At a glance
- Style
- Metheglin
- Alcohol
- About 13.8% ABV
- Finish
- Semi-sweet
- Difficulty
- Beginner
- Honey
- Raw wildflower, optionally with some buckwheat or heather honey
- Yeast
- Lalvin 71B
- Ready in
- 5 to 6 months
- Batch
- 1 gallon, scalable
Ingredients
Quantities are for one US gallon (3.8 liters). Pick a batch size and every amount updates; one packet of yeast covers up to six gallons. Not sure how much honey your own twist needs? Use the mead calculator.
- 3 lb Raw honey, wildflower (or 2.5 lb wildflower + 0.5 lb buckwheat or heather)
- 0.5 lb Lingonberries or cranberries, fresh or frozen (crushed, in primary)
- 0.75 gallons Spring water (to make 1 gallon of must)
- 1 packet Lalvin 71B wine yeast (one packet covers up to 6 gallons)
- 6 g Go-Ferm (yeast rehydration nutrient) (optional but recommended)
- 5 g Fermaid O yeast nutrient (split into 4 doses, see steps)
- 10 Juniper berries, dried (lightly crushed, in secondary)
- 1 g Dried bog myrtle (sweet gale), optional (or 2 g dried meadowsweet; see the notes on both)
- 0.5 tsp Potassium sorbate
- 1 Campden tablet
This recipe ferments dry and is sweetened at the end: how to backsweeten mead has the stabilizing doses and a honey chart for any batch size.
Equipment
- 2-gallon bucket and 1-gallon jug with airlock
- Two nylon straining bags (one for berries, one for herbs)
- Hydrometer
- Auto-siphon
- Sanitized marbles to weigh down the herb bag
New to this? Our mead making kit checklist covers what each piece does and what you can skip.
Step-by-step method
-
Mix a rustic must
Sanitize everything. Stir the raw honey into half a gallon of cool water until dissolved and top up to 1 gallon. No heating: it keeps the honey aroma, and there is no evidence either way that Viking-Age brewers boiled their honey. The gravity should read about 1.105; the berries add very little sugar.
-
Add the berries
Freeze the berries overnight if they are fresh, thaw them, crush them by hand in the straining bag and drop the bag into the must. Tart berries give the acidity a plain honey must lacks, along with a little color.
-
Pitch and feed
Rehydrate the 71B with the Go-Ferm and pitch at 62 to 68°F (17 to 20°C). Add a quarter of the Fermaid O at 24, 48 and 72 hours and at the 1/3 sugar break (about 1.070). Degas gently and push the berry bag down each time.
-
Lift out the berries
After 10 to 14 days, lift the berry bag out and let it drain without squeezing hard. Leave the mead to finish, usually 4 to 6 weeks in total.
-
Rack to secondary
When the gravity has been steady for three days, rack into a clean jug and top up to limit headspace.
-
Juniper and herbs, by taste
Put the lightly crushed juniper and the bog myrtle or meadowsweet, if using, in a weighted bag and drop it in. Taste every 2 days. Pull it after 5 to 10 days, when the piney, resinous note is clear but still a little lighter than you want. A little bog myrtle goes a long way; it is bitter and resinous.
-
Clear, stabilize and sweeten
Leave it 2 to 3 months to clear. Add the crushed Campden tablet and sorbate, wait 48 hours, then sweeten with honey 1 oz at a time. If it finished near 1.002, about 8 oz lands near 1.018, where the tart berries and resin sit in balance.
-
Bottle and age
Bottle and give it at least 2 months. Serve at cellar temperature or lightly chilled; the drinking horn is optional.
Timeline
- Day 0Mix the must, add berries, pitch
- Days 1 to 7Nutrient additions, push the berries down
- Week 2Lift out the berries
- Weeks 4 to 6Rack; juniper and herbs for 5 to 10 days
- Months 3 to 4Stabilize, sweeten, bottle
- Month 6 and onDrink
Why this recipe works
What is known: mead is everywhere in Norse literature. In the mythology the goat Heiðrún supplies mead for the warriors in Valhalla, and the mead of poetry gives the gift of verse. But those texts were written down in Iceland in the 1200s, well after the Viking Age, and they tell us mead mattered, not how it was made. No Viking-Age recipe survives.
