9-3-19 Tonight we're winging our way to Poland to talk with Mateusz Blaszczyk and Krzysztof Jarek with the Kings of Mead. We will not be live tonight, as our friends in Poland cannot do the live time slot.
Kings of Mead is three home meadmaking friends, Mateusz, Krzysztof and Rafal Gorecki, who have a website and do a video cast about mead. They're passionate about spreading the word of mead. They do mead reviews on their site and video show, talk about the meads they're making and drinking, and about meaderies they've visited. The channel is mostly in Polish, but some of the videos are in English or have English subtitles.
Maté has been making mead for about 10 years, and running his YouTube channel for a couple years. Kris joined him a year ago, and also runs the Mead Madness Cup. Rafal is a fellow mead maker who handles the IT stuff and is the camera guy.
A year ago, the friends launched the Mead Madness Cup home and commercial mead competition. In this first year, they have over 90 meads from 14 countries, not a bad start at all! The Mead Madness Cup is the largest mead competition in Europe. Marcin Jaros, head of Pasieka Jaros in Poland is head of jury for the competition. The comp will have 4 categories and 11 subcategories, and also award a Grand Champion winner in both home and commercial meads.
If that wasn't enough, they have also launched the European Mead Makers Conference. The conference is in it's second year now, and will offer a day of seminars and also a 2 day trip to visit Polish meaderies.
And even *more*, this year the group has launched a Mead Judging training program, as getting BJCP testing in Europe has proven difficult, so they are creating a European program. The program is in it's beginning stages, but they are committed to creating a solid approach to training people to judge meads, and is aiming to start with a 'train the trainer' program. This episode will be recorded, and launched today (it's the middle of the night for them when we are live!).

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Show links and notes

Evoak - Oak Solutions
Black Swan Barrels (exotic woods)
Ethiopian Spice Market (for gesho)
Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff
The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff
Are You Afraid of the Rum: And Other Cocktails for 90's Kids by Sam Slaughter




Upcoming Guests:

Sept 10 - Meadcon East and Cornell Mead Intensive (off)
Sept 17 - Traci Kuhfuss, Blacks Fairy Mead and Texas Mead Fest

Upcoming Events

Sept 5-7 MeadCon East
Sept 7 - Folklore Brewing and Meadery - Pints for Pets Flower Girl Class
Sept 13 - Meridian Hive - Muscles and Mead Bootcamp
Sept 13 - House Bear Brewing - Design a Sign Workshop (with mead!)
Sept 21 - Royal Manor - Mead Festival
Sept 22 - Starrlight Mead - Mead Day Celebration and Fall Festival
Sept 28 - Orpheus Meadfest - Tasting and Award Ceremony for Orpheus Cup Mead Competition
Oct 5-5 and 12-13 - Stonekeep Meadery - Artisan Wine and Cheese pairing weekends
Oct 6 - Starrlight Mead - 29th Annual A Tasteful Affair
Oct 6 - Great Kiwi Mead Group - First ever New Zealand Mead Up at Remuera in Auckland - Contact Adam via the link here
Oct 19 - Texas Mead Fest and competiton entries due Oct 1.

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