Lurgashall English / Celtic / Christmas Mead

Brewed by Lurgashall Mead
Style: Mead
Lurgashall, England

[Bottle, thanks for breaking this one out Brewfiend] A golden liquid that sticks to the sides of the glass. The aroma is very sweet and mainly honey. The taste is also very, very sweet with no sign of alcohol. Nice and smooth going down. I like sweet drinks and I like honey, I like many drinks with honey in them, but the sweetness here seemed unbalanced and a little overpowering. I will have to try some more meads and then perhaps come back, drink this again and rerate.

Bottle. This is my favorite mead. Has the right balance of sweet and dry and a taste of honey that is not over powering. Love the warming feeling that one gets in the stomach. Great For mulling and enjoying at the holidays.

Sweet honey flavor does not overpower the strong alcohol aroma.Not a terribly bad mead.I found it an interesitng one time try.

Honestly, I'm hard-pressed to tell you the difference between Lurgashall's Christmas Mead and their ordinary English Mead, despite having consumed them within a week of one another. Certainly their 12.5% abv is identical. Perhaps this Christmas Mead is slightly lighter and thinner than their English Mead. It's possibly a little drier and easier to drink in volume. Decent, but unremarkable and lacking in character. Must try Lurgashall's Malmesbury Mead line to see what quality Mead is all about! Massively sweet and yellow-colored like a dessert wine - but that's how it's supposed to be. Unable to rate this side-by-side with its main rival, Chaucer's Mead, as I drank the two over a year apart, but I'll say the Lurgashall seems a fine, example of the style. Note: the Lurgashall is fortified (brandy) while Chaucer's is not. My bottle reads "Tower of London Mead" but web research indicates that Lurgashall supplies mead to the English Royal Palaces.

Is this what mead is supposed to be like? If so, then I guess I don't really like it. Color is a kind of bright yellow, and I suppose the lack of head is appropriate for the style, since it's more akin to wine than beer. Nose is winey, but not bad. Flavor is what kind of bothers me. This might be a great mead, but it's just not for me! I'll have to try another mead and come back to this rating at a later time.

Bottle. A fair mead. Light yellow in color. Still. Aroma is of alcohol and honey. Smooth, alchol is not as dominant in the flavor as it is in the aroma. Just lacks a little in complexity.

Pale clear yellow color. Aroma is basically honey. Taste is sweeter with honey. Has a sweeter aftertaste.

<i>Bottle from International House of Cheese, Ludgate Hill, London</i>
Pale color. It has a very strong aroma of flowers, more than honey. Sweet, not syrupy, with flower flavor and some honey. I like sweet drinks, but this Mead is not impressive.