Sweet, sweet addiction – Miód Pitny – The polish mead.

Let there be – Miód Pitny

 

“At last Gandalf pushed away his plate and jug–
he had eaten two whole loaves (with masses of butter
and honey and clotted cream) and
drunk at least a quart of mead – and he took out his pipe”

While the naughty Norse is world famous for having raided Europe a thousand years, the polish has been busy .. brewing mead.
These days eastern Europe can show over a thousand years of mead-history, where we Scandinavian “re-invented” it, or rather found back to our mead roots only decades ago.
(yes yes, I know there are historical references to mead brewing…)
Now .. back to polish mead – Miód Pitny….

Miód , sweet Miód

In the polish language, mead has the melodic name Miód Pitny, meaning “drinkable honey”. It is a Polish culinary traditional beverage, refreshing the throat of Poles for over a thousand years, and alluded to as the “drink of the gods”. Alcoholic aging of wort i.e. a honey and water mixture makes up this Polish “drink of the gods”. It often has a trademark fresh honey fragrance much akin ( for us meadists) a Louis Vuitton perfume. Addition of fruit juices, herbs or spices also enhances this pleasing honey smell.
Fruit mead is called miód owocowy in Polish, herbal mead (miód ziołowy) and spiced mead (miód korzenny). These additives give a refreshing fruity, herbal or spiced smell to the mead and help improves not just its taste.
Its market value also depends on how pleasing the smell is. The color of the mead depends mainly on the kind of honey used for production. Thus, its color ranges from bright golden to dull golden color.

Serve me – lukewarm, please

Now, contrary to much incorrectness, mead is most generally served at room temperature.Traditionally served in a stoneware container or in present day times in a glass cup. During winter,
some Poles enjoy mulled mead blend with ginger, cloves, vanilla, cinnamon, orange slice or dark pepper. However, on a bright sunny day when we have been sun-kissed and need to cool our throat
with a premium quality brewed blend of honey and water, it might be likewise drunk chilled to around 12°C and may be served with a lemon slice or mint.

Be thou heaven sent

For many years, Miód Pitny was touted as the “drink of the gods” likely on the grounds that it was conceivably one of the first beverages made by man – and must have appeared divine when they finally figured it all out.

Let’s look back in time.
It’s the dark ages, and Poland is primarily an agrarian society. Vast, lush landscapes, and forests ripe with flora and fauna. A perfect habitat for bees. The 12th-century writer, Gallus Anonymus describe Poland as a realm flowing with honey”. While the climate which was not suited for the growing of grapes, it had a plenitude of honey implying that mead was more famous than wine.
The fifteenth-century Venetian ambassador to Poland, Ambrogio Contarini, also notices that in spite of the fact that having no wine, the Poles made a certain drink out of honey. This astonishing drink was incredibly sweet and intoxicates individuals much more than wine. This felt great as the Poles trust then that drinking mead was drinking with the gods and at whatever point they ate or had a feast and they drank mead, they would say with all pride and swagger that wine originates from the earth muddy and grey yet mead must be sent down straight from the heavens.

Of the gods; like the gods – everlasting

The seventeenth century brought a change as mead lost fame for the most part. Wine imported from the south, particularly from Hungary, locally made vodka led to a decline in the consumption of
mead. Likewise in the nineteenth century, mead came to be associated with the bygones time of preparation Poland. Mentions in the poems of Tomasz Zan makes this evident. There are also notices in the Pan Tadeusz, a Polish national poem by Adam Mickiewicz.

Glimpse of hope for our “drink of the gods”;

In 2008, Polish mead was legally classified into four grades. The grades include czwórniak, trójniak, dwójniak, półtorak. The different classifications shows the proportion of honey and water used in production. These grades were enlisted by the European Union as a traditional speciality guaranteed creating fame for Poland. Furthermore, this advanced the production of mead which relatively multiplied in less than five years. Poland has now been acknowledged as the world’s biggest traditional producer of mead. The names of the grades are gotten from the proportion of honey and water. The total number of units is gotten with one unit being honey and the other water; for instance, czwórniak is produced using one unit honey and three units water, making a sum of four units. Trójniak is produced using one unit honey and two units water, making up a sum of three units. Dwójniak is produced using one unit honey and one unit water, making up two units. Lastly, Lółtorak is produced using one unit honey and half unit water, making up one and half units.

Only four varieties of Polish mead;

Natural flavours included or raw materials utilized helps distinguish the traditional varieties. The method of ageing employed during production also help differentiate the varieties. For example, jabłczak is an apple juice flavoured mead, jeżyniak is a blackberry juice flavoured mead, miód gronowy is a grape juice flavoured mead, agrestniak is a gooseberry juice flavoured mead, borówczak is a lingo berry juice flavoured mead, czereśniak is a sweet cherry juice flavoured mead, czerniak is a bilberry juice flavoured mead, dereniak is a Cornelian cherry juice flavoured mead, gruszeczniak is a pear juice flavoured mead, morwiak is a mulberry juice flavoured mead,porzeczniak is a currant juice flavoured mead, poziomczak is a forest strawberry juice flavoured mead, śliwniak is a plum juice flavoured mead, wiśniak is a sour cherry juice flavoured mead and so forth. Other mead flavouring ingredients include cinnamon, celery leaves, cloves, ginger, elderberries, juniper berries, vanilla etc.

The proportion of which depends on the desired grade influences the subsequent sweetness and liquor content. The total number of units is contrarily relative to the alcohol content and sweetness. Obviously, the sweeter the mead, the more costly the mead. C’mon who wouldn’t have any desire to pay more for a great revitalizing thirst quenching beverage down his/her throat.

