Nice to Mead You: Hoop & Horn Mead Comes to Shanghai

By Chris Foste, October 1, 2021

That's columnist Chris Foste is a bearded beer fanatic whose frothy pint glass of knowledge flows over with wisdom on the wetting of one's whistle.

An old German proverb states that there is wisdom in wine, strength in beer, and love in mead. Ok, maybe the part about mead isn’t actually in the proverb, but it should be.

Just as old, if not older than beer and wine, mead is simply fermented honey water. A basic mead uses only three ingredients – honey, water and yeast – to produce a drink with alcohol strength similar to wine.

However, mead can also be brewed into fantastically complex beverages using different combinations of spices, fruits, herbs or even in addition to wine and beer. Where can one find a good mead in China? Well, allow me to introduce you to Hoop & Horn Mead.

Hoop & Horn Mead comes to China with a sweet and smooth flavor inspired by historic tastes and influence by modern trends. Hoop & Horn’s Gold Horn Mead uses raw lychee honey directly from local honey bees, which supports local farms and the ecosystem as a whole.

Bees are good for the environment since they pollinate thousands of flowers every day, and Hoop & Horn wants to perpetuate a strong and healthy natural world.

Shameless self-promotion alert: Hoop & Horn Mead is brewed by your humble That’s Shanghai's beer columnist – me, Chris Foste. The Hoop & Horn story begins long ago during my time living in South Korea.

As a birthday gift, a local friend gave me an unnecessarily large jar of honey. With no conceivable idea on how to consume that much honey, my local brewing community recommended that I not eat it, but instead ferment it!

Almost 10 years ago, that first batch of blueberry mead came to life, and with it the dream of starting a meadery was born.

Mead has a very colorful history throughout the world – Vikings drank mead for courage, Romans drank it for creativity and medieval England paired it with their fanciful feasts – and now Hoop & Horn is bringing this coveted style of honey wine back into the main stream.

Drank well on ice or mixed into cocktails, Hoop & Horn Mead can be found in various venues all over Shanghai. Get your taste of sweet honey mead at Alimentari, where you can pair the honey wine with a fine set of cured meats and cheeses. Or, if you want to have booze delivered to your home, just order a bottle through Bottles XO.

Be sure to check out the growing number of bars and restaurants with mead, including Perch, J.Boroski, Mezcaleria, Mikkeller, The Smokehouse and Beer Barrel, among others.

And if you want to know more about mead, click on the link below:

To learn more about Hoop & Horn Mead, scan the QR code below to follow their Official WeChat Account: