I started this varietal batch on the same day as batch 201, which uses Tennessee locust honey. I picked it up at the farmer's market in Asheville, NC on our pre-shutdown road trip this spring. Batches 202 and 203 both take their names from some of my favorite lyrics in a Jane Austen Argument song, When the End of the World Came.

When the end of the world came, everyone swore they had seen it coming.
No matter their creed or conviction, they swore they had seen it coming.
Because they’d seen the pattern in scriptures or Saturn,
In beakers or Latin, Dan Brown’s Antimatter.
When the end of the world came, everyone swore that they’d known.

Same confession as for batch 201: The Wyeast mead and cider yeast I used in batches 201, 202, and 203 was a full 3 years out of date, which means we must have moved it across the country from California with us. We just never got around to using it. It took a bit longer than usual to get started, but it wound up fermenting like a champ after a couple of days. If that's not a seal of quality, I don't know what is.

Ingredients in this batch

  • 35.5 oz locust honey from Troyer's Family Market in Asheville, NC
  • 3/8 tsp Fermaid K
  • 3/8 tsp Fermaid O
  • 1/3 batch of catastrophically expired (see above) Wyeast 4632 dry mead and cider yeast, reactivated with the included smack pack and left to come to room temp

Process

Tossed everything in a carboy, agitated, and pitched. SG was 1.076. All three of these batches had a longer-than-normal lag period, but all began fermenting after 2-3 days and were still going a week and a half later.

I bottled this batch on 8/2. I estimated ABV at 10.2%. This one's pleasant but not terribly interesting yet.