Chaucer’s Mead - 4 Pack
$39.95 + $5 shipping
CONDITION: Mead
PRODUCTS:
2 Chaucer’s Mead 750 mL
2 Chaucer’s Raspberry Mead 500 mL

Meadery website

Previous offers:
2/12/09
2/18/08
11/19/07

So this thread will be named the Decanterberry Tales...

sorry

I've really enjoyed my experiences with Chaucer's Mead, fwiw.

Chaucer's Dessert Wine Four-Pack 11/21/07 1 blog discuss

Chaucer's was my 2nd woot and my worst thus far. I'll pass on these as well.

Sadly, I have to give an absolute, unequivocal, complete recommendation AGAINST buying this. I got a similar set (with olallieberry in place of raspberry) in a Woot-Off last spring, and the mead was thin, cloying, and metallic-tasting. It's clearly made on an industrial scale, and you can almost taste the stainless steel vats they make it in. It was a distinctly unpleasant experience (and the olallieberry was even worse!).

I think I still have the second bottle of each around here somewhere, and have no plans or intention to willingly subject myself to their contents any time soon.

I'll spare you the "the only good mead is homemade mead" lecture and say that even for a commercial mead, this stuff is utter crap. Sorry, WD.

DO NOT BUY. Nothing but hatred on this review. http://www.brewboard.com/index.php?showtopic=28415

k1avg wrote:Sadly, I have to give an absolute, unequivocal, complete recommendation AGAINST buying this. ...

I feel the same. This product isn't on the same level of quality that Woot usually strives to maintain.

Though I'd love to see some gourmet meads offered for once, maybe Woot could at least look into propositioning some decent meaderies around the country that have distribution already in several states. Places like B. Necktar, Redstone, or Long Island Meadery. They all make decent to very good(& sometimes astounding meads) at different price points, & on occasion have lagging stock offered through their newsletters/websites(which could very well be offered here instead).

k1avg wrote: ...mead was thin, cloying, and metallic-tasting. It's clearly made on an industrial scale, and you can almost taste the stainless steel vats they make it in. It was a distinctly unpleasant experience (and the olallieberry was even worse!).

I bought the same set, I think, and the mead was sickenly sweet by itself. However the mulling spices that were packaged with it made it pretty good, and took the sugary edge off a bit when simmered. (I kinda liked the olallieberry wine, actually).

If this is the same mead, I'd wouldn't drink it without the mulling spices.

Wiki-mead -- the history is interesting, even if the offering isn't...

This was one of my first woots a few years back, and I liked it enough to get me interested in mead. That being said, you can homebrew your own pretty mindlessly and achieve the same quality. Bottom line, if you've never had a mead before, it's a decent buy, especially if mead isn't easily found in your area, but it's nothing to write home about.

joenajera wrote:I've really enjoyed my experiences with Chaucer's Mead, fwiw.

Did they involve drinking the mead?

I just want to say that, in my experience, you don't have to be a homebrewer to enjoy great mead.

Many years ago, when I first saw mead on the shelf in a local beer store, I made the connection to movies about knights and castles I had seen as a child, in which some swashbuckler would bellow "bring flagons of mead!" at some serving wench.

Since then, I've tried quite a few brands and styles, most of which ranged in quality from poor to pretty decent. I also had some homebrews, which were indeed better. However, a local producer sprang up recently, and they make quality stuff - nicer than a lot of the homebrew, and certainly with more variety.

I haven't had Chaucer's (love the name, though), so I can't compare it. But I will say this - good mead can be addicting.

Here are some mead recipes from The Joy of Mead ...

maybe the mead is meant to be put on display only. id quote homer simpson on this one by saying, "booooriiiiiiinnng!"

I think he keeps saying SoCal, but then he says the winery is outside of Santa Cruz. Dude, I don't think Santa Cruz is SoCal.

I will also chime in to NOT recommend this. My first wine.woot was a three pack (only one raspberry) and did not enjoy it.

First bottle was drank straight, and then mulled, by my two male roommates, two girls, and myself. All of us found it to be an unfortunate experience. We are adventurous beer & wine drinkers fwiw. Quite frankly it turned us all off to mead, which none of us had tried before.

I gifted the second "straight" bottle to a friend with a professed love of mead. He never got back to me with any feedback, read into that what you will. :p

The raspberry bottle is in box somewhere, un-tried, but I do not have high hopes from what I have read. For that matter, how long does mead keep?

I will give mead another try or two sometime, as I have NOT heard anyone say, "take it from a mead connoisseur, this is great mead!"

Hey Woot, It's Thursday and it's supposed to be the day when you have some type of Artisan food. I can't get any sort of wine in my state and look forward to your Thursday's food offering. What's up?

What they all said. Mead in general is lovely, but Chaucer's Mead is not. If you want the good stuff, check out Redstone Meadery. Or buy a copy of The Compleat Meadmaker and try your hand; it's not difficult at all.

