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Stone Circle Mead: Dandelion Mead

Lars, December 11, 2024

Over the next month or so we’ll be drinking our way through some of the wonderfully traditional Welsh meads on offer from Stone Circle Mead; a Wrexham-based business that focus on simplicity and purity. Many of their flavours are inspired by the natural elements on offer in Wales, including foraged ingredients that make Stone Circle Mead‘s products totally entwined with the land it comes from. This is an intoxicating prospect (as mead usually is) – a synergy between skilled mead-makers and the natural world, coming together to create beautiful flavours.

Each bottle of Stone Circle Mead seems intently focused on simplicity, and the honest expression of natural taste. This concept is championed first and foremost by the bottles – weighty, minimalistic, and adorned with some proper wax seals. There’s not a pull tab in sight (they didn’t have those back in the day) which gives uncorking a fresh bottle of Stone Circle Mead a sense of weight and intent.

As usual, I had to leap at the most intriguing flavour first. Dandelion Mead just sounded so unusual and inviting all at once. With promises of a gentle honey flavour and a floral flourish via the titular foraged dandelion infusion, this feels like a mead from the history books, the sort of thing you’d imagine druids sipping in times long gone.

On the nose, this one is primarily and unsurprisingly dandelion, but this is undercut by gentle honey and a slight sharpness, all of which weave together to forge this sensation of stepping into a field in the height of spring. It really is quite bewitching in its simplicity, capable of plucking the senses out of this early winter gloom and into the first warmth of a new year. This is the beauty of many of the UK’s mead-makers, though. They’re capable of capturing a simple concept and delivering it in perfect harmony, which is ironically enough quite a complicated process.

Dandelion Mead’s flavour is just as invigorating and transporting as the scent. It has a very slight fizz to it which surprised me and further cemented this mead’s presence as a drink for warm evenings or an ideal aperitif. The taste is headlined by an impish, playfully floral dandelion infusion which settles very nicely on a subtle bed of honey, just sweet enough to really make those natural notes sing.

It’s important to note that this is quite an unusual mead. If you’re looking for a honey-heavy bottle, I wouldn’t necessarily start with this. Medium-sweet with floral notes might not sound particularly different as far as meads and wines go, but the body of the dandelion flavour is so full and vibrant it might catch people unfamiliar with the taste unawares.

Stone Circle Mead: Dandelion Mead – 4/5

This mead scores a lot of points with me just for being so unique – of all the variations I’ve tried this year I’ve never once encountered one that’s dared to employ such an earthy, humble element as the dandelion. If you’re looking for something refreshing and a little bit different, definitely give this one a try. With a flavour so firmly rooted in the honesty of nature, it is a bottle of mead destined to impress.

I would suggest pairing this with anything salty or creamy – cheese is a must, especially the fruit-infused Wensleydales so popular this time of year. It is perfect served as an aperitif before a meal, as that natural, slightly sweet flavour gets the appetite absolutely roaring. A bottle for the curious mead drinkers, through and through.