Welcome to the online home of Hive and Barrel Meadery! Have a look around, please come visit us at Oldham Gardens in Crestwood KY and enjoy freshly made meads and ciders in our newly opened Mead Garden. If you have any questions send us an email or message us on facebook. Cheers!
Our Meads (and Ciders!)
Orange Blossom Traditional – 11.5% ABV 
2019 3rd Place Indiana State Fair
Our flagship “OB Trad” Has wonderful floral aromatics with hints of citrus and tropical botanicals. It falls into the semisweet category but we believe it is fairly balanced for a semisweet. The OB will age very well for years to come if you feel so inclined and have the patience. Try it with your favorite chicken dish. Get a horn full of this goodness.
Hibiscus Mead– 11.3% ABV
2019 3rd Place Indiana State Fair
Our Hibiscus mead is our most balanced semi-sweet mead. The complexity added by the generous amount of Hibiscus we add brings a tartness not unlike cranberry but less acidic and with more depth. The acididty, earthiness, and tannins balance the residual honey. Not easily described, it must be tasted to be identified on the pallat.
PB&J Sammich – 11.1% ABV
Our only dessert mead, this bottle of sweetness is sure to bring back memories of childhood. We really enjoy watching folks tasting this one for the first time. Many a skeptic have tasted this one only to come away a wide eyed believer that they just tasted liquid sammich. We use concord grape juice, a peanut puree, and wild flower honey (polyflora) to create this masterpiece. A definite after dinner bottle to share with friends makes this is one of our best sellers. Mini-snifter is the glass of choice.
Mango Chipotle – 13.5% ABV
2019 2nd Place Indiana State Fair
This bottle of sweet, smokey, fire cracker has an amazing nose to go along with a flavor explosion on your taste buds. We use mango nectar, chipotle peppers, and wild flower honey (polyflora) to make this wine. First there is sweetness which fades to tropical fruit smokiness and finishes up with a moderate spicy finish. Enjoy it straight, over ice, or over pork tenderloin. I like it in a rocks glass.
Red Cuvee Barrel Aged – 12.5% ABV
2019 2nd Place Indiana State Fair
We work with several different cooperages in Kentucky to find a barrel fresh enough from a vineyard for aging our mead in. Luckily for us several of the largest cooperages in the world are located here and have access to used barrels from some of the finest vineyards in the world. The current barrel previously held a Bordeaux style red blend. Deep oak tones interplay with tannins and acids left from the big red wine. The semi-sweet traditional mead is pushed towards the woods edge. White wine glass.
Rum Barrel Aged – 12% ABV
Picture if you will a mead matured in a barrel that first held Kentucky Bourbon, then a top notch Caribbean Rum for many years. This mead is full of vanilla, nutmeg, molasses, and other tropical flavors. One sip and it will take you back to the islands. Jah we hope you like it as much as we do! Best drank from a Mazer.
Apple Cyser – 11.9% ABV
2019 1st Place Indiana State Fair
Our Cyser (as apple mead is called) has hints of apple, crab-apple, cinnamon, honey, and copious amounts of fruit aromatics. This mead took 6-8 months to fully mature into it’s award winning form. Small amounts of other fruits were added for citric acid pop to balance the apple sweetness. Look for a cinnamon variant during the holiday fairs at Oldham Gardens. A nice white wine glass, or Mazer for this one.
Atomic Mango – 13.5% ABV
This one is the boom stick version of the Mango Chipotle. We take the regular Mango Chip mead and add a copious amount of Chile de arbol hot peppers to give this mead more of the burn. Think burn around the tongue and a bit in the back of your throat. Not super hot, but the burn is all the way around your pallet. Large rocks glass to get you nose all up in the action.
Kiss the Sun – 11.5% ABV
BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE! This mead is for the hot pepper heads. While not near off the charts for your hot pepper lover, it will burn off your average pedestrian pallet. But wait it is not all about the burn. The sweetness intermingles with the heat nicely and the alcohol keeps the heat from lingering, the mead then fades into the pleasant Habanero flavor. The Habanero and Carolina Reaper peppers were grown and vacuum packed in the summer of 2018 from our gardens. Get it while you can it sells out quick. I like to drink this on out of a schooner glass to concentrate the capsaicin nose.
Triple Berry Blend – 13% ABV
Currently our only completely dry mead offering. We used Black Currant, Black Raspberry, and Boysenberry fruit along with Wild Flower (polyflora) Honey to make this mead. The most dry red wine like mead we make, for the wine purist this mead offers complex fruits, hefty acids and tannins for backbone. Red Burgundy glass seems about right.
Ciders now on tap in our garden.
Elderberry Hard Cider
Peach / Apricot Hard Cider
Dry Blend #1
Blackberry / Black Currant
Rare Meads!
Mead of Poetry – Bourbon Barrel – 10% ABV
2019 1st Place Indiana State Fair, 3rd Place National Honey Board Mead Competition
Mead of Poetry – Brandy Barrel – 11% ABV
Our old barrel aged meads are some of the most complex wines we have ever produced. Barrel aging causes evaporation and oxidation, which concentrates and adds many intense flavors like oak, vanilla, sherry, bourbon, cherry, char, they are sweet but with an oakiness that keeps it from being cloyingly sweet, the finish sails off into the sunset. This one is for a snifter, to be sipped. Have it for dessert or with a fine cigar. With this kind of aging we have a very limited supply. The Mead of Poetry is Mead so complex it will expand your palate, mind, and knowledge. In mythology those who drank the Mead of Poetry became all knowing beings able to answer any question or solve any problem.
About
Who is Hive and Barrel Meadery?
Hive and Barrel Meadery is actually a team of three owners.
Lacie Monno, who also owns Backside Grill in Oldham Gardens as well bring all of her business organization skills to the table everyday.
Joel Halbleib comes to Hive and Barrel as an owner, head mead maker, and director of operations, and has been in the Louisville, KY brewing scene for decades. Joel has a long history of brewing award winning beverages.
George Parker is our man in the field handling all of our marketing, sales, client relations, and a host of other hats daily.