Are these German meads rateable?

I saw a lot of bottles from http://www.honig-met.de/ in a shop a couple of months ago, but they were a bit pricey, and I couldn’t find them here on RB. I have since done a bit of searching, and found out that the "brewer", Honig-Met & Trinkhörner, was actually listed on RB, but with only one beer and no meads.

I can see that some of the meads in the "Specials" section of their website are mixed with various fruit juices. Are these rateable, or is that not allowed on RB?

Are you talking about these: http://www.honig-met.de/produkte/mischungen/ ?

The only one there that seems like maybe it wouldn’t be legit is the Chivan, but all the others seem legit in terms of the product descriptions. If the producer is already listed on RB, then I’d think the meads are fine to add. For instance, the Erdbeerkonigin description of 60% honey wine and 40% strawberry wine seems pretty typical for a melomel. A lot of times this sort of description is just required to be formatted that way by law, even though all the honey and fruit/fruit juice/fruit puree were mixed together in the must for primary fermentation.

https://www.ratebeer.com/brewers/metbrauerei-andre-striewski/13679/

I think as long as the main ingredient (at least 50% ) is honey they should be ok. If the main fermentable is a fruit (or the juice whatever mixed in is more than 50% ) then probably not. I think the discussion had been repeated in the past and grey areas still apply :D

come on, we even allow the Pyments by Superstition to be rated, and they are 90% grape wine and 10% mead...

Originally posted by SinH4
come on, we even allow the Pyments by Superstition to be rated, and they are 90% grape wine and 10% mead...

Originally posted by bytemesis

It’s about the % of fermentable sugar. 50% must come from honey.

Since honey is basically just sugar, that’s a fairly low bar

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I’ll take that as a yes

Originally posted by Rasmus40
Thanks for the feedback, guys. I’ll take that as a yes

Originally posted by SinH4

Originally posted by bytemesis

It’s about the % of fermentable sugar. 50% must come from honey.

Since honey is basically just sugar, that’s a fairly low bar

So assuming I use a wine that has fully finished fermentation, I can use 99.9% wine and 0.1% honey and it will be a rateable mead?

Or does the sugar content of the wine pre-fermentation count? I would argue it shouldn’t, since you use the finished wine in a Pyment, not the unfermented grape juice.

What is the appropriate designation for a product consisting of honey wine blended with fruit wine (such as blueberry wine)?

"This product does not fall under any of the standards of identity in 27 CFR part 4, and thus must be labeled with a truthful and adequate statement of composition, such as "blueberry wine – honey wine," "blueberry wine and honey wine" or "blueberry wine – mead." In this instance, TTB would not approve a label with the term "blueberry mead" as either a fanciful name or as a designation because it would be misleading as to the identity of the wine."

Most has been said...
As Nighfall said, the producer is actually Metbrauerei André Striewski, "Honig-Met & Trinkhörner" is just the name of the webpage not of the company (I assume).
Striewski is, according to what I could find back then, a real producer (client meadery), while others use his mead and relabel it.
We’ll clean this up.

Rateable?
At a quick glance every product I saw (I didn’t look for all of them) looks rateable, provided that you don’t add products already listed under Striewski.
Indeed the Chivan is described in a suspicious way. In absence of further info we may allow it.

50%-50%
if you use a tool like the "mead calculator" you will see that every ingredient (unfermented) has a different concentration of sugar; 100g of honey has more sugar than 100g of apple juice.
We want to list mead where the amount of fermentable sugar is at least (roughly) 50% from honey.
Therefore, before fermentation, the weight/volume of honey may be much less than the weight/volume of grape juiced (this was explained above); but it doesn’t mean that any ratio is acceptable.

Blend
Along the lines of what brokensail said, I think that blending fermented wine (rather than juice) to honey-to-be-fermented or to mead is against the spirit of mead and pyment, it’s a fortified mead, or a cocktail if you prefer.
If you are aware of such products please message an admin.


A good example is Melitites: wine must is fermented halfway, then honey is added (honeydew honey), about 30% of honey to 70% of partially fermented must, and then the fermentation proceeds to completion.
I calculated, knowing the sugar content of that typical grape must, that the honey contributes for about 50% of the fermentable sugars.

Originally posted by fiulijn

Blend
Along the lines of what brokensail said, I think that blending fermented wine (rather than juice) to honey-to-be-fermented or to mead is against the spirit of mead and pyment, it’s a fortified mead, or a cocktail if you prefer.
If you are aware of such products please message an admin.