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Braggot Honey and Malt Style Profile

Braggot

I love that name for a style of beer, fermented beverage…whatever you want to call it.

Braggot is in its simplest form a 50/50 blend of Honey and Malt.

We know 100% malt fermentation as Beer. And if you didn’t know already, 100% honey fermentation is a Mead.  When they come together in significant ratios, it is known as a Braggot.

I haven’t had too many Braggots.  The best of my memory brings back trying Brother Adam Braggot from the Atlantic Brewery in Maine.

Braggot should strike a balance between beer flavors and mead flavors.  Just like any mead or beer, the residual sweetness, tartness, dryness, etc. etc. will vary with the ration of honey to malt and the style of beer or type of honey being used.

You don’t hear a lot about Braggot these days, but the style mystifies me.  I have only had a few meads but the couple I have had were great.

Brewing this style, I would suppose that a simple blend of clover honey and DME would be a good start.  Balancing out the gravity of each together to get that 50/50 blend.  I would expect to use perhaps either a good American Ale yeast for its clean characters, however a mead yeast with a higher alcohol tolerance may be better suited to help dry out the product.  So many options.

This style may be a good one to experiment with in the upcoming new year.  But I wanted to write about to help me start thinking about using more honey in brewing and maybe a Braggot is a good way to combine my depth of experience in beer brewing with mead making before diving headlong into outright mead making.

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4 Comments

  1. Ted

    I’ll be looking forward to what you make and your experiences. Back in the Fall I picked up a bunch of high quality, raw and unfiltered, farm fresh Michigan honey for a super price. I’ll be brewing at least one braggot. I’ve had Two Brother’s Heliocentric Bragot, and it was light and very refreshing. It’s a style that isn’t nearly as high in alcohol as other meads. Finding the balance between smooth subtle malts and the honey may be challegning. I was thinking that straight DME and honey may not be “malty” enough, and come off being quite sweet. Steeping some very light crystal, biscuit or even a touch of honey malt could help to accentuate that part, but in very subtle amounts. Anyways, I’m really interested in the style too, and look forward to reading about yours. Later.

  2. Mightybrewmaster

    I have been making a honey beer based on the Rockey Racoon recipe in “The Joy Of Homebrewing” for years. I’ve made a few changes and make this regularly and it is very well recieved by ladies but still has food taste and body for beer drinkers. I never knew there was a style called Braggot. This is a fascinating post. Thanks for the info!

  3. Mumsbrew

    I just came across this posting while doing some research on what others have done before I cook up my next batch. I’ve made 3 batches of braggot ,with wine yeast and fermented like wine, over the last 2 years. First batch was 1 gal. and didn’t last very long. Second batch was 2 gal. and didn’t last. 3rd batch was 5 gal. and I’ve still got 12 bottles and 2 bottles in long storage. These batches were made with hopped extract.
    In the last year I’ve started making beer and now I’m wanting to put together a braggot with beer yeast and an all-grain recipe.
    I think out of all the different brews I’ve had braggot seems to have some of the most interesting flavors I”ve ever come across. Its one that I will continue to make and experiment with. There are as many different combinations that can be made as there are styles of beer. It’s endless.
    I’m glad I came across this post too. You don’t find alot of people that know what braggot is much less know how to make it. So it’s good to find some fellow braggotiers(if that is even a real word). Wassil

  4. Wassil

    I’ve been making braggot for about 2 years (42 batches!). Tried a variety of malt extracts and honeys. I use 50/50 honey and extract and ferment with Cooper’s Beer Yeast to 5%ABV. I haven’t found the difference in honey flavours worth the difference in price between “econo” supermarket honey (unpasteurized, though!) and more expensive specialty and/or organic varieties. The malt flavours/aromas easily overwhelm the honey, even buckwheat. I’m currently using Cooper’s Dark Ale Extract and the resulting braggot is very dark and ale-like with a slight hoppy finish. I’d like to eliminate the hoppy aftertaste, so I’m going to mix about 20% Lager extract with the Dark Ale to mellow it.

    I brew 8 liter batches starting in an 11 liter glass carboy. I don’t boil either the extract or the honey and use carbon filtered tap water, which I heat to 175F. After four days of very vigorous fermentation I siphon the wort into 4 two-liter PET bottles. I let the fermentation finish in the PET bottles and it takes about two months. I use pressure caps on the PET bottles so the braggot is naturally carbonated. When I want to open a two-liter bottle for consumption, I chill it for a couple of days and then carefully decant into 2 one-liter bottles.

    I like to drink it very cold and let the flavour and aroma develop in my mouth. This is not “chugging” beer and I really enjoy slowly downing a glassful, both the flavour and the feel as it warms. I tried making mead, in fact my very first brewing experience was a mead, however, I’ve never been much satisfied with mead. I’ve thoroughly fallen in love with braggot and intend to keep brewing it!

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