A Mead Education at “Upstairs @ Coal Rooms”

Before we rocked up at Gosnell’s “Upstairs @ Coal Rooms” I didn’t have the faintest idea about mead. I thought of it as a rarely-consumed drink, once quaffed by Vikings. Luckily Tom Gosnell, 31, the founder of the first London meadery in over 500 years was on hand to provide some much-needed education.

Gosnells “Upstairs @ Coal Rooms” is Tom’s first mead pop up and it’s a quirky little bar, based above the popular Coal Rooms restaurant in Peckham. It has a laid back vibe, with honeycomb shaped tables and large windows that once formed part of the old train station ticket hall. As you’d expect, mead is the star of the show and thirsty customers can sample a flyer, which gives a taste of four different meads. As well as sampling the meads in isolation, there are also a range of mead based cocktails available, including four frozen ones, all of which can be washed down with tasty small plates from the restaurant downstairs. There’s also a non-alcoholic mead for those wanting to avoid getting totally wrecked, which is dangerously easy in this place.

Mead is made by fermenting honey, so they simply take honey, mix it with water and a pinch of yeast, which turns the sugars in to alcohol. It’s the same process you’d make a cider or wine from apples or grapes.

I was surprised by the variety of the flavours, which ranged from earthy and rich to honeyed and slightly sweet. I particularly savoured one which was had a light gooseberry flavour, which was very drinkable and refreshing.

So how did Tom end up in the mead world?

A friend of his has an orchard in Dorset. It was autumns spent there, picking and milling apples that gave him the taste of production. Tom found that making cider was fascinating, blending art with science, and it piqued his interest in fermentation.

In 2012, when travelling along the East Coast of the US, Tom was first exposed to great mead – mead that was crafted with real, love, care, and respect for the honey. This really lit a fire in him, and he set out to start making a modern mead in London.

He told me: “Great mead starts with great honey – I find honey an amazing, natural product, when you ferment this you strip away some of the sweetness and get access to the amazing tertiary flavours that the bees have been collecting from all the flowers.

We generally describe it as our “bubbles from bees” – it’s medium sweet with a pronounced honey taste that rounds off with a citrus note before a crisp, clean finish. It’s the perfect drink to have in the park on a summers’ day.”

• Gosnells “Upstairs @ Coal Rooms” will be in Peckham throughout the summer and potentially longer. The meadery will also be running mead master classes, supper clubs and events all about bees. Visit their website here.