Apis Póltorak Jadwiga

Brewed by Spółdzielnia Pszczelarska Apis
Style: Mead
Lublin, Poland

I will get flamed like hell for this, but I just don’t see it. The Olympic Cellars was so much more refined and subtle. Lumfest 2008- Clear brown color and smelled of communion wine. That element followed straight to the taste- strong communion wine. Flame away.

Bottle. [thank you, Aga]
[shared with enjoyit @ Ølkonsortiet]
Pours a great redish golden with no head, nice lacing of alcohol on the glass. Aroma is great, sweet but balanced. Light honey, oak, maple, port and apples. Super sticky oily mouthfeel. Very sweet flavour, raisins dominating amongst soft maple honey. Then is burns a little from the alcohol before exploding with a stunning mix of flowers, apples and light raspberries. Impressive.

I was very surprised to be able to try the top rated mead, special thanks to the folks who brought this! Pours a clear garnet with tan highlights and really sticky legs along the glass. Pretty hot on the nose, but there’s plenty of vanilla, maple, and rum. Tastes sweeter than a spoonful of sugar, and damn if I didn’t love the flavor. Tons of maple, vanilla, brown sugar, honey and raisins. Very thick, sticky, and incredibly good, unfortunately my notes don’t go beyond that. The other mead I had was Chaucer’s and after much though, I decided I like this better.

Basket-covered bottle, thanks to after4ever! Pours a clear reddish brown with no head but great legs. Aroma of honey and nuts. Full, sweet body. Intense, concentrated taste of honey, nuts, maybe a dash of berries. Tasty!

The Queen pours a stunning dark amber honey color with mild aromas of spice and acids. This already tells me I’m in for a treat. Jad lays heavy on the palate and leaves nothing to be desired. It’s luscious, chewy, and seductive. I can see why they call it the Honey Moon wine. You want dessert, well, you got it ten fold. This stuff is thick and viscous like fresh poured 30WT. It’s not as complex as I imagined but tastey with a defined roasted honey component. Mildly spiced and perfectly balanced armed with it’s penetrating acidity. This is fat and decadent with mild nuances of candy necklace and caramel apple. The finish is long and lasting with a slight acidic twitch. Overall: Jadwiga actually lacks the strong musty tones found in most Mead. Probably due to it’s aging. I wouldn’t call this a dissapointment.

Bottle thanks to Solan! Thanks again. The aroma is lots of sugars, honey, raspberry in the slightest amount, and phenol alcohol...lots of it! This damn near burns my nose when smelling it! However...even with that detractor this stuff is still effin unbelievable!! I have had multiple samples of it over the past week and a half or so and I have come to the conclusion that I simply must always have a bottle of this on hand at all times. It was a little overbearing at first, but now I cant get enough of this stuff. The flavor is lots of residual sugars, sweet sweet honey elixir without being too syrupy or cloying. There is also just a little hint of the alcohol but it is very welcoming in this sipper. And at 16% alcohol...it really should be a sipper. Overall fantastic stuff, and it has definitely set me up to embark on finding more meads!

Wow. I wasn’t sure heading in how much I’d like this - all of the few meads I’ve tried so far have been very unimpressive, with unpleasant acetone/solventy type flavors. This one: absolutely none of that. As good as I might have imagined this, this beats it. Beautiful big sweet honey aromas and flavors, with an earthy almost farmy background. Actually the farmy component reminds me of something very specific: the horse barns at the state fair, with aromas of horse sweat and urine soaked hay. But that’s not to say this seems like brett or lambic. Not at all. Rounded clean palate. Easy finish. Hardly any hint of its potent alcoholic strength. I poured this into a dessert wine glass, and just couldn’t help but treat myself to 3 or 4 more pours. I don’t think this is going to be able to last long in my house! Surprisingly dark color, a tawny caramel type brown. I’m not doing a great job making this sound great, but it was.

This guy stands out as a behemoth in the mead category, I’m psyched, so here goes.....Beautiful reddish honey color with a nice dark, reflective look and nice legs (hate using wine terms). Aroma is big and very sweet - lots of fresh honey and a bit of alcohol. Also picking up some earth and berries. Flavor is a wonderful mix of honey, alcohol (just enough to burn!), berry/earth/mother naturs/back to my primal roots kind of thing. Wonderful, thick mouthfeel. Wow - super strong and I can only imagine it gets even better with serious aging (as do most meads). Awesome! Thanks to miketd and stateline liquors for bottles of this guy.