Mead: What It Is, How It's Made, Styles and ABV

Mead is an alcoholic drink made by fermenting honey diluted with water, and US regulators treat it as a wine. That’s why you’ll also see it called honey wine. It isn’t always sweet or strong: mead runs from bone-dry to dessert-sweet, from still to sparkling, and from about 3.5% to 18% alcohol or more. This guide is for anyone curious about it after years of grape wine. It covers how mead is made, what the style names mean, how labels work and how to serve it.

Mead at a glance

Question	Short answer
Made from	Honey and water, fermented with yeast, sometimes with fruit, spices or malt
Legal category in the US	Wine (an “agricultural wine”), per TTB
Alcohol	Hydromel 3.5–7.5%, standard 7.5–14%, sack 14–18%, per the BJCP
Bubbles	Still, pétillant (lightly fizzy) or sparkling

How mead differs from grape wine

The difference is where the sugar comes from. Grape wine ferments the sugar in grape juice. Wikipedia describes mead’s defining feature as getting most of its fermentable sugar from honey. Honey has to be diluted first, so water is an ingredient in mead in a way it normally isn’t in grape wine.

Wikipedia notes that meadmakers often use the same yeast strains as winemakers. The BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program), whose guidelines are written for mead competition judges, says a dry mead has a balance and body like those of dry white wines, and that a sweet one can approach dessert wine levels. In our view, that makes white wine the right mental starting point, not beer or honey syrup.

How mead is made

1. Mix. Honey is diluted with water. Fruit, spices or other ingredients may go in now.
2. Ferment. Yeast turns the sugar into alcohol. Wikipedia says primary fermentation usually takes 28 to 56 days. Raw honey carries natural yeasts and can start on its own, but meadery owner Roo Kline told Wine Enthusiast that the results are unpredictable, so today’s makers add commercial yeast.
3. Rack and age. The liquid is moved off its spent yeast into a second vessel, then aged. Wikipedia gives six to nine months as typical.
4. Clarify and bottle. Cold or a fining agent such as bentonite helps it turn clear. Wikipedia says makers may add stabilizers before back-sweetening, or to prevent oxidation.

Added ingredients can stretch the timeline. Kline told Wine Enthusiast she ages these meads for about a year before bottling. Some producers also age in barrels, and Wine Enthusiast’s Kara Newman reports dry, barrel-aged meads that suggest Sherry or a light whiskey.

The styles of mead

Most style names describe what was added. “Sack” and “hydromel” describe strength instead, so one mead can carry two labels, such as a sack melomel.

Style	What it means	Source
Traditional (also called show mead)	Honey and water only, plus neutral processing aids	BJCP, Wikipedia
Melomel	Mead made with fruit	BJCP
Cyser	A melomel with apples, or other pome fruit such as pears or quince	BJCP
Pyment	A melomel with wine or table grapes, usually from juice or must; red, white or rosé	BJCP
Metheglin	Mead with culinary spices or herbs	BJCP, Britannica
Braggot	Mead made with malt or beer	BJCP
Sack	Stronger mead, 14% to 18% by the BJCP’s count, and often sweet, according to Wikipedia	BJCP, Wikipedia
Hydromel or session mead	Lighter mead, 3.5% to 7.5%	BJCP
Bochet	Honey is caramelized before water is added, giving toffee or caramel flavors	Wikipedia

A few notes on the names:

• Metheglin comes from the Welsh for “physician”, because of the drink’s reputed medicinal powers, says Britannica. That’s a piece of word history, not a health claim.
• Cyser or honey cider? Wikipedia draws the line by sugar: if honey supplies most of it, the drink is a cyser. If apples do, it’s a honey cider.
• Pyment once meant something else. Britannica describes the medieval pyment as a sweetened wine.
• Braggot should still read as mead rather than as a honey beer, says the BJCP, though it sets no required ratio of honey to beer.

If you’re new to mead, we’d start with a semi-sweet traditional mead or a melomel, since the fruit gives a wine drinker something familiar to hold on to.

How strong is mead?

Sources differ on the outer limits. Wikipedia gives about 3.5% to more than 20%, and Kline told Wine Enthusiast that mead runs from 6% to 20%, with most at 12% to 16%. The BJCP’s three strength bands are the clearest way to think about it. Here is what they mean per glass, using the 0.6-ounce standard drink from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism:

Strength (BJCP)	ABV	How the BJCP describes it	5 oz glass at the top of the band
Hydromel	3.5–7.5%	Generally no sensation of alcohol warmth	About 0.6 standard drink
Standard	7.5–14%	Like a table wine	About 1.2 standard drinks
Sack	14–18%	Noticeable alcohol	About 1.5 standard drinks

We calculated the last column as ounces × ABV ÷ 0.6. The BJCP warns that sweetness can mask alcohol, which is a good reason to read the label on a sweet bottle. Our guide to wine alcohol content shows how those numbers compare with grape wines.

Note: A sack mead can reach 18% by the BJCP’s count, and its sweetness can hide that. We’d pour it in small glasses and treat it like a dessert wine.

