At this point, craft beer is in its second generation. There is a whole slew of twenty-somethings out there who learned about stouts and IPAs and weizens from their Moms and Dads. They learned that all-malt beers are just better, and that Weihenstephan is going to turn 1000 years old in their lifetime. They are the second generation of informed beer drinkers.
Most importantly, though, they learned about beer diversity, and they learned to educate and challenge and please their palates. They learned that drinking the same beer, day in and day out, is denying yourself a nearly limitless variety of pleasures that smart, dedicated and hardworking brewers are crafting with the sweat of their brows and the depths of their creativity. They expect “genuinely delicious” in all of the things they drink.
I have said for the past five years or so that mead is about where craft beer was in the late 80’s. We may actually be where craft beer was in the early 1990s at this point. It’s fascinating that the craft beer revolution followed on the heels of the California fine wine revolution, but didn’t really talk all that much about it. California wine makers fought and won their own battle with an uninformed American – and eventually international – wine-buying public. It may shock craft beer to hear it, but craft beer is where California wine was in the early 1980s, as well.
For us meadsters, we have a lot ahead of us, but we’re no longer on square one. There are recognizable names in the industry, and some very large and reputable media outlets have paid some serious attention to mead since I started saying that. We are now on the radar at UC Davis; there are both beginner and advanced classes being offered there to aspiring amateur and professional mead makers. There is recognition from the supply side that mead makers use a lot of honey, bottles, capsules and labels. We have an industry association that has survived a leadership transition. We’ve grown up a good bit.
The next step will come as the first generation of mead lovers brings the “normal” of mead to their now-becoming-adult children. The “normal” being the comfortable, expected standard that mead goes with dinner, or dessert, or that splitting a bottle of mead over a game of Monopoly or Catan or Cribbage makes the whole experience glow just a little brighter. The normal that says when we’re having RE BBQ brisket, we want a
Schramm’s Blackberry, because that’s what sets everything off best. The normal that in the fridge – maybe downstairs in the “beer fridge” – there are some IPAs, maybe a chardonnay or a bottle of L. Mawby, and a mead or two.
We still have work to do. There are still people who eat sushi and don’t even know it’s missing the Ginger mead. And there are Detroit area restaurants whose servers don’t recommend, or even serve, the Statement with their flourless chocolate torte. There are still people whose parents didn’t teach them about good mead yet. But as with craft beer, things that taste great win in the end.