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Make Mead Like a Viking: Traditional Techniques for Brewing Natural, Wild-Fermented, Honey-Based Wines and Beers Spiral-Bound |

Jereme Zimmerman

★★★★☆+ from 101 to 500 ratings

$38.49 - Free Shipping

A complete, practical, and entertaining guide to using the best ingredients and minimal equipment to create flavorful brews—including wildcrafted meads, bragots, t’ej, grog, honey beers, and more!  

"A great guide . . . full of practical information and fascinating lore."—Sandor Ellix Katz, author of The Art of Fermentation 

Ancient societies brewed flavorful and healing meads, ales, and wines for millennia using only intuition, storytelling, and knowledge passed down through generations―no fancy, expensive equipment or degrees in chemistry needed. In Make Mead Like a Viking, homesteader, fermentation enthusiast, and self-described “Appalachian Yeti Viking” Jereme Zimmerman summons the bryggjemann of the ancient Norse to demonstrate how homebrewing mead―arguably the world’s oldest fermented alcoholic beverage―can be not only uncomplicated but fun. 

Inside, readers will learn techniques for brewing:

  • Sweet, semi-sweet, and dry meads
  • Melomels (fruit meads)
  • Metheglins (spiced meads)
  • Ethiopian t’ej (honey wine)
  • Flower and herbal meads
  • Bragots
  • Honey beers
  • Country wines
  • Viking grog

And there's more for aspiring Vikings to explore, including:

  • The importance of local and unpasteurized honey for both flavor and health benefits
  • What modern homebrewing practices, materials, and chemicals work—but aren’t necessary
  • How to grow and harvest herbs and collect wild botanicals for use in healing, nutritious, and magical meads, beers, and wines
  • How to use botanicals other than hops for flavoring and preserving mead, ancient ales, and gruits
  • The rituals, mysticism, and communion with nature that were integral components of ancient brewing

Whether you’ve been intimidated by modern homebrewing’s cost or seeming complexity in the past or are boldly looking to expand your current brewing and fermentation practices, Zimmerman’s welcoming style and spirit will usher you into exciting new territory. Grounded in history and mythology, but―like Odin’s ever-seeking eye―focusing continually on the future of self-sufficient food culture, Make Mead Like a Viking is a practical and entertaining guide for the ages.

"Adventurous mead makers or brewers who want to move beyond the basics will find plenty to savor here."—Library Journal  

Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Original Binding: Paperback
Pages: 240 pages
ISBN-10: 1603585982
Item Weight: 1.0 lbs
Dimensions: 6.0 x 1.0 x 9.0 inches
Customer Reviews: 4 out of 5 stars 101 to 500 ratings

Library Journal-

"Zimmerman originally documented his brewing experiments on his blog, ­jereme-zimmerman.com. After enthusiastic feedback from participants in the author’s mead workshops, he decided to publish a handbook on making mead with wild yeast, a practice at which the Vikings excelled. His recipes are straightforward and easy to follow, frequently including a story or tips to improve it. They often call for not only standard mead but also an unusual ingredient such as mushrooms, garlic, horehound, or marshmallow plant. Zimmerman packs this slim tome with honey-based brewing recipes, Viking mythology, Viking cultural history (as it applies to mead), a history of beekeeping, a guide to picking honey, how to drink mead, and equipment advice. While there are many mead-making titles on the market, the emphasis on wild yeast along with Zimmerman’s philosophy of experimentation and self-sufficiency make this a unique offering. VERDICT: Adventurous mead makers or brewers who want to move beyond the basics will find plenty to savor here.”

Jereme Zimmerman is a writer and traditional brewing revivalist who lives in Berea, Kentucky with his wife Jenna, daughters Sadie and Maisie, and herds of wild yeast that he corrals into various fermentation creations. He writes for the New Pioneer, Backwoods Home, Hobby Farms, Mother Earth News, and other magazines. He is a popular public speaker, presenting and holding workshops across the country on topics such as fermentation, natural and holistic homebrewing, modern homesteading, and sustainable living. His first book, Make Mead Like a Viking, was published in 2015.