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Mead Lovers Digest #0270
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #270, 27 February 1994
From: mead-lovers-request@eklektix.com
Mead Lover's Digest #270 27 February 1994
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Re: honey prices (Ralph Snel)
Mulberries (Laura Conrad)
Re: UNYHA annual competition (Jay Hersh)
Re: honey prices (Richard Beach)
Honey prices (Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu)
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Subject: Re: honey prices
From: Ralph Snel <ralph@astro.lu.se>
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 94 8:52:33 MET
About prices for honey in other countries than the USA:
I bought honey in Holland (very limited production, mostly
import) a few years back. In a shop you pay the equivalent
of $1 per pound for tastless sweet stuff that can't be
called honey officially, but is called bakers honey. I assume
it is 'made' by feeding the bees with sugar. For Dutch honey
you pay about $3/lb or more, depending where you buy it. Health
food shops have a better selection but charge more than double
the prices of supermarkets.
I bough 75 kg of honey (150+ lb) in 25 kg buckets for about
$2,50 per kg, that's a little over $1,25/lb. This was standard
flower honey. Other pure honeys were a bit more expensive.
This was at a place that specializes in bee-related products
and mainly sells to shops.
Now I live in Sweden I have bought honey in larger amounts as well.
In the shop you pay about $3/lb as well, for Swedish honey. Last
summer I drove to a farm where they had a sign saying they sold
honey and I asked if they had any cheap honey, in larger quantities.
The normal prices they charged were about the same as in the shops,
but they had some old honey from last year they could sell me for
$1,50/kg ($0,75/lb), so I bought 16 kg.
This year I hope to have a decent a mount of ready mead by the end
of the honey season, and plan to catch the bee-keeper that has his
bees in the apple-orchard that lies right next to our farm. Maybe
it's possible to trade some honey against mead...
What are decent ratios?
Cheers,
Ralph
ralph@astro.lu.se
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Subject: Mulberries
From: lconrad@epoch.com (Laura Conrad)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 94 09:26:57 EST
There is a mulberry tree in my back yard which produces lots of fruit
every August.
Has anyone ever made a mead (or other fermented beverage) that was
better for having mulberries in it? They don't taste very exciting
straight, although the bees seem to like them.
Laura
This isn't rocket science; it's brain surgery! (The Simpsons)
lconrad@world.std.com will work as a return address for longer than
lconrad@epoch.com, but will be read less often, at least during the
work week.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: UNYHA annual competition
From: Jay Hersh <hersh@x.org>
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 1994 10:46:12 EST
Forrest asks about a general Mead category in the UNYHA annual competition.
Just a quick look at the beer styles tells me that this is a smaller
competition. The categories are very general. Many smaller competitions
typically use broader categories rahter than have a very limited number of
entries in more narrowly defined ones and then ending up having to collapse
them in order to have more than 2 or 3 beers per category.
I applaud the efforts of the UNYHA annual competition. Very few homebrew
competitions are willing to take meads at all. There are few people in the
judging world (of which I've been a member for 8 years now) who can or are
willing to judge meads. There are few competition organizers willing to judge
them at all. I'd expect the actual competition entry forms will have some
room for additional info and that each mead will be judged according to that
info (ie Metheglin, Melomel, etc....), if not then I'd put this forward as a
suggestion to the competition organizer.
However I think that overall this group should be applauding and encouraging
the Homebrew Competitiion organizers who extend themselves to take on meads.
Other than the few specialty mead comeptitions there are precious few Homebrew
Comps accepting meads and this group should do all it can to encourage and
support these folks.
JaH
------------------------------
Subject: Re: honey prices
From: Richard Beach <rbeach@advtech.uswest.com>
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 94 09:29:12 MST
> <Dick Dunn askes about honey prices and things>
Well I'm also in the Boulder, Colorado area, so I'd guess I see about
the same prices you do. I also remember the $2/lb Blackberry honey, and
in fact bought a few pounds. I actually was buying about 3 lbs of each
variety they had to run a comparitive study of the results from different
honeys. I'll post something here in a few months when I actually have
results (I didn't get a real good start from the yeast, and the temp. has
been a bit low, so fermentation is less that spectacular).
I have to agree that $2/lbs is a bit steep if the results aren't
something pretty special. But while I tend to think the maple wine is
a bit pricey (I use grade A maple syrup, cut with some water, and let
it ferment), I think it is wonderfull stuff, and by its nature it is more
of an after dinner liquour, so it lasts a lot longer, so I tend to just
grit my teeth while I'm at the cash register. [I haven't bought any
recently, but it seems like it was closer to $5/lb than $1/lb].
One last thing, which locations had the cactus and thistle honeys?
While I'm soing the comparitive analysis of various honeys, I'd like to
have as many varieties as possible.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
rbeach@uswest.com "Graduate school :
Richard Beach It's sort of like welfare for
US West Advanced Technologies clean-cut, middle-class kids."
Boulder, Colorado USA --Peter Wayner
------------------------------
Subject: Honey prices
From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 94 11:24:07 EST
Yesterday, Dick Dunn asked about prevailing honey prices. I have a
couple of data points to offer: A local honey producer sells
honey at the local farmers' market for about $1/lb (e.g., a 3 lb jar
for $2.85, last time I bought some). This includes "specialty" honeys
such as star thistle (my favorite) and linden. I recently bought two
gallons (24 lbs) of honey from a local beekeeper, at his house, into
my containers for $0.75/lb. This was "wildflower" honey.
=S
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End of Mead Lover's Digest #270
