Hard seltzer brewing from a sugar wash is where my homebrewing background gave me an unexpected advantage — the technical demands are actually simpler than beer in some ways (no mash, no hops, short process), but the challenge of producing …
Perry is the crossover fermentation that changed how I think about fruit fermentation entirely — pear juice is chemically more complex than apple juice, the sorbitol content makes it resistant to complete dryness in a way that apple cider isn’t, …
Backsweetening cider with xylitol was a practical discovery rather than a philosophical one — I had batches fermenting dry when I wanted sweet, and the standard advice to stabilise with potassium sorbate before adding fermentable sugar never fully sa
Yeast selection for cider felt deceptively simple until I tried fermenting the same batch of Nashik apple juice side by side with a champagne yeast and a dedicated cider yeast — the champagne yeast produced a bone-dry, almost clinical cider …
Braggot is the mead style I find most interesting as a brewer because it genuinely sits at the overlap of beer and mead — you’re making decisions about malts, hops, and honey simultaneously, and the balance between these three character …
Bochet was the mead style that genuinely surprised me — I expected caramelised honey to produce a sticky, overly sweet result, but the controlled burning of honey before fermentation creates Maillard and caramelisation compounds that give bochet a ro
Pyment appealed to me as a brewer because it sits at the exact intersection of winemaking and meadmaking — you’re working with grape must and honey simultaneously, and the complexity that results from combining two of the world’s oldest fermented …
Cyser was a natural extension of mead for me once I started thinking seriously about Indian fruit fermentations — the combination of honey and apple produces a drink that sits between cider and mead in a way that’s more complex …
Metheglin was the mead style that most directly mirrored my spiced beer brewing instincts — the same logic of building a spice bill that complements rather than competes with the base character applies whether the base is a Witbier or …
Melomel was my second mead project, and what drew me to fruit mead was the same instinct that drives hop selection in brewing — fruit variety shapes the character as decisively as any ingredient decision in fermentation.