8-13-24 Kyle Ducharme – Making Mead, Mead Education and Comps

8-13-24 Tonight we’re talking with Kyle Ducharme in Vermont. Kyle has been doing a lot of mead making classes and education and helping more people with the love of mead. Kyle Ducharme is from Northern Vermont and is a home mead maker that has experience with quality assurance positions in the food and beverage industries. He has been making mead since the fall of 2019, really diving deep during the pandemic. He originally learned from podcasts/youtubers such as Gotmead, The Mead House, Doin the Most, and Man Made Mead. He later joined his homebrew club where he discovered some other mead makers, but mainly beer brewers and judges. He was motivated by the online community to enter competitions and after winning some medals, he entered more competitions to get feedback and improve his skills. That was a valuable step, but becoming a beer and mead judge was really what made him grow exponentially in his mead making. By traveling to learn from others and to judge meads, he could bring that knowledge to others in his homebrew club and online communities. Outside of competing and judging comps, he has started a mead class and small Iron Bee style mead competition to share knowledge/feedback with others. His major goal is to create another major mead competition in New England and to bring up the homebrew mead scene in the area. He is passionate about using foraged ingredients and fruit from local farmers and utilizing honey from all over the world. His parents own a small hop yard and that is what got him initially interested in fermentation. Join us to chat with Kyle! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] Sponsor: Look no further than Honnibrook Craft Meadery in Castle Rock, Colorado, for your go-to destination for wonderful, light, and refreshing mead! We have 20 meads on tap and four seasonal mead slushees.  Go to honnibrook.com for review our tap list, upcoming events and to order online! If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @realGotMead and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Upcoming Shows Aug 27 - Matthew Chrispin - Live BJCP mead exam mead evaluation and discussion of BJCP certification Sept 10 - Copa Hidromiel competition in Mexico with Vicky and Kevin Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Let There Be Session Meads by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events May 1 - Sept 1 - Copa Hidromiel Mexico Competition Registration Aug 14 - Queen Bee Brews, Denver, CO - Magic and Mead Aug 14 - St. Ambrose Cellars, Beulah, MI - Bill Frary live music Aug 15 - Barcade, Detroit, MI - Mead-evil Madness! Aug 17 - Zymarium Meadery, Orlando, FL - First Bee-Day! Aug 17 - McAlpine Meadery, Beach City, OH - Oddmall: Mead and Feed Aug 17 - Apis Wine and Mead, Carnegie, PA - Live Music with Push Aug 17 - Etowah Meadery and Dahlonega Brewery, Dahlonega, GA - Sourwood Honey Extraction on National Honey Bee Day! Aug 18 - St. Ambrose Cellars, Beulah, MI - Honey Bee Market Aug 18 - Skäl Beer Hall, Seattle, WA - Viking Faire Aug 19 - Bardic Wells Meadery, Montague, MI - ModPoge Mixed Media art and Mead Aug 21 - Kingview Meadhouse and Winery, Mount Lebanon, PA - Trivia Night! Aug 22 - Thistlerock Mead Company, Charlottesville, VA - Tacos and Mead Aug 23 - St. Ambrose Cellars, Beulah, MI - Delilah DeWylde Live music Aug 24 - DMen Tap, Chicago, IL - Mead Fest 2024 Aug 24 - Haley's Honey Wine and Mead, Fredericksburg, VA - Mead and Read Aug 24 - Dawg Gone Bees Apiary and Meadery, Hanover, PA - Mead Making Class Aug 28 - Oppegaard Meadery, Seattle, WA - Paint and Sip Class Aug 30 - Adesanya Meadery,