carolina. “This is been a 5 1/2 year quest. Because of the location here in Bluffton, we feel it’s a good draw,” says Mike. “We are listed as a production winery. Our focus will be on the Lowcountry, Charleston and Savannah.”
Here’s a mead and cider tutorial for beginners like ourselves: crafted mead can be dry, semi-sweet and sweet. Varieties can be hopped, fruited or spiced and can be made still or carbonated. And the ciders? They can be made dry or semi-sweet, and still or carbonated. Mead pairs especially well with spicy foods like Indian and Thai and also with chocolate. Bee-Town’s mead and cider are both gluten-free. “I’m sourcing honey that I use for my mead production is all done regionally. I have one beekeeper in the area who can supply me with some of what I need but each stainless-steal tank takes a 55-gallon drum of honey so you have to work with somebody who has a fairly large operation. I have partnered with beekeepers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. I’ve been to their locations. I know I’m getting it from the hive direct to me, so it has more of a Southeastern regional flavor to it. The same thing with my cider. I got my cider this year from the cider mill in Northwestern Virginia. I know the person and I have a relationship with him. I’m not buying from some big conglomerate,” explains Mike.
The Tripkas came to the Lowcountry from New Jersey into 2005 and in Mike’s pre-mead-making life, he sold equipment to chemical and pharmaceutical companies. As a member of his home-brewing club back in New Jersey, he won a beer making competition and the prize was a packet of mead yeast. Since then, he has been making mead for over 20 years and enjoys “the challenge of doing something different.” He presented at a national brewing conference in San Diego, has won numerous competitions and awards and Juliana is a certified mead judge. Meaderies are cropping up all over the country now. One mead they make is produced with gallberry honey. This mono-floral honey is known as one of the best honey in the South. The beekeepers know when the short window of time is in the spring when the white nectar-rich flowers bloom on the gallberry bush – and the expertise of the beekeeper comes into play as the bees are not to harvest nectar from other flowers. What? How the heck do you control gazillions of bees and where they land? We have a newfound respect for beekeepers.
The meadery, right across form Squat ‘N’ Gobble on May River Road in Bluffton, is open Wednesdays through Saturdays. Go get your mead on.
beetownmeadandcider.com