The best physical evidence is older. Chemical analyses of residues in Bronze Age and Iron Age drinking vessels from Denmark and Sweden, most prominently work published in 2013 by archaeochemist Patrick McGovern and colleagues, point to mixed drinks of honey, cereal grains, cranberry or lingonberry, and herbs such as bog myrtle, yarrow and juniper, often called 'Nordic grog'. Those vessels predate the Vikings by centuries, so using them as a guide assumes the traditions carried on, which is plausible but not proven.
What is assumed: strength, sweetness and yeast. Brewers then had no hydrometers and no pure yeast cultures, so their mead may well have been weaker, drunk younger and sometimes sour. Honey was valuable, and many historians think ale was the everyday drink and mead a prized one. This recipe uses modern yeast, nutrients and sanitation because a spoiled batch teaches nothing about history, and it is semi-sweet because that is what most people expect, not because we know Vikings drank it that way.
The ingredients are ones that grew in Scandinavia. Lingonberries are the native berry; cranberries are a close relative in the same genus and the practical US substitute. Bog myrtle was a common bittering herb in northern European ale before hops took over. Use it sparingly, and note that meadowsweet contains salicylates, the compounds aspirin was developed from, so skip it if you react to aspirin. Herbal references commonly advise avoiding both in pregnancy. Leave them out if in doubt: the berries and juniper carry the recipe.
Variations
- Kveik version: ferment with a dried Norwegian kveik strain such as LalBrew Voss at 75 to 90°F (24 to 32°C). Kveik is a living Norwegian farmhouse tradition of unknown age, not proof of Viking practice, and it may stop short of this gravity, so check the maker's alcohol tolerance and expect a sweeter mead.
- Nordic grog: replace 1 lb of the honey with 1 lb of light dried malt extract boiled for 15 minutes in part of the water, for a drink closer to the mixed honey, grain and berry residues.
- Berry-forward: use 1.5 lb of lingonberries or cranberries for a tart, pink-red melomel, and sweeten a little more to balance.
Troubleshooting
| Problem | What to do |
|---|---|
| It is too tart | Cranberries are very acidic. Sweeten by another ounce or two of honey, and next time use fewer berries or pull them sooner. |
| It tastes like gin or turpentine | The juniper or bog myrtle stayed in too long. Aging for several months softens resinous notes, and blending with a plain mead fixes it. |
| Fermentation is slow | The berry acid lowers the pH. Keep to the nutrient schedule, degas, and hold it near 68°F (20°C). |
More mead recipes to try
- Braggot (honey and malt mead) recipe: Honey and malt extract in equal measure, a light English hop and ale yeast. Beer-drinker friendly.
- Spiced mead (metheglin) recipe: Cinnamon, clove, orange and vanilla added by taste in secondary. The holiday mead.
- Blueberry mead recipe: 4 lb of berries split between primary for color and secondary for aroma, with acid adjusted to taste.
More spiced and herbal mead recipes: Coffee mead (plus chocolate and vanilla), Lavender mead, Hibiscus mead, Ginger mead.
Or browse all our mead recipes. If this is your first batch, start with the traditional mead recipe or the step-by-step guide to making honey wine.
Frequently asked questions
Did the Vikings drink mead?
Yes, mead is prominent in Norse literature and mythology. Most historians think ale was the everyday drink and mead, made from costly honey, was the prestige drink for feasts.
Is there an authentic Viking mead recipe?
No. No written mead recipe survives from the Viking Age. Any recipe sold as authentic Viking mead is a modern reconstruction, including this one, which is based on archaeological residues from earlier Scandinavian drinking vessels.
What did Viking mead taste like?
Nobody knows for certain. The evidence suggests honey drinks were often mixed with berries, grain and bitter or resinous herbs, and without modern yeast they were likely less consistent and possibly weaker than today's meads.
What herbs did Vikings put in mead?
There is no direct record. Residues from earlier Scandinavian vessels point to bog myrtle, yarrow and juniper, and meadowsweet is another traditional northern brewing herb.
How strong is this Viking mead?
About 12 to 14% ABV, depending on how dry it ferments before sweetening. It takes 5 to 6 months from mixing to drinking.