Here's me breaking into our gallon of Christmas berry honey. (Side note: Apparently this plant is considered an invasive species in Hawai'i. Also, we disagree on where this honey came from: I think we bought it in one of Queen Bee Brews' group buys, whereas Patrick recalls picking it up at the homebrew store at Kuhnhenn Brewing in Warren, Michigan this summer.) I named it after the "Christmas song" of sorts on Frank Turner's lovely new album, No Man's Land, since we were scheduled to see the man live in Boulder a week after I brewed this. Again, I'm using Omega's Jovaru Lithuanian farmhouse yeast here.

Ingredients in this batch

  • 5.5 lbs Christmas berry honey from Webb's Honey
  • 1/4 tsp Wyeast yeast nutrient
  • 2/5 of a pack of Omega Yeast OYL-033 Jovaru Lithuanian farmhouse yeast
  • 1.5 tsp Fermaid O, added on 10/20 to help fermentation along

Process

Mixed, aerated, pitched. SG was 1.090, technically above the ideal range for this yeast. Fermentation seemed a bit slow going.

I bottled this batch on 3/29/20, mostly to free up the two-gallon bucket it was in. I read a FG of 0.997 for a 12.2% ABV. The mead tastes much sweeter than it is due to the honey varietal. Like batches 178 and 180 that used the same yeast, it came out a lot hazier than I'd like, but it's delicious and drinkable.