How the Vikings Made Mead — The Sacred Brew of the North

Before microbreweries, before distilleries, hell — before hops — there was mead. And nobody embraced it with more fire than the Vikings.

Mead wasn’t just a drink to the Norse. It was a divine elixir. A gift from the gods. A potion of poetry, battle, and sex. According to the myths, it was brewed from the blood of a wise being and passed between gods and heroes to grant knowledge and power.

But how did the real Vikings make this legendary brew?

Raw and Real: Viking Mead-Making Basics

The recipe was brutal in its simplicity:

• Honey – stolen from bees or traded with southern merchants

• Water – whatever they could get clean enough

• Wild yeast – from the air, the gods, or who-the-hell-knows

• Sometimes they'd throw in herbs, berries, or even tree bark for flavor or "medicine"

Fermentation happened in wooden barrels, clay pots, or whatever vessels they had. No thermometers. No measuring spoons. Just instinct, smoke, and time.

This wasn’t your grandma’s tea party. Mead was fermented strong. It was drunk in longhouses by firelight, passed between blood brothers, spilled over oaths, and honored in death.

Sacred. Savage. Social.

Mead was more than drink — it was culture. The skalds (poets) claimed it inspired wisdom and poetic skill. Warriors drank it before raids and after battles. It was offered to gods in rituals and poured out for the dead in remembrance.

To the Vikings, mead was connection — to the divine, to each other, and to their own damn mortality.

Why We Care

At Filthy Pagan Mead Co., we don’t just make mead. We resurrect it. We channel that primal chaos — the fire, the frost, the myth, and the madness — into every batch.

When you drink our mead, you're not sipping a sweet wine. You're drinking a legacy. You’re tasting what warriors once held high in the halls of Valhalla.

Skål.