I recently had the pleasure of experiencing one of the newest meaderies in Texas, WildFlyer Mead Co. They are located off of County Road 319 near Highway 6 in Navasota and are only a few weeks old. They share their property with BeeWeaver Honey Farm which they use to make their mead. My husband was trying to surprise me with a trip out to the tasting room, but it became pretty obvious when we started seeing little signs with honey bees on them leading you there.
The meadery itself was housed in a metal building with industrial sized fans blowing to combat the heat. They are actually in the process of building a new structure next to it, to have an air-conditioned tasting room in the future. We sampled each of the 3 meads on tap before deciding a favorite and getting a full glass.
Our favorite was the strawberry lime mead called Seventeen (yes, it is named after the country song, Strawberry Wine, I asked). It was light and fruity and perfect for sipping in that Texas summer heat.
None of the meads were overwhelmingly alcoholic because they were Session meads. This means that they were fermented more like a beer, taking less time to be drinkable and containing some carbonation resulting in the ABV being about half of what a normal mead or wine would be. The typical fermentation of meads and wines that results in the higher ABVs is called Imperial.
Next up was a mead called Meadarita. True to its name, this mead was a tart lime mead with hints of salt to resemble a margarita. Being a Texas native and margaritas being a staple of my Tex-Mex diet I absolutely loved this one.
Finally, there was It Takes Blue to Mango, a combination blueberry and mango mead. The blueberries stole the show with this one since the mango has such a mellow flavor. It was the least favorite of the 3, but still worthy of a full glass to enjoy.
As an added bonus of our mead excursion, we also participated in a honey tasting at BeeWeaver Honey Farm. It was a casual and information sampling of different varieties of honey from all kinds of different locations. The location greatly determines the consistency and taste of each honey because of the plants that the honey bees use for pollination.
The little shop at the honey farm featured so many amazing honey and bee-centric items. We ended up purchasing one of the kinds of honey that we tried that was infused with jalapeno and habanero. It was also especially cool to watch the bees build their hives in the transparent cases that allowed them to come and go as they please from the outside.
Overall, it was a fun and memorable experience. Thank you so much to Jeff and Chelsea at WildFlyer, and Kris and Bitsy at BeeWeaver, for the fantastic time. We’ll be sure to come back and visit again!
