9-3-19 Mateusz Blaszczyk and Krzysztof Jarek, Kings of Mead Competition and European Mead Makers Association Conference

9-3-19 Tonight we're winging our way to Poland to talk with Mateusz Blaszczyk and Krzysztof Jarek with the Kings of Mead. We will not be live tonight, as our friends in Poland cannot do the live time slot. Kings of Mead is three home meadmaking friends, Mateusz, Krzysztof and Rafal Gorecki, who have a website and do a video cast about mead. They're passionate about spreading the word of mead. They do mead reviews on their site and video show, talk about the meads they're making and drinking, and about meaderies they've visited. The channel is mostly in Polish, but some of the videos are in English or have English subtitles. Maté has been making mead for about 10 years, and running his YouTube channel for a couple years. Kris joined him a year ago, and also runs the Mead Madness Cup. Rafal is a fellow mead maker who handles the IT stuff and is the camera guy. A year ago, the friends launched the Mead Madness Cup home and commercial mead competition. In this first year, they have over 90 meads from 14 countries, not a bad start at all! The Mead Madness Cup is the largest mead competition in Europe. Marcin Jaros, head of Pasieka Jaros in Poland is head of jury for the competition. The comp will have 4 categories and 11 subcategories, and also award a Grand Champion winner in both home and commercial meads. If that wasn't enough, they have also launched the European Mead Makers Conference. The conference is in it's second year now, and will offer a day of seminars and also a 2 day trip to visit Polish meaderies. And even *more*, this year the group has launched a Mead Judging training program, as getting BJCP testing in Europe has proven difficult, so they are creating a European program. The program is in it's beginning stages, but they are committed to creating a solid approach to training people to judge meads, and is aiming to start with a 'train the trainer' program. This episode will be recorded, and launched today (it's the middle of the night for them when we are live!). This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback. Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Show links and notes Evoak - Oak Solutions Black Swan Barrels (exotic woods) Ethiopian Spice Market (for gesho) Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Are You Afraid of the Rum: And Other Cocktails for 90's Kids by Sam Slaughter Upcoming Guests: Sept 10 - Meadcon East and Cornell Mead Intensive (off) Sept 17 - Traci Kuhfuss, Blacks Fairy Mead and Texas Mead Fest Upcoming Events Sept 5-7 MeadCon East Sept 7 - Folklore Brewing and Meadery - Pints for Pets Flower Girl Class Sept 13 - Meridian Hive - Muscles and Mead Bootcamp Sept