How sweet is it?

The BJCP groups mead as dry (no perception of sweetness), semi-sweet (sweet but still balanced and refreshing) or sweet (up to dessert wine levels, but not syrupy). Newman writes in Wine Enthusiast that a growing number of meads are relatively dry, so don’t assume honey means sugar.

How TTB treats mead and honey wine

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) regulates alcohol labels and taxes in the US. Its fact sheet and FAQs set out the main rules:

• It’s wine. The tax code classes honey wine as an “agricultural wine”, made by fermenting a farm product other than fruit juice. Mead has to be made at a qualified wine premises.
• “Mead” and “honey wine” mean the same thing. TTB says the terms generally refer to wine derived wholly from honey, without added colors or flavors other than hops.
• The 14% line. For tax purposes, standard honey wine can’t contain more than 14% alcohol and can’t have wine spirits added. Products outside the standard are classed as “other than standard”.
• Flavors change the label. Add a flavoring and the product needs a statement of composition, such as “mead with natural cherry flavor”. Honey wine blended with fruit juice can use a statement like “cherry mead”. A honey wine blended with fruit wine can’t: TTB’s example is “blueberry wine – honey wine”.
• Braggot is a special case. A malt beverage made from honey and malted barley can’t use “mead” as its designation. “Braggot” may appear only as extra information.
• Sparkling vs carbonated. “Sparkling mead” gets its bubbles from a second fermentation in a closed container. If CO2 is injected, the label says “carbonated mead”.
• Under 7%. TTB labeling rules generally apply from 7% alcohol. Below that, FDA labeling rules apply. All mead labels carry the health warning.

So “mead” or “honey wine” alone points to honey without added flavors, while a longer statement tells you something else went in. For the items on a grape wine label, see our guide on how to read a wine label.

The American Mead Makers Association and the US revival

The American Mead Makers Association (AMMA) describes itself as a professional, scientific and educational nonprofit. Its own count shows how fast the field has grown: about 60 commercial meaderies in the US in 2003, about 200 in 2013, about 300 in early 2016 and over 500 in 2025. It adds that about 50 more wineries and breweries each make at least one mead.

A short history of mead

Mead’s age is hard to prove. Britannica calls it widely thought to be one of the oldest alcoholic drinks, citing evidence from the 7th millennium BCE in China of a fermented drink made with honey, rice and fruit. That’s not honey alone, so we’d read “the first alcoholic drink” claims with care. Wine Enthusiast cites an estimate of around 9,000 years for evidence from Henan Province, and Newman reports that author Fred Minnick puts mead at 8,000 years old in his book.

Later highlights, according to Britannica and Wikipedia:

• Ancient Rome. Columella gave a mead recipe around 60 CE. Britannica notes that the Roman mulsum wasn’t mead at all but wine sweetened with honey.
• Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Britain. Britannica says mead is the drink of kings and thanes in the writings of Taliesin and in Beowulf, and that the Welsh king Howel the Great laid down rules for making it in the 10th century.
• The decline. Britannica says mead lost ground to ale, beer and imported wine, and that once West Indian sugar arrived in quantity from the 17th century, there was less reason to keep bees.
• The revival. Wikipedia describes a worldwide renaissance since the turn of the 21st century. Kline also credits HBO’s Game of Thrones for some of the recent interest.

How to serve mead

Wine Spectator’s Dr. Vinny says he prefers mead chilled, and that’s where we’d start too. In our view, a dry or sparkling mead suits the same fridge-cold treatment as a crisp white, a standard semi-sweet can sit out for a few minutes, and a sweet sack mead belongs in a small dessert wine glass.

Food with mead

Dr. Vinny’s advice is to pick dishes that can handle sweetness, such as strong cheeses or hearty stews. He also suggests the Ethiopian version, tej, with spicy vegetable and meat dishes, because many meads have some sweetness. Beyond that, we’d follow the same logic as with wine:

Mead style	What we’d pair it with	Why
Dry traditional	Roast chicken, soft cheese	Similar weight to a dry white
Semi-sweet melomel	Spicy food, cured ham	Sweetness softens heat and salt
Metheglin	Roast pork, spiced stews	Spice echoes spice
Sweet or sack	Strong blue or aged cheese, fruit desserts	Needs something as rich as it is

These are our suggestions, not published rules.

How to buy a bottle

We haven’t scored meads with our value method, so we don’t name picks. Wine Enthusiast’s profiles of producers, such as Brimming Horn Meadery in Delaware and B. Nektar in Michigan, are a good place to start. When you shop, check the ABV, look for a sweetness word and read the statement of composition.

One note for readers avoiding gluten: traditional mead uses no grain, as Wine Enthusiast points out, but a braggot is made with malt or beer. Our guide to whether wine is gluten-free explains the label rules, and if you have celiac disease or another condition, ask your doctor. More guides like this one are in Wine Basics.

Wine is for adults of legal drinking age (21 in the US). Please drink responsibly.