Olive Winery in Bloomington, IN makes some pretty tasty meads. Maybe woot should contact them?

k1avg wrote:Sadly, I have to give an absolute, unequivocal, complete recommendation AGAINST buying this. I got a similar set (with olallieberry in place of raspberry) in a Woot-Off last spring, and the mead was thin, cloying, and metallic-tasting. It's clearly made on an industrial scale, and you can almost taste the stainless steel vats they make it in. It was a distinctly unpleasant experience (and the olallieberry was even worse!).

.

I agree with the Mead being real bad. The corks used were the synthetic and the wine had a plastic taste, even with the spice bag. I was sad and had to dump the bottles down the drain.

This offer doesn't really grab me - but I would absolutely love it if we had some dry meads here in the future.

Can you have a bigger contrast to yesterday's Oregon Pinot Noir set?

based on the comments so far, i fear this will be a 12-hour hold-up during a future woot-off

From a price standpoint this does not seem like a good deal. I know one regular bottle of Chaucer's Mead sells for about $12 per bottle in the store, if you can find it of course.

Oh mead... How I love you!

By far the best mead I've ever had is Monk's Mead, it's only available in Georgia right now. It's a light, dry mead that's mildly carbonated, it almost has a brut champagne-cider taste. It's not sweet and cloying, like most meads.

DISCLAIMER: My brother is one of the brewers!

So wait....not only is the Thursday Wine Woot not a non-alcoholic product (so we lose that), but to top it off, the offering is a horribly substandard mead?

I'm going to +40 the other 39 people who said to stay away from this stuff. It's the first and only mead I've ever had that actually tasted metallic. It's just....weird.

I love mead. And I'm not such a mead snob that I require making my own, but this stuff was positively vile.

Someone gave me 6 bottles of it for a Christmas gift year before last. I cracked open 2 bottles for a football game gathering once (we ended up tossing most of it), and gave the other 4 bottles to a non-particularly-liked in-law for Christmas this past year.

The Chaucer's mead is drinkable enough to me. Not special, but drinkable, IMO. However, the raspberry stuff is awful. I prefer Long Island Meadery's mead when I can find it -- as other posters mentioned, it would be great to see on occasional mead on here from a smaller producer.

How good is this deal?

Dem's da numbas. Do with it what you will!

Click the link above for full discount details, links, etc.

I bought this 4 pack about 2 years ago, and actually really liked the raspberry mead, it was jammy as described, and not as cloying as the honey-mead. Then I bought some from a local store a few months ago, and it was really weird tasting, not how I remembered it at all. It totally put me off Chaucer's. I never used the mulling spices.

I'm wondering if it just has hit or miss quality, since it is getting such mixed reviews.

Agreed with the many that Chaucer's mead is pretty dang lousy. Very poor stuff.

There is a meadery here in WI that makes great stuff. (White Winter Winery) Trying theirs really makes Chaucer's taste like unwashed bum.

I agree with the general consensus.

Chaucer's is like the McDonalds of mead. I'll pass on this one.

For anyone interested, I'm a big fan of Pirtle Winery/Meadery in my home state of Missouri. They have a pretty killer Blackberry Mead.

I was excited to see a mead offering because I do enjoy a good mead. However, this is not it. I bought the honey mead this past year and dumped most of it because of the weird taste to it. A local place makes a blackberry mead that is very good and I'll stick with them.

"Mead" some advice. I received a bottle of Bunratty Meade (screw-top), Clare, Ireland, for a wedding gift way back in 1991. I'm wondering if it will be good for our 20th anniversary this year or will it taste like the bodily fluid that it shares a color with?

As a maker of mead, I would warn people to approach mead the same way you approach wine. Do some research and find a style that fits your taste - don't just buy any mead out there and decide if you like mead or not. Also, taste different brands and different styles.

Meads can range from fortified, super sweet after dinner drinks to carbonated cider/champagne like dry beverages as well as everything in between. Some meads even come with mulling spices and suggest serving them hot.

To answer one posters question - mead usually gets better with age. It doesn't necessarily peak and then go down - it continues to mellow out. So go ahead and drink that wedding gift and see how it tastes.

ghostofdavid wrote:Olive Winery in Bloomington, IN makes some pretty tasty meads. Maybe woot should contact them?

I agree with this. I bought a bottle of their watermelon mead and it was very interesting.

If I wanted to relive my college years, I could buy this, or I could just go and grab a bottle at my local liquor store for $11.82. But I think I'll pass on both options.

wildeflowers wrote:I think he keeps saying SoCal, but then he says the winery is outside of Santa Cruz. Dude, I don't think Santa Cruz is SoCal.

It sounded like "SoCal" to me as well, but then I noticed their address: Soquel, CA.

Mead-making vids en masse...