[azasadny]

I brewed two 6 gallon batches of mead (fermented honey) 8 years ago and the two batches have been sitting in the temperature-controlled basement, in a sealed secondary fermenter all this time. Last summer my wife tasted a sample and said it was good, but flat (no carbonation). For Christmas, I thought I would get it bottled and put customized labels on each bottle for family and friends. Well, my brewing area has been turned into an ammo reloading area, so no place to bottle and no time to do it.

I went to a local wine making shop and they are out of business (which is very common in our area), so I remembered that we have a homebrewing ship not far from our house, so I went over there yesterday and talked to the owner. I asked him if he would be willing to bottle the mead for me and I would gladly pay him for his time and supplies. At first he wasn't too anxious to do it, but after we talked for awhile and found many areas of interest in common, he said that he would bottle the mead for me.

12 gallons of mead should yield about 60 champagne-size bottles of mead and he's going to add champagne yeast and priming sugar so these will be "sparkling meads" instead of "still meads". I'm dropping off the mead today and I can't wait to see everyone's expressions when they realize they have an 8 year old mead for a gift!!