6-8-21 Tonight at 9PM ET/3AM Norway time, we're continuing our journeys around Europe and talking with Anders Riseng, co-owner of Askheimer Meadery in Askim, Norway.

Askheimer Meadery is one of just a few meaderies so far in Norway, but that is changing, as mead awareness grows in Europe.

Anders and his partner Jarl-Magnus teamed up with the idea of starting a meadery during a tasting session at the local beer club – Askim Beerclub, back in 2017. Both guys had then been homebrewers for several years, and Anders had one brewery behind him as well as just started up Slakteren Brygghus (The Slaughter Brewhouse) in the next city.

Jarl-Magnus studied phytotherapy - commonly defined as the study of the use of extracts of natural origin as medicines or health-promoting agents. At the tasting session, they tasted some mead, and it sudden hit them that they could do this better. And so the test brews started up. After the first rounds of test-batches, using local summer blossom honey, herbs, fruit and/or berries, they tested the mead upon two chefs and a wine sommelier. After considering their feedback, they understood that their mead was a bit on the sweet side, and lack of acid. So they did new batches, and they came out great.

The Askheimer name comes from a rewrite of the old name of the city Askim, located in Viken county. The cities' name in the Viking age was Askheimr. They chose this name to show that this is where the idea of starting a meadery was conceived. It also describes the desire to use as much local products as possible. And Anders and Jarl-Magnus use Norwegian or Nordic ingredients as much as they can.

After Superstitions Meadery's Jeff Herbert gave them good feedback at a between sessions tasting at the Mikkeller Beer Celebration 2019, they decided to go commercial. When they got home from Denmark they started to planning the meadery. After months of preparations and plenty of paperwork they got their permits in early 2020 and the company was offically founded in April,.2020. They moved into the meadery production location in May 2020. Their first meads hit the market in November 2020. In their first year of operations, they won two gold medals at the Mead Madness Cup 2020, which got them off to a great start!

Anders was kind enough to send mead samples to us, and we'll be tasting them tonight on the show!

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Upcoming Shows

June 15 - Kon and Julie Paseschinikoff - Bee Boyzz Honey and Meadery - Manitoba, Canada
June 22 - Gert Smet - Blacksmiths Meadery, Belgium
July 27 - Danique Staal- De Noordelijke Mederij, Netherlands
August 10 - Gordon Baron - Lancashire Mead, Great Britain




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