found drama

Earlier this year, my friend Kyle organized a mead study group which was not unlike the 2017-2018 BJCP study group. ¹ And while this study group did discuss aspects of mead judging, it was more like a tasting group than one focused on earning the BJCP Mead Judge endorsement. I don’t mean this as a criticism — just an observation of how it played out.

My key takeaways from this experience:

1. Four sessions isn’t really enough — I mean… it aligns with the four BJCP categories, but there is so much variation even within some of the given styles that it’s hard to “get it all” in just four monthly sessions.
2. There is a lot more to know about honey than I expected — Even going into the study group, I understood that the BJCP expects candidate judges to be familiar with 21 types of honey but… then we compared two raw wildflower honeys (one from Mexico and one from Nigeria) and I was like “oh my … they’re so different.” More than anything, I expect this would be my biggest challenge on the mead tasting exam: “This is declared as a dry traditional made with guajillo honey but … how would I know if I’ve never had it?”
3. Judging traditional meads is all about the honey — At least… that’s what I took away from our “traditional” night. Which points right back to my #2 observation: if you’re not familiar with the declared honey then there’s only so much you can do.
4. Fruit and SHV meads are arguably easier — But I’m saying that only in the context that I tend to be more familiar with the expected flavor profiles of the fruits, spices, herbs, tinctures, etc. It was very fun to side-by-side some meads that had been made (for example) with the zest of a citrus fruit vs. the flesh.
5. A tasting group is not the same as a judging group — I learned A LOT about honey, mead-making, and the final meads … and I tasted a greater variety of meads over those four ² sessions than I probably had in the past five years. However… while we compared notes about the aromas, flavors, etc. that we each experienced, we didn’t fill out a single scoresheet. And given that earning that endorsement has been a goal of mine since 2019… looks like I’ll need to do some more self-study.

All in all, this was a great set of sessions and I’m sending many hearty thanks to Kyle for his generosity in both organizing and supplying these sessions. Hopefully we can convince someone to hold a mead tasting exam here in Vermont sometime soon … or at least somewhere close enough that I’m not burning jet fuel to get there.

1. Nor the 2022-2023 study group that I ran but didn’t write about.[↩]
2. Well… three sessions for me. I missed the fruit mead night but I’ve had (and made!) more fruit meads than any other kind.[↩]

About Rob Friesel