Grahamstown Brewery/Makana Meadery was founded in the year 2000 with the primary objective of placing an ancient South African honey based beverage, iQhilika on the world’s shelves.
Makana Meadery has its beginnings in a Rhodes University based research project to develop state of the art fermentation technology for producing iQhilika, an African mead. The meadery is housed in a historical Grahamstown landmark on the outskirts of this picturesque educational town in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Honey is a vital ingredient in the making of iQhilika and to match this demand the company has developed an extensive beekeeping programme. With the acquisition of a sawmill and the development of beekeeping training programmes, the company has also expanded its products and services to include: beekeeping products, beekeeping training and research & development.
Makana iQhilika Meadery is an equitable, empowerment driven company. It is more than 50% owned and funded by previously disadvantaged individuals and is as such an Affirmative Business Enterprise. The company was founded by Dr Garth Cambray, the late Dr Winston Leukes (1969 -2006) and Vuyani Ntantiso
What is mead?
Mead is made by the alcoholic fermentation of honey. To place mead in perspective it is important to take the Makana Meadery crash course in alcohol literacy.
What is alcoholic fermentation?
Yeasts are small single celled micro-organisms which convert sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide gas under conditions in which there is no oxygen. This is called fermentation.
Types of alcoholic beverages: Mead – made by fermenting honey. Wine – made by fermenting fruit (eg grapes). Beer – made by fermenting malt, which is made from seeds. Other: Palm wine made by fermenting plant sap
If any of these are distilled, the alcohol is concentrated into a spirit and most of the body of the beverage is left behind – hence the word spirit. Spirits are concentrated alcohol and are therefore more dangerous and the consumer must be educated as to how to consume these. They are also flammable.
What is intoxication? Alcohol causes abnormality in brain function. These abnormalities can possibly, in moderation be useful social tools, aiding conversation, facilitating business transactions, human reproduction and relationships, as well as cementing friendships. In excess the effects are normally the opposite.
Placing mead into perspective
The word mead conjures up pictures of an inebriated Shakespeare, or a lecherous Chaucer writing risqué stories in Old England. In reality, this was during the decline of mead in Europe.
Mead is a simple and easy alcohol to make. All one has to do is mix honey and water and a little yeast and it ferments to mead. Hence, wherever there are lots of bees and people you tend to find bees. In Europe for many years there was a healthy population of bees, but various revolutions and rapid economic growth killed most of these, so now honey is scarce and you would have to be out of your mind to make mead on a large scale in Europe. And this is the case – mead in Europe is a novelty drink that people buy and generally place on their bars as a talking point. Very few drink it and the majority of European meads are sweetly unsophisticated. There are however some excellent exceptions from countries such as England, Poland, Northern France, Germany and Slovenia.
In Africa, mead is consumed in vast quantity. In subsistence economies honey is harvested from wild, or semi wild hives and is rich in pollen and debris – perfect for mead making, but not for sale as table honey.
Famous African meads, consumed in huge quantities are drinks such as the Tej and Meis of Ethiopia, and the iQhilika of the Xhosa people of South Africa. There are many other types of mead unique to every nation in Africa. Most African mead is sold for immediate consumption and sophisticated marketing and packaging channels are not well developed.
Hence a problem exists – African mead is consumed in large quantities in Africa but is not easily marketable outside the continent due to shelf life problems. European mead is produced in small quantities and is marketed as a curiosity not a commodity which is consumed regularly.
Makana Meadery
Makana Meadery is a modern hi-tech African Meadery, making African style meads with a global approach. We make quality mead, we use advanced recipes and we filter and package it so that it is both attractive and pleasant to consume. In this way we like to think we are bridging the divide between a largely dormant European mead drinking culture, and a vibrant African mead drinking culture. We are both creating and preserving a culture of mead drinking.
Mead Mythology
In ancient times it was believed to be a good thing to give a young couple sufficient mead that they could drink a considerable amount each night for a month after getting married. This was a term politely referred to as a honeymoon – the primary objective of a honeymoon was for a couple to conceive a child. Hence many people connect the dots and suggest that mead is an aphrodisiac. We believe that this may be the case – but mead is also generally a very pure alcohol and as a result if one were to drink a considerable amount of any other less pure alcohol one may fall asleep – which would not help with the conception of children side of the honeymoon.
In Africa the story is that if you drink mead you feel strong like a lion. The Discovery Channel should shed some light on what this really means, given the rather extraordinary libido of lions.
Mead has been seen as being a medicine. In fact the word medicine is derived from the word metheglin (which is pronounced medeglin). Metheglin is a type of mead containing infusions of various herbs.
How to drink mead…
Mead is a sophisticated beverage. The flavours in honey are more complex and subtle than those in fruit or malt, hence the mead drinker develops a very discerning palate. The mouth must be cleared of foreign uncomplimentary tastes, such as toothpaste or peppermints. This is best achieved with a light snack – cheese, pickled quails eggs, light meats or the like.
The mead should be chilled in a fridge for at least an hour before consumption. It is best to let the mead stand in the fridge for 48 hours as this allows it to settle into the bottle and recover from any shaking it may have received on the way from the Meadery to your fridge. Some mead drinkers place ice in the mead – it is important to use good quality water for making the ice as the chlorine in tap water will affect the taste of the mead.
Mead should be poured gently into the same type of glasses used for red wines. This allows a decent amount of mead to contact the atmosphere and develops the bouquet of the mead. If you have not consumed mead before, we recommend that you start with a semi-sweet mead. This can be either a spiced or plain mead. Once you have become acquainted with mead in this way you may migrate to less sweet and dry meads.
What to drink mead with…
Mead is an excellent accompaniment to most savoury dishes. Sweeter meads tend to go well with spicier foods while dry meads are excellent served with delicate dishes such as chicken, duck, fish and calamari.
All meals should be consumed with good friends, music and conversation as has been the way for thousands of years.
Are you a mead connoisseur, or do you want to be?
Wines and beers are normally from a specific region, or culture, whereas there is a mead, or a record of a mead, for nearly every human culture that has lived with bees. Hence a mead connoisseur needs to know about the world, and about our planet’s cultures. A mead connoisseur needs to understand that a bottle of Kurpiosky Polish mead is going to be very different, yet share a lot in common with a bottle of Makana Meadery African mead from the other side of the world. A bottle of Munro’s Mead from Canada will be very different to a bottle of Medovina Hurka from Slovenia.
A mead connoisseur will understand that bees visit thousands of different species of flowers all over the world, making millions of combinations of flavours in their honey every year. Whereas in wine making we are limited to a handful of cultivars of grapes, mead makers have access to honey – a magical mixture of natural flower nectar which will always be different as you never get exactly the same flowers flowering at exactly the same time every year!!
For a mead maker this great diversity of honey types forms the foundation of the art and science of mead making. The style of mead making adds further levels of complexity to the product. A mead connoisseur is somebody who can appreciate diversity, uniqueness, and above all live with the fact that the chances are she or he will open a bottle of mead, enjoy it and probably never be able to buy another bottle which tastes exactly the same!