Robert Bell's
Wines of Canada
Since 1992
Mead
Alberta
Chinook Honey Co - photo credit
Travel Alberta
Alberta is a province in Western Canada. Its landscape encompasses mountains, prairies, desert badlands and vast coniferous forests. It has more than 600 lakes, and rich mineral deposits. In the west, the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks have glaciers in the Columbia Icefields.
According to Agriculture Canada, Alberta produces 45% of Canadian honey. It is of high quality and comes from clovers, canola flowers and wildflowers. The seasons, the regions and the diversity of flora also contribute to subtle differences in flavours and aromas. Just like grapes are to wine, honey is to mead, which brings in an exciting notion of “terroir”.
Birds & Bees Winery Inc.Box 110
Brosseau, AB, Canada
Away back in 1927 John S. and Eva Chrapko start the homestead that now operates as Orchard Palace and En Santé Winery. Located near the shores of Lac Sante in North Eastern Alberta, 100 miles (160 km) East of Edmonton. Here they took on a leadership role in the community and raised five children.
Their middle son Victor took over the farm in 1974 from his parents along with his wife Elizabeth. They begin the first steps toward a low-impact, "environmental " approach to cultivating the land. In addition, the En Sante orchard operation partnered with the University of Saskatoon in developing hardy fruit varieties that can take advantage of the local soil conditions and growing season.
The whole Chrapko family enjoyed the distinction of being honoured with a provincial “Farm Family Award” in 1990, partly attesting to their ceaseless pursuit of big-picture, modern farming as well as strong citizenship.
In 1997 they began to experiment with fruit wines. In 1999 "Orchard Palace" is designated Certified Organic for agricultural production by Organic Crop Improvement Association International and later in 2001 they pursued the idea of an Organic fruit winery. In their typically forward-thinking style, the Chrapkos began lobbying the Government of Alberta to create the new Alberta Cottage Winery license. Their efforts attracted other supporters, fruit growers, and the Alberta Beekeepers' Association. After many years, the Cottage Winery Act was recently passed into law
The Forbidden Fruit name was chosen to signal the fact that En Sante's offerings transcend the fruit "corner" of the wine-making world. After 10 years of refining its recipes and production methods while waiting for the Cottage Winery license to come into existence, En Sante now has wines that are enjoyable with a meal, on their own (sipped like you would enjoy port or sherry), OR as accompaniments to dessert. An official license was received February, 2006, en Santé Winery became Alberta's very first Organic-Fruit, Cottage Winery
They produce a mead called "Honey I have Meads"
En Sante Winery was the original name.
Winemaker: Victor ChrapkoPhilosophy: Wine made the way it's supposed to be made" (i.e. using organic fruit).
Broken Tine Orchard
SE 31 70 12 W6M
County of Grande Prairie, Alberta
The cidery is owned by Kreg and Lee-Anne Alde. Kreg and Lee-Anne are 4th generation farmers of the Aldes and also manage Alde Farms. Kreg is the vintner and works with Dominic Rivard as the winemaster. The farm is situated south west of Beaverlodge, Alberta, Canada, along the Rocky Mountain foothills. Current cultivated land is approximately 2400 acres, with the main farm crops canola, wheat and barley.
The cidery name: We are on the edge of agricultural land and blessed with abundant wildlife. We have quite a few deer in the area and it’s a common occurrence to find the deer antler sheds in our fields; its common that they have been hit by equipment and will have broken tines.
In 2011, they planted a Haskap orchard to start into diversification and help in the succession of this proud farm. They currently produce 3 types of Melomel, which is a type of mead, when you ferment the berries with the honey from the beginning. We use our haskap berries from our orchard and honey from hives on our property
Haskap Melomel, Haskap Melomel with Ginger, Haskap Melomel aged in Bourbon barrels
There are two hives communities on the farm property and since haskap berries are the first to flower, the bees are quick to be out in the spring. The hives are very healthy and they promote having food and water for the bees all year. They don’t spray any insecticides, herbicides or pesticides on the orchard during the growing season.We are a 4th generation farm with my family homesteading the land in 1926, with the Haskap orchard located on the original homestead cleared land.
The Haskap Melomel won gold in 2020 for top mead in Alberta, from the Alberta Beverage Awards.
Kreg and Lee-Ann have one conventional style fruit wine currently, HasRas oak aged, which is a red wine style.
Philosophy:
We are after a fruit forward, easy drinking, slight honey notes, and off dry flavour. We only use top quality berries and honey to make our meads. We want people to drink our mead and think of fresh summer flowers and berries, sunshine and honey. Melomels typically are not as honey forward as conventional mead and go very well with white meat meals, salty appetizers, or chilled sitting and a warm deck.
Chinook Honey Co
Over looking the beautiful foothills close to Calgary you find Alberta's first honey winery owned by Art and Cherie Andrew. The name “Chinook Arch Meadery” was chosen to reflect the unique weather phenomena that occurs in the lee of the Rocky Mountains where our honey is harvested and where the mead is created.
Chinook Honey Company started as a beekeeping hobby in 1995 The original 2 hives soon expanded to 6, then 12 and now have blossomed to approximately 280. Art's passion for his bees was contagious, and it didn't take long before his wife Cherie started joined in. In 2004 they opened their store The Honey House
Mead was a natural progression and Art started experimenting with various recipes in 1998. After heading the Alberta Beekeepers presentation to Alberta Gaming & Liquor, mead was included in the Alberta Cottage Winery Licensing. Chinook Arch Meadery was Alberta's first licensed commercial Meadery and started production in 2007. Since then their production has grown steadily and offering a variety of mead styles including traditional, metheglins and melomels
In 2011 they released the first Iced Mead ‘Raspberry Ice' and in 2012 followed it with ‘Frosted Blisssss'. This technique is a distillation which creates a lovely dessert wine with an alc./vol. of approximately 20%.
signature meads are ‘Melissa's Gold', ‘Bodacious Black Currant' and ‘Fire ‘n Spice'.
