Review of not a cider, but a mead, Nectar Creek Top Bar (coffee).  Nectar Creek closed in October 2019, but 2 Towns Ciderhouse has started making their meads.  It is my first time trying this, but I’ve had Nectar Creek’s Honeycone, Waggle, and Nectarade.

>>This is a review of a sample bottle provided to Cider Says by 2 Towns.  Although I will take care to treat it the same as any other review, there is always the potential for bias as I received it for free.  The only consideration I knowingly made was pushing this up in my review cue.  I love free stuff, especially cider!  Want your cider or mead reviewed here?  Contact me.<<

Mead:  Top Bar
Meadery:  Nectar Creek
Location:  Corvallis OR
ABV:  8.0%
How Supplied:  500ml bottles
Style: American craft mead (made from water & honey), with coffee and apple brandy

Availability:  2 Towns’ taproom, local delivery in Corvallis OR, and online sales, until a full roll out in September with 6 packs of cans

Mead Description:  Locally roasted coffee blended with unfiltered honey makes for a mead that is rich, complex, and sessionable all at the same time.

Meadery Description:  Founded in 2012, Nectar Creek makes meads using unfiltered honey. Their offerings include a wide variety of lightly carbonated meads. As one of the leaders of the resurgence of the mead category, Nectar Creek’s products have been helping bring this age-old beverage into the mainstream.

Price:  n/a (retails for ~ $7-8 / bottle)
Where Bought:  n/a
Where Drank:  home
How Found:  it showed up

First Impression:  Light caramel hue.  Low carbonation.  Smells of sweet coffee.

Tasting Notes:  Semi-dry to semi-sweet.  Light to medium bodied.  Low tartness, acidity, and bitterness.  No tannins, sourness, or funk.  Notes of mainly coffee with a hint of honey.  Long bitter coffee finish.  High coffee flavor.  Moderate flavor intensity and sessionability.  Low complexity and honey flavor.

My Opinion:  I wasn’t into this, but mainly as I’m not big on coffee-flavored stuff (like candy or ice cream), or even coffee (I go for tea, a latte, or Frappuccino).  My husband liked it though.  If you also really like coffee, you’ll probably like this.

Most Similar to:  The only coffee-flavored alcohol I’ve had is a cider from Schilling, Grumpy Bear, on Nitro tap, for which the coffee flavor wasn’t quite so strong.  An online search tells me that a coffee flavored mead had been done elsewhere, especially in the homebrew world (seems weird to use the word “brew” for mead or cider as heat isn’t involved like it is for beer, but that term still seems synonymous to any type of home alcohol-making).

Closing Notes:  I think their initial re-release offerings of citrus and coffee were odd choices for mead flavors, but maybe its just me.

Have you tried Nectar Creek mead?  What did you think?