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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 contributors produces an entirely distinct drink category. My first braggot was a pale ale base with Nilgiri honey, and the combination of hop bitterness with honey sweetness and carbonation produced something guests couldn’t categorise, which felt like exactly the right result for a crossover fermentation.
Braggot (malt mead) guide: brewing honey and malt beer-mead hybrid
What braggot is: Braggot (also called bragot, bracket, or bragawd in Welsh) is a fermented drink made from both honey and malted grain, it is simultaneously mead and beer, using hops as a bittering agent alongside honey as a primary fermentable. BJCP mead classification: Category 7B Braggot (under Experimental/Specialty Meads). Historical note: braggot is among the oldest documented fermented drinks in Britain and Wales, predating the hop-based beer tradition. Medieval braggots used various herbs and spices in addition to honey and grain. Modern braggot spans from mead-dominant (mostly honey, small grain addition) to beer-dominant (mostly grain, honey adjunct). Braggot spectrum and ratio: Mead-dominant braggot: 70–80% honey sugars, 20–30% grain fermentables. Character: primarily mead with grain complexity in background. Beer-dominant braggot: 30–40% honey sugars, 60–70% grain fermentables. Character: primarily beer with honey character throughout. Equal braggot: roughly 50/50 honey and grain fermentables. Most complex and difficult to balance. Practical starting point: 60% honey, 40% grain fermentables for a first braggot. Malt selection for braggot: Light base malt (Pilsner, Pale Ale malt, Maris Otter): allows honey character to lead, grain provides body and fermentable backbone. Munich malt (partial or full): adds bread and malt character that bridges honey and grain. Crystal/caramel malts (Crystal 20–60L): adds residual sweetness that complements honey, useful for sweet to semi-sweet braggots. Wheat malt: adds head retention and softness. Dark malts (Chocolate, Roasted Barley): creates bochet-like dark braggot with roasted grain + honey character. Dark braggot is an interesting style. Hop usage in braggot: Hops are optional in braggot but traditional since at least the 15th century. IBU range: 10–30 IBU for most braggots. Higher bitterness competes with honey sweetness. Noble hops or English hops (Saaz, Fuggles, East Kent Goldings): pair well with honey character, earthy, floral, spicy notes complement rather than dominate. American citrus hops (Cascade, Citra, Mosaic): create a honey-citrus-hop interaction that is interesting but bold, honey must be assertive to balance. Braggot recipe, 4.5-litre 50/50 braggot: Base malt: 500–600g Pale Ale malt (mashed at 65°C for 60 minutes) or 400g light DME. Honey: 600–700g light floral honey (Nilgiri or Kashmiri). Hops: 8–10g East Kent Goldings or Fuggles at 60 minutes (contributing 15–20 IBU). Water: to 4.5 litres. Target OG: 1.080–1.095. Yeast: ale yeast or mead yeast, hybrid option: use a clean ale yeast (Safale US-05, Nottingham) that tolerates honey-high gravities, or a mead yeast (Lalvin 71B) that handles the wort environment. Many brewers use EC-1118 for high-gravity braggots above 1.100. Process: mash grain to produce wort, boil with hops, cool wort to below 60°C, then add honey to the warm (not boiling) wort to preserve honey aromatics. Pitch yeast when cooled to pitching temperature. Nutrient considerations: Braggot wort is more nutrient-rich than mead must (grain provides FAN and vitamins that honey lacks), so yeast stress is less severe than in pure mead. Standard TOSNA nutrient additions are still beneficial but less critical. Fermentation and aging: Braggot ferments more like beer than mead due to grain fermentables. Initial fermentation: 2–4 weeks. Aging: 2–6 months. Shorter than pure mead due to grain nutrients and structure.
Common Questions
Should I use a beer yeast or a mead yeast for braggot, and does it make a big difference?
Yeast selection for braggot significantly affects character, beer yeasts and mead yeasts are bred for different environments and produce different flavour compounds, and the choice matters more in braggot than in most other fermentations because both sets of flavour contributions are significant. Beer yeast in braggot: produces beer ester and flavour profiles, fruity, estery character for English ale yeasts, clean neutral character for American/German ale yeasts. Beer yeasts are optimised for a grain-wort environment (nutrients plentiful, lower gravity), so they may stress or underperform in very honey-heavy braggots above 1.090–1.100 unless nutrient additions compensate. Safale US-05 (clean, neutral, widely available in India) works well in grain-dominant braggots where beer character should lead. Safale S-04 (fruity English ale character) adds interesting ester complexity to braggots with English hops. Nottingham (clean, high attenuating) is reliable across a wide range of braggot ratios. Mead yeast in braggot: mead yeasts are optimised for high-gravity, nutrient-poor honey environments. In grain-containing braggots, the additional grain nutrients mean mead yeasts ferment even more vigorously than expected. Lalvin 71B produces fruit esters that work well in honey-dominant braggots, the combination of 71B’s partial malic acid degradation and ester production adds complexity. Lalvin EC-1118 (champagne yeast) is neutral and very high-attenuating, produces very dry braggots. Good for high-gravity braggots above 1.100 where completion matters more than ester character. Practical recommendation: for a 50/50 braggot, Lalvin 71B gives the most interesting balance of beer and mead flavour contributions, it produces esters that bridge the grain and honey characters, and handles the high-gravity environment well. For a grain-dominant braggot, US-05 or Nottingham produce more “beer-like” results. For a very sweet or high-gravity braggot, EC-1118 ensures full fermentation. The difference is real but not dramatic, braggot is forgiving because the honey and grain characters are so assertive that yeast flavour is supporting rather than leading.