Recipe discovery;

There have been a considerable measure of myth, stories, scrolls written and folklores told about the disclosure of Polish mead. However, the most well-known and broadly acknowledged oldest
known recipe for mead can be credited to the Swedish recorder Olaus Magnus who got it from a local of the Polish city of Gniezno, recorded in 1567. According to it, ten pounds of honey were were boiled with forty pounds of water, flavoured with hops and fermented with bread starter or lager yeast. Flavouring mead with pepper, fennel, cloves, cinnamon, anise, parsley or poppy seeds didn’t begin in the jet age. It can be traced back to as early as the seventeenth century. History books containing materials describing Polish culinary customs of the seventeenth and eighteenth century contain general notices of mead, as well as references to various grades of mead. The now registered mead terms czwórniak, trójniak, dwójniak and półtorak additionally dates back to the seventeenth and eighteenth century.

Produced mead were served in a special tavern known as meaderies, called miodosytnie in Polish. This miodosytnie were marked with a trademark red cross above the door. This distinguish it from
wine shops and beerhouses. Wine shops were marked with characteristic wreath over the door. A characteristic straw wisp over the door was the mark for beerhouses. Mead can only be produced in the industries;
Nah, production of mead can be home-made, for example półtrzeciak (mead from one unit of honey and one and half units of water). Sześciak (mead from one unit of honey and five units of water).
These are however the informal honey to water proportion. Therefore, both are not economically accessible because of some lawful confinements. Polish miód niesycony (unsaturated mead) is also made particularly in home generation. This is created by blending the honey with warm or chilly water without boiling. This helps to retain a greater amount of the honey smell.
The proportion depends for the most part on the required grade. For meads with high level of alcohol e.g dwójniak (two units) and półtorak (one and half units). The concentration of the sugar
would be too high for the yeast to work in the fermentation process. Therefore, the wort (honey and water mixture) is prepared with one part honey to two parts water; the rest of the honey is added in the last stage of fermentation or during ageing. For fruit meads, a level of the water around thirty percent is replaced with the desired fruit juice.

Mead production steps;

Commercial production of mead involves heating up the wort at a temperature of around 100 °C. This gives a soaked mead known as miód sycony in Polish . Inorder to counteract caramelisation of
the sugars, the required mead remove is acquired in a wort pot fitted with a steam coat. The microbiological security of the boiled wort has to be ensured. Therefore, the wort is cooled around
the same time to around 21 °C , the ideal temperature for yeast to spread. Pitching is the next production step. This involves addition of a yeast solution to the wort in a
fermentation tank.

To ensure that the fermentation process run properly, violent fermentation takes about six to ten days with the temperature kept at a maximum level of 28 °C.
This is followed by another process of fermentation known as “still fermentation” but this takes about three to six weeks. At this stage, the rest of the amount of honey can be added to achieve the desired proportion for dwójniak or półtorak. When the desired alcohol content of no less than 12 percent by volume is gotten, further fermentation is deterred. The mead then undergoes a process known as racking preceding ageing.

Leaving the pitched wort on the sediments known as lees beyond the still fermentation period would unfavourably affect the mead. Decomposition of dead yeast cells will adversely affect the
taste, smell and colour properties of the mead. Unwanted processes are prevented from taking place in the lees by repeated ageing (maturing) and also decantation (siphoning). During ageing, filtration and pasteurisation may be carried out. This is basic for guaranteeing the right taste, smell and colour properties for the product.The desired flavour of the final product may
be modified by adding honey to sweeten the mead. Also, addition of ethanol or preferred herbs or spices helps add a better flavour to the mead. Bottling of the mead ready for sale is in traditional carboys, oak barrels or earthenware bottles. This usually takes place at room temperature or a temperature range of 18–25 °C. Mead an everyday drink in Poland;
However, dissimilar to any popular notion, mead is not the regular drink in Poland. It has always been a luxury drink chiefly reserved for feasts and special occasions such as weddings. It is mostly available only to the rich and seemed valuable enough to be deemed a suitable gift for dignitaries, monasteries and foreigners. Beer like in most countries has however filled in as the daily thirst quencher of an ordinary Polish native.

Revenue generated by mead;

Incomes created from commercial production of mead appeared to have expanded to a great extent. This has prompted an increased production of mead in Poland from around 760,000 litres in
2008 to 1.4 million litres in 2013. This earned Poland the reputation of being the world’s largest producer of mead made with traditional methods. Mead consumption in Poland has greatly declined despite having a long-standing tradition of mead consumption. This is as a result of the different types of alcoholic drinks. Mead consumption amounts to less than one percent of the total alcohol consumption in Poland. Nowadays, the Poles who drink mead did so mostly at a social or family gathering especially during a festival.Polish mead producers have focused instead on exports, mainly to the United States, Western Europe, Australia, Mexico, Japan and China. Demand for Polish mead is growing on external markets at an average rate of twenty percent per year. However, domestic demand is only less than ten percent per year. There has also being a major concern in the bee production with the bee hives collapsing. This might pose a threat in future production of mead if it is not properly solved on time.

A must-do someday;
When next you need a treat of alcoholic drink. Request for a premium quality brewed Polish mead produced with mostly autumn honey and a touch of spring honey with herbs, spices and juices and
experience sunshine and flowers in a glass of Polish mead.
Have a drink with the gods today; make it a Polish mead.

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