Mead maker: Art Andrew
Philosophy: Mead is a unique beverage and not very well known in Alberta, thus we endeavor to educate everyone about its many qualities, varieties and uses
Fallen Timber Meadery
Box 27
Water Valley, Alberta
T0M 2E0
Fallentimber Meadery is located on the Ryan family farm, Northwest of Water Valley, Alberta near the west end of Big Prairie Road (Township Road 302). About a 50 minute drive from the Calgary city limits.
Back in 1969, Blake Ryan started the family business when he purchased the family farm and established his first hives. Today, Blake's son Kevin is the owner and operator of Ryan's Honey which is sold at select stores in our region.
Winemaker: Kevin Ryan
Philosophy: Our honey is collected from hives placed along a narrow band at the eastern edge of the foothills. This gives our bees access to a wide variety of wildflowers and clover that cover the hills, but limits their exposure to the expansive croplands to the east. In addition to careful hive placement, our honey is meticulously handled, and never pasteurized. All of our meads are produced with Ryan's Honey and that unique flavour comes through in every glass
Fuhr Estate Winery
53019 Range Road 15
Parkland County, AB
Parkland is about 71 km west of Edmonton. Furh Estate is a meadery and craft distillery
Aaron Fuhr as an allergy to hops so he searched for other options leading to the openy of the meadery in 2018. Three additional people are involved Clayton, Brenda and Desi.
Desi: I want to create an environmentally conscious and eco friendly farm to table business using local sourced materials. Growing up I didn’t truly appreciate the farm and how much it meant to me, now I want to create something that lasts another generation and gets it back to its roots – a working farm, just not in the traditional sense.
Grey Owl Meadery
452036 Hwy 22, Box 525
Alder Flats, AB T0C 0A0
Grey Owl Meadery is nestled on the edge of the foothills and boreal forests of West Central Alberta. A family business that started with a dream of owning and running a small winery. The meadery was built from ground up on the family farm.
A radio segment on Alberta’s cottage wine industry planted the seed in Arleen Schwengler’s mind, which later sprouted into Grey Owl Meadery. As she and her husband, Walter, were approach retirement age and looking to leave their careers in the oilfield, they decided to get into beekeeping and winemaking, together with their son Caleb,
Old Station Honey & Mead
4999 Centre Street
New Sarepta, AB
The farm where most of the hives reside has been owned by William Munsey for 20 years. He brought his family from Japan (where he'd spent 15 years teaching and translating) to grow up in a more natural environment.
The old fire hall where the meadery is, started life in the Hamlet of New Sarepta, in 1974 as a fire hall for a small volunteer fire department, which grew so big it had to be replaced by a new fire hall in 2021. The County of Leduc, which owns the fire hall was going to tear it down until William Munsey and his partner Kevin Borch convinced them to let them open a meadery there. The meadery opened its doors in May, 2022 and has become a bit of a community hub.The owners are William and Mika Munsey, Kevin Borch and Chris LaBossiere. William is the mead maker.
Mead Philosophy? We love our bees and the ancient craft of mead-making and we're committed to our community. We want to make meads out of local honey and local berries and herbs we can grow in our region... what we call "prairie-possible meads."
Stolen Harvest Meadery
Grovedale, AB
T0H-1X0
A Small batch meadery based near Grande Prairie Alberta. The meadery is owned by Kristeva Dowling and Eric Erme.
How was the name chosen: We had a large black boar bear visiting our hives nightly and stealing the honey. We nicknamed him Cheerio because of his love for our honey and all the oats in his scat!
Kristeva- is a well-traveled anthropologist with a sense of adventure and a bland food phobia. She spent many years wandering the globe in search of foreign cultures and culinary adventures. She is the author of Chicken Poop for the Soul: in search of food sovereignty. The story of her self-sufficient journey towards independence by learning how to hunt, gather, and raise all her own food. What started as an experiment for a book quickly became a passion and a way of life for her. She enjoys taking wine-lovers outside their comfort zone by introducing them to her wildly inspired meads.
Eric is the backbone and nuts and bolts of the team. He has built the meadery from the ground up with the help dedicated friends along the way. Eric is passionate about being in nature and is chief scout when it comes to foraging for ingredients.
won three gold medals at the World Mead Challenge
Gold Medal Winners of the World Mead Challenge 2020” for the Coffee Bochet, Saskatoon, and their Bochet.
We believe that great meads begin with great honey. And the Canadian Prairies produce great honeys.
Tamarack Jack's Honey and Meadery
51079 Township Rd 360
Caroline, AB
Located south west of Red Deer in the foothills. This family-run meadery makes every bottle of their delicious mead from their very own honey. The bees in their 450 hive apiary feed on the various wildflowers and plant species in the surrounding countryside.
Named after the Tamarack trees near by and a tribute to the lumber Jack.
Alberta Beverage Awards 2018 - Judges Selection (Sawyer Mead)
Canadian Bee Better Conference AGM 2017 - 2nd place (Buzzsaw Mead)
The owner and winemaker Kaitlin Kingdon
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