Redstone Sunshine Nectar

Brewed by Redstone Meadery
Style: Mead
Boulder, Colorado USA

500 mL swing top. Apricot flavor too subtle for my taste. Aroma of good mead but no fruit in the nose. Well balanced carbonation.

Sampled at world beer festival. yellow with no head, just some white bubbles. Aroma of honey, and sour apples. Flavor is preety much the same, this was unappealing to me (honey, sour apples, and alcohol).

Tap @ O’Brien’s. Clear yellow with no noticable carb & only a few small bubbles which formed the slightest, thinest semi ring, no lace. Aroma is of highly refined, slightly sour apple juice w a trace of bee’s wax. Flavor is of the refined apple juice and a touch of honey and a slight trace of wood. Very delicate and refined, interesting combination of moderately sweet and mildly tart, slightly earthy w a touch of mild spice. Light body. Very clean tasting. Alcohol very well integrated in. At first I didn’t think much of it but I couldn’t stop sipping it. Very nice but rather spendy.

Bottle (small sample) at the GABF, Colorado Convention Center 01/10/2005 Clear golden coloured and strong in alcohol with a fruity aroma and flavour. Warming slightly dry finish.

Tap @ Papago, Scottsdale, Az
Alemon jolly rancher aroma to this one. Had lime green body to it. To start with was like getting a sugar fix. Tart and fruity and mellowed out by the finish. Intriging drink to have.

Bottle at 4th Annual Wildland Firefighters Benefit & Festival at the Pumphouse in Longmont CO. Pours light, pale yellow with an edgy white head. Aroma is honey, malt, wood and cardboard, fruity nose (apricot, peaches). Sweet honey and fruity aprciot flavor, dry malty finish. Light bodied and chalky palate.

Smells meadish (honey). Very thin in color with a little dry champagne taste. Didn’t notice the apricot at all, which is what the bartender at the Glenwood Springs brewery called this guest tap (apricot mead), but in a way that’s just fine. A mead I could certainly have again.

Draught at Sunset Grille on 12/20/2005. Pours a quite clear golden-copper, gentle effervescence rising to create a brief wisp of bubbles and then gone. Very poor legs left behind. Aroma is dry straw, lightly sour/tart yeast notes and a slightly sweet touch of peach and apricot skin. Honey is not overbearing in the nose, perhaps even a bit lacking, adding a light candyish note, although somewhat old/stale it seems. Flavor is not what I would have expected. It is not a ripe, juicy, sugary sweetness from the fruit as some meads will do, but rather a dry, lightly tart and mildly acidic apricot skin-like flavor, mixed with an almost citrus zest like note and a touch of tangy honey and yeast. Touches of hard candy on the end, with dry, tart fruit, but the tartness/dryness leaves an empty feeling as the texture is slightly loose, unremarkable, you might say. Alcohol (such that I am used to) is well-concealed, but that strange tartness thing has a sharp quality to it that rather cuts the palate unpleasantly. I guess they are going for a dry effect overall, but I don’t think a little bit of sweet residual honey or fruit sugars would hurt.