The Buzz Meadery: A Delmarvalous Delight

April 2, 2021

A Sweet Spot

A few weeks ago I told you about Delmarvalous Delight Pitt Stop Beer and Wine, which we discovered while in pursuit of a local meadery, The Buzz Meadery, and today I’m delighted to highlight them!

The Buzz Meadery is somewhat hidden in a building just off Worcester Highway in Berlin, making it a true “hidden” gem. Located in the same building as Pitt Stop, but nestled in the back of the building where it’s hard to find unless someone tells you where it is, this meadery brings visitors a true Eastern Shore product. 

Buzz, buzz, buzz go the bees

Started in June 2020 (yes, a tough time to start a business!) and owned by locals Brett and Megan Hines, who not only run and staff the business but also heroically work as high school teachers, The Buzz Meadery is a recommended stop on your tour of Berlin or on your way to Ocean City, thanks to its refreshing and extremely drinkable mead.

First, I’m going to let Brett and Megan (via info I pulled from a Facebook post) answer the question: What is mead and how is it different than beer or wine?

“The main thing is that mead is made out of honey for the base sugar for fermentation, instead of grain or grapes. This does make it naturally gluten free, and we make it with raw, local honey from @apexbeecomp.

“The mead making process is also different. Unlike beer, which requires a mash process and then a boil, we are all cold side. When we brew, we simply mix honey, yeast, and water. Then over the next week or so we add in yeast nutrients to keep fermentation going, and let our mead age. The actual aging process takes about 4-5 weeks for our session meads, but up to several years for higher ABV meads.”

Making for me a little honey to put into my sweet mead.

A few things make the mead here unique: the first is that it’s not what you might have come to expect from mead: which is probably something super sweet with high sugar content. Instead, the mead here is lightly sweet, lightly carbonated, and highly refreshing. You’re not going to get instantly drunk off this mead, or get a stomachache from drinking too much, but will instead find The Buzz Meadery’s products are great for a day of day drinking. If you’re into that kind of thing 😉

The second thing that makes the mead unique is that it’s made entirely from locally sourced ingredients. In the words of Brett, who showed us around and chatted with us about their product, they truly are a local product and they firmly believe in supporting local.

Here’s more from a recent Facebook post: “If you’ve been following our story, then you already know we have a passion for using locally sourced ingredients for our brews. That means the honey, fruit, veggies, and herbs are sourced right from our local farmers here on the Eastern Shore.”

Some of their recent local suppliers include Baywater Farms, Apex Bee Company, Bennett Orchards, Pereyra Farms, East View Farms, Spendid Earth Farm, Stag Run Farm, Iron Skillet Coffee, Health Freedom Berlin and Cross Farms.

Plus, they carry art by local artists in the meadery!

But not only are they local friendly, they also work to be environmentally friendly as well! “Beyond just sourcing our ingredients locally, we also try to be as ecofriendly and sustainable as possible. We have a bottle exchange program to take back used bottles (don’t worry, we wash and sanitize each one). We also compost all of our spent fruit at our farm, if the critters don’t eat it first! And this summer, while we will be using disposable cups when outdoors, we will be composting them too so they don’t take up space in the landfill.”

And as a fun side note, I recently discovered via their Facebook page that Brett sews and he hand sewed all of the leather patches onto their new hat merch. I’m super lusting after one of these sky blue snapback hats pictured in the post carousel, they’re pretty sweet (pun intended). 

The flavors will be so sweet, when I mix water with honey.

In short, this is in no way your average meadery, Brett and Megan are building a business around both local pride and Earth-friendly practices, all while keeping the consumer’s excellent drinking experience top of mind.

The meads I tried ranged in flavor from a light cider-like mead to a slightly sweeter maple to an earthy ginger to a stronger peppermint to a heavier coffee note mead. Taste is highly subjective, so I’m not going to name my favorites The meads on tap are small batch and some appear to be more permanently on tap while others are seasonal, so you could stop in and try something new more than once. They offer mead flights, as well as take home bottles (I bought a bottle one that wasn’t on tap, opened it there, and then had them recap it so I could carry it home with me!). 

So thank you little bees for helping to make such sweet mead.

The Buzz Meadery is not just a unique local product, but is also one of my favorite things: a business doing their part to support other local businesses, and I am so pleased that I was able to discover and share with you this Delmarvalous Delight! I hope you’ll visit and let me know what you thought!

This business is a Shop Local Delmarvalous Delight and I highly recommend it! 

Business Details:

The Buzz Meadery

www.thebuzzmeadery.com/

www.facebook.com/thebuzzmeadery

located in Berlin, Md., on Rt.113

Next to John's Auto Body

Across from the Worcester County Fields

9040 Worcester Hwy.

Author's note: I took some liberties with a poem about mead by Michael Robert Triska in the headings. The full poem is reproduced below.

Buzz, buzz, buzz go the bees, around and around my trees.

Making for me a little honey to put into my sweet mead.

The flavors will be so sweet, when I mix water with honey.

So thank you little bees for helping to make such sweet mead.

The bees are such awesome fellows, such very hard workers indeed.

So thank you my little friends, for the work you have done for me and my mead.

Michael Robert Triska Copyright 2017

Angela James is a resident of Salisbury, MD and active in the Delmarva community through volunteer work for organizations such as National Folk Festival, Humane Society of Wicomico, Salisbury Pride Parade and more. A fiction editor, author career consultant and public speaker, she’s a small business owner who understands the power of word of mouth and customer reviews.

Delmarvalous Delights highlights the best of Delmarva, along with hidden gems, and shines a spotlight on those businesses that stand out consistently as Delmarvalous Delights.

If you’d like to invite Angela to visit your business, or try your products, please email angie@delmarvalousdelights.com