Hello! This is Yazawa from ANTELOPE!

So far, I've covered craft mead styles and how to drink them! Today, I’d like to talk about "what kind of food to pair them with." If you can find that perfect combination—the kind that feels as meant-to-be as rice and miso soup—it’s sure to double the number of smiles at the table!

What is pairing?

The term "pairing" is often used to describe the combination of food and alcohol. You’ve likely seen this at beer bars or restaurants. A good pairing can highlight the best qualities of both the drink and the dish, or even mask the flaws of one another. In any case, finding a great pairing is guaranteed to make your meal much more enjoyable!

In this post, I'll share some tips on how to pair, along with specific foods that go well with craft mead!

Pairing Mead with Ingredients That Go Well with Honey is a Surefire Bet

I’m going to introduce four tips for pairing, but for those of you who are impatient, I’ll start with a foolproof mead pairing.

That is, "ingredients that go well with honey."

For example, eating cheese drizzled with honey, wrapping prosciutto around melon and adding honey, or stir-frying pork belly with honey—the world is full of foods that pair beautifully with honey. It’s perfect if you just think of swapping the honey for mead!

Cheese and mead, in particular, are an incredible combination. I recommend pairing a sweet mead with something salty like blue cheese, or a crisp, less-sweet mead with something like cheddar.

Fruity x Spicy

Craft mead comes in many styles, ranging from fruity ones made with fruit to stimulating ones infused with spices. Because of this wide flavor spectrum, the "fruity x spicy" combination is very easy to pair.

This means pairing fruity meads with spicy food, or spicy-infused meads with fruit-based desserts. Among spice-infused craft meads, ones made with chili peppers, known as capsicummels, are popular. This capsicummel, with its sweet aroma and refreshing, tingling heat, is even amazing with fruit ice cream!

Cyzer for Meat

Cyzer is a style of craft mead made using apples. It’s like a cross between cider and mead. It is highly recommended to pair these with meat dishes!

Cyzer, which blends the aromas of both apple and honey, is considered to go particularly well with pork and chicken dishes. Why not try pairing meat and cyzer for your next special occasion menu!

There are many tips for finding pairings like these, but I’d like to introduce four that are useful for many types of alcohol!

Four Tips for Successful Pairing

① Pair Like with Like

The first tip is to pair things with similar characteristics! Light meals with light drinks, and fruit-forward food with fruity drinks. It’s that kind of intuition.

For instance, pairing a light, refreshing dish with a crisp, dry wine.

For craft mead, B. Nektar Meadery suggests pairing "cyzer with a fresh salad." Since cyzer is a style made with apples—sitting somewhere between cider and mead—the refreshing acidity and light tannins derived from the apples, combined with the sweetness of the honey, almost sounds like it could be a salad dressing itself. It’s an easy-to-understand example of pairing "like with like," isn’t it? Cyzer goes well with both meat and salad, making it a perfect style for dining!

In the world of craft beer, there’s a quintessential American example: pairing a "fruity-scented white beer with a fruit tart." White beer is lighter in color because it’s made with a portion of malted or raw wheat. Famous examples of white beer include Hoegaarden White and Suiyoubi no Neko! Both are characterized by a gentle, fruity, citrus aroma.

② Match by Color

The second tip is to match the color of the drink with the color of the food! White wine with white fish, red wine with red meat—it’s that kind of logic.

Craft mead has a wide range of colors depending on the ingredients; it turns a deep red when using berries or other fruits, or a beautiful wheat color if made only with light-colored honey. Dark-colored meads are often richer in flavor, so you might try pairing them with dark-colored foods (like roasted meats or pasta dishes like Bolognese). Conversely, lighter-colored meads often have more delicate nuances, making them a perfect match for white fish or salads.

③ Palate Cleanser

The third tip is to pair alcohol with food for a "palate cleanser." This means matching a strong-flavored dish with a crisp, refreshing drink to reset your taste buds. It might not seem like "pairing" in the traditional sense, but doesn't it make perfect sense when someone suggests pairing spicy food with a draft beer!

For example, a crisp, refreshing draft beer—like the kind you get at a restaurant—is a fantastic match for heavily spiced food or oily things like french fries. Even bitter drinks like an IPA work well as they tighten the aftertaste.

Crisp, refreshing craft meads are also excellent with spicy Sichuan dishes or french fries; the combination is so refreshing it’ll keep you going back for more of both!

④ Contrast

The last tip is contrast! This is a very advanced technique involving pairing things with strong, distinct personalities. You might combine ingredients with opposite characteristics. It’s daring, but the satisfaction when it hits just right is unforgettable!

Kookoolan World Meadery in Oregon, USA, recommends pairing "a sweet mead with roasted lamb." It’s an advanced pairing where the distinct, unique gameyness of the lamb is balanced by the rich sweetness and aroma of the mead! It has long been known that lamb and honey are a natural match. Trying to pair an intense dish with a sweet mead is definitely a great approach!

Here’s a beer example as well. A famous one is "dark beer and oysters." Dark beer is made by mixing in a few percent of malt (barley that has been germinated and dried) that has been roasted at high temperatures until it turns jet black. As a result, it’s characterized by unique roasted flavors, bitterness, and aromas like chocolate, coffee, or raisins. Guinness, for example, is a famous product among dark beers. Because it has such a strong, deep chocolate-like aroma, enjoying it with oysters, which are supported by heavy notes of sea and oil, makes for a wonderfully cohesive impression. Personally, I often find stout beers have a soy-sauce-like quality, so I imagine they pair well with anything briny.

There’s also the perspective of matching things by their region of origin, but craft mead is still relatively young, and there aren’t as many options as wine that are produced in specific locations. If you ever come across such a mead, I’d highly recommend trying it with ingredients grown in that same region! If you want to be extra indulgent, enjoying it right there at the source would be perfection, wouldn't it?
That’s all from me—Yazawa, who wants to enjoy food with all five senses!

Next time, I’ll be introducing how to make craft mead! Please look forward to it!