Make Mead Like a Viking 10th Anniversary Edition

Traditional Techniques for Brewing Natural, Wild-Fermented, Honey-Based Wines and Beers

Make Mead Like a Viking 10th Anniversary Edition
Pages:240 pages
Book Art:Color photos color illustrations
Size: 6 x 9 inch
Publisher:Chelsea Green Publishing
Pub. Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781645023494

Make Mead Like a Viking 10th Anniversary Edition

Traditional Techniques for Brewing Natural, Wild-Fermented, Honey-Based Wines and Beers

Availability: Preorder

Paperback

$24.95



New 10th Anniversary Edition!

“A great guide . . . full of practical information and fascinating lore.”—Sandor Ellix Katz, author of The Art of Fermentation

A complete, practical, and entertaining guide to using the best ingredients and minimal equipment to create flavorful brews—including wildcrafted meads, bragots, t’ej, grog, honey beers, and more!

Ancient societies brewed flavorful and healing meads, ales, and wines for millennia using only intuition, storytelling, and knowledge passed down through generations—no fancy, expensive equipment or degrees in chemistry needed. In Make Mead Like a Viking, homesteader, fermentation enthusiast, and self-described “Appalachian Yeti Viking” Jereme Zimmerman summons the bryggjemann of the ancient Norse to demonstrate how homebrewing mead—arguably the world’s oldest fermented alcoholic beverage—can be not only uncomplicated but fun.

Armed with wild-yeast-bearing totem sticks, readers will learn techniques for brewing sweet, semi-sweet, and dry meads, melomels (fruit meads), metheglins (spiced meads), Ethiopian t’ej, flower and herbal meads, braggots, honey beers, country wines, and even Viking grog, opening the Mead Hall doors to further experimentation in fermentation and flavor. 

Whether you’ve been intimidated by modern homebrewing’s cost or seeming complexity in the past—and its focus on the use of unnatural chemicals—or are boldly looking to expand your current brewing and fermentation practices, Zimmerman’s welcoming style and spirit will usher you into exciting new territory. Grounded in history and mythology, but—like Odin’s ever-seeking eye—focusing continually on the future of self-sufficient food culture, Make Mead Like a Viking is a practical and entertaining guide for the ages.

 

Reviews & Praise

"Zimmerman packs this slim tome with honey-based brewing recipes, Viking mythology, Viking cultural history (as it applies to mead), a history of beekeeping, a guide to picking honey, how to drink mead, and equipment advice...Zimmerman’s philosophy of experimentation and self-sufficiency make this a unique offering. Adventurous mead makers or brewers who want to move beyond the basics will find plenty to savor here.”—Library Journal

"After an exhausting day raiding coastlines and terrorizing natives, Vikings loved to relax with a nice quaff of mead. Over the centuries, mead retreated to merely a historical curiosity. But thanks to creative and adventuresome home brewers such as Zimmerman, mead has roared back to life...Recipes go beyond basic mead to include Ethiopian t’ej, fruit-enhanced melomel, and metheglin, which scents mead with herbs and spices. A valuable addition to any collection that seeks to satisfy the creativity of home brewers.”— Booklist

“A great guide to mead making, full of practical information and fascinating lore.”—Sandor Ellix Katz, author of The Art of Fermentation and Wild Fermentation

“This is a fun book—and fortunately, it doesn’t stop there. Coupled with the fun parts is a book that is informative and detailed in everything from choosing honey all the way to what kinds of corks to use. As a beekeeper who has always had lots of good raw honey on hand, I have made mead before but only in the kind of sterile environment that Jereme Zimmerman eschews. His book opened my eyes to the possibility of returning to the much more natural and time-honored ways of brewing this fascinating beverage.”—Jeffrey Hamelman, director, King Arthur Flour Bakery; author of Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes

“Tradition meets modernity in this marvelous look at the ancient brewing of honey-based beverages.”—Mike Faul, owner and brewmaster, Rabbit’s Foot Meadery

“I really delighted in this inspired and informative read. Throw caution into the mead-making wind and relish the challenge of some of the more unusual flavorings and ingredients. I now feel more like being a Viking mead maker than ever, and coming from a Celt and fourth-generation mead maker that is something! Enjoy mead and make merry men and maidens.”—Sophia Fenton, director, Cornish Mead Co. Ltd.

“Jereme Zimmerman has captured the wild spirit of mead quite literally—as the quintessential naturally fermented beverage of humankind from the beginning, which reached its apotheosis with the Vikings. Without compromising its mysterious allure, he brings it down to earth for all to make and enjoy.”—Patrick E. McGovern, author of Ancient Wine and Uncorking the Past

Make Mead Like a Viking puts the ME back in mead: my Scandinavian heritage simply sang when reliving the history, reading the recipes, and playing the drinking games he includes. And best yet . . . Zimmerman encourages mead makers to keep their own bees! There’s no better way to get the best honey there is than when you, and the bees you care for, make it happen together. For me, this is the perfect marriage.”—Kim Flottum, editor-in-chief, Bee Culture: The Magazine of American Beekeeping
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About Jereme Zimmerman

Jereme Zimmerman grew up on his parents’ northern Kentucky goat farm, Twin Meadows, where he was also homeschooled. After graduating from Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, he moved to the Pacific Northwest, where he immersed himself in the world of homebrewing. As the world’s only peace-loving, green-living Appalachian Yeti Viking, Zimmerman writes, blogs, and speaks regularly on fermentation, mead-making, homesteading, and good eating. He is a regular contributor to various publications and websites, including New Pioneer and Backwoods Home magazines. He writes for Earthineer.com as “RedHeadedYeti.” He currently lives in Berea with his wife, Jenna, and daughters, Sadie and Maisie, where he practices urban homesteading and cavorts with farmers, authors, and fellow sustainable-living enthusiasts.

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