Style: Melomel

The melomel subcategory is for fruit meads made with any fruit not associated with any other fruit mead subcategory, or with a combination of fruits from multiple fruit mead subcategories (such as grapes and stone fruit). If in doubt, enter the fruit here – judges should be flexible with fruit not explicitly named in other categories. The culinary, not botanical, definition of fruit is used here. If you have to justify a fruit using the word “technically” as part of the description, then that’s not what we mean. In well-made examples of the style, the fruit is both distinctive and well-incorporated into the honeysweet-acid-tannin-alcohol balance of the mead. Different types of fruit can result in widely different characteristics; allow for a variation in the final product.