A fermented beverage made from honey, water, acid, yeast nutrients, and yeast. Tanninay also be addd, but the onlylavor is derivedfrom the honey itself. Different honeys, meaning honeys made from different nectar sources (flowers), yield different flavors. Thus, a clover mead is made with honey produced primarily from the nectar of clover flowers, while a heather mead is made with honey produced primarily from the nectar of heather flowers. There are three kinds of "true" mead:
Dry Mead contain no flavoring other than honey and is made using about 2-1/2 pounds of honey per U.S. gallon of mead.
Sack Mead contains no flavoring other than honey but is sweeter than most other meads and is made using about 4 pounds of honey per U.S. gallon of mead.
Small Mead contains no flavoring other than honey but is made using only about 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 pounds of honey per U.S. gallon of mead and is fermented using an ale yeast. A small mead is closer to ale than to wine, while both dry and sack meads are closer to wine.
Additionally, there are other beverages made with honey that are generally referred to as meads but indeed have their own names. Just a few of these (there are scores of them) are:
Cyser is a sack mead (actually, a Melomel) made with honey and apples and is closely related to hard cider.
Hippocras is a spiced pyment .
Melomel is a mead made with honey and fruit. Another name for this type of mead is Mulsum.
Metheglin is a sack mead made with honey and herbs and/or spices.
Morat is a sack mead (actually, a Melomel) made with honey and mulberries.
Mulsum is another name for Melomel.
Perry is a sack mead (actually, a Melomel) made with honey and pears.
Pyment is a mead (actually, a Melomel) made with honey and grapes or grape juice.
Rhodamel is a mead (actually, a Metheglin)