Mead Making with Dr. Norris Childs – part 1

Mead is honey wine, made by fermenting honey in water. It’s one of the simplest fermented beverages, but it offers a wide range of flavors depending on ingredients and process.
This four-class series is a hands-on introduction to making mead with Norris Childs. Each session focuses on a different stage of production, from starting the fermentation through aging and finishing. You’ll work together as a group to make a single batch of mead, and at the end of the series, each participant will take home a bottle from that batch.
The class will also decide whether to make a traditional mead using only honey, or to include additional flavorings.
The first class meets on Saturday, April 4, with sessions every other Saturday through May 16. Reminder emails will be sent before each class.

About Norris

A native Philadelphian and GFS graduate, he spent two years in college before serving 2½ years in the Peace Corps in India, teaching farmers to grow hybrid corn and sorghum. He went on to medical school, followed by six years of surgical residency and three years of laboratory research. Returning to Philadelphia in 1980, he began a surgical practice—and took up beekeeping. In 1989, he joined the U.S. Navy and was deployed to Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War in 1991. After returning to civilian practice, he began commuting monthly to California in 2001, where he also expanded his beekeeping. He retired from the Navy in 2012 and from surgery in 2014. Now retired, he devotes his time to beekeeping, grandparenting, and meadmaking, which he began in 2016, producing a variety of traditional, fruit, and spiced meads inspired by The Compleat Meadmaker.