Ethereal Meads expands to cans

On the outskirts of Battle Ground a former professional chemist is whipping up drinks fitting for an episode of Game of Thrones, though luckily it’s delicious and not potentially dangerous (unless you get behind a wheel).

Ethereal Meads has been producing an assortment of the honey-based, fermented beverage that’s a namesake to the business for a few years now, and most recently has had a sort of “crossover” into the market of carbonated “session” meads more similar to beer in alcohol strength and fizziness.

That said, don’t confuse mead for some type of beer or wine offshoot, Ethereal Meads owner and meadmaster Gary Gross said — it’s its own thing.

“Just like in beers, there are pilsners and stouts, IPAs and stuff like that. In meads there are a lot of categories, too,” Gross said. 

At his operation the meads produced tend around the “melomel” variety — meads made with fruit on top of the honey content the drink is known for.

“Here we are in the Pacific Northwest, we’ve got great honey and great fruit,” Gross said.

Ethereal Meads has recently made a foray into a new market, as recently the business has introduced cans of its session-style brews.

The decision for more session-oriented meads came through talks with Northwood Public House, where the full-strength variety had been on tap. The decision to embrace aluminum cans came from some market research which Gross had support within Washington State University’s Mentor and Analysis Program, which pits business seniors with businesses to develop strategies to thrive. 

Their findings indicated that the light, carbonated meads like the one created for Northwood were the biggest growing subset in meads.

“Secondly, 80 to 90 percent of consumers of light, carbonated meads are millennials,” Gross said. 

Millennials were also more interested in cans than bottles.

On Sept. 1 “Squatch Berry” — a marionberry and strawberry-flavored mead — was released and the first foray into cans began.

How Gross ended up making meads following a career in chemical engineering involved Gross’ son, Peter. Peter was getting married and wanted a medieval-themed event, fitting in with the son’s affinity for historical re-enactment.

A medieval wedding of course needed mead, which after tasting Gross’ interest was piqued. He got to work collecting the needed supplies — occasionally running into suppliers more akin to beer making then mead — and started getting to work while still working a “corporate” job at Kalama Chemical.

“Hobby became a passion, passion became a profession,” Gross said. 

By 2012 and at the behest of friends and family over the years he finally went full-time with the project.

Word of mouth has proven successful, getting exposure across the country and beyond including Eastern European countries such as Poland, Estonia and Russia.

“There are some places where mead never went away,” Gross said, referencing some of the more far-flung fans of Ethereal. He explained how with the advent of cheap sugarcane in New World trade in some parts of Europe and the colonized Americas spirits like rum took over the sweet stuff as a beverage of choice.

It has made a resurgence in recent years, which Gross said may have to do with the popularity of fantasy series with medieval flavor, like Harry Potter and the aforementioned Game of Thrones.

Although mead makes a good counterpart for some aesthetic flavor for when the next season of Game of Thrones or Vikings premieres, ultimately Gross just wants to make a good drink.

“I love to make mead because I think mead is a fantastic product. I’m very happy with the historical connection that people have with mead, and I have that connection myself,” Gross said, “but at the same time I want to present it generally as its own product.”