Vendor Highlight: Run Amok Mead
Brewing on the Moons
By Gabriyah Gadsby
Mead, often referred to as “honey wine,” is a fermented beverage made from honey, yeast, and water. Going back some 8,000-ish years, mead is probably the oldest fermented beverage known to mankind!
One 40-gallon batch of mead requires about 10 gallons of honey! Varieties of flavored honey, fruits, herbs, and spices are added during the fermentation process, making mead one of the most diverse and exciting libations available. The reason mead is so diverse is that the honey is slightly different every year, the ingredients are a little different every year, and the process varies the tiniest bit every year. No two batches of mead are the same – each one is unique!
Two varieties of Run Amok Mead have recently been added to our shelves at the Good Tern Co-op, and I talked with Christy Hemenway – owner, mead maker (also known as a mazer), and overseer of operations (besides the heavy lifting, that’s her husband’s area of expertise) – to learn more about Run Amok Mead.
Christy grew up in Pennsylvania, and lived in Virginia and Southern California before moving to the Northeast. After arriving in Maine, she thought, “Wow, this is what I have been looking for!” They started settling in and Christy was introduced to mead by some friends who home-brewed.
After some trouble with housing – being pushed out of two different rental properties by new owners, then trying to purchase a home that caught on fire right before the sale – Christy thought, “Huh, maybe Maine doesn’t want us?” They moved to the mountains of Western North Carolina.
Christy found that she missed mead. While her friends in Maine had introduced her to it, she hadn’t learned how to make it herself. So she took a class from a beekeeper in Asheville and learned how to make mead on a small scale. They lived in North Carolina for 3 years, and just when they were settling in and about to purchase a home – COVID happened and the sale was unable to go through. Luckily, Christy and her husband saw a rental property open up in Maine from a former landlord of theirs, and within 2 weeks, they were back!
Run Amok Mead is located in West Gardiner, Maine. Christy runs a 350 sq ft fermentation facility and has a tasting room in the summer kitchen, open May through October. They have 32 different formulas for making mead, and about 30 varieties on the shelves at any given time in the 45 stores where Run Amok Mead is sold.
The influence of the moon on Run Amok Mead was inevitable. The ebb and flow, waxing and waning, and energy of the moon has fascinated Christy since childhood. She has always felt attached to the moon spiritually. Naturally, the production schedules at Run Amok Mead are planned around the moon’s cycles. They brew on the new moons and full moons. Whether an effect is discernible or not, Christy says it feels cool to brew on the moons and connect with the lunar energy – manifesting bounty on the full moons or new beginnings on the new moons.
The best thing about making mead is being her own boss. Some of Christy’s favorite meads they make at Run Amok Mead are Storm Currant, made by fermenting vivid black currants in Brazilian Marmeleiro honey; Lughnasea, a jewel‑red mead crafted by fermenting tangy honeyberries in delicate Raspberry Blossom Honey; and Talisker’s Rainbow, fermented with bilberries which give it a strong berry flavor and the texture and structure of a deep red wine.
Christy is currently working on a mead using lavender, and also planning the Dirigo Mead Cup, Maine’s First BJCP-Sanctioned Mead-Only Competition which will launch this fall in Wiscasset! Stop by the Good Tern Co-op to pick up a bottle of mead, visit Run Amok Mead in West Gardiner, or check out their website for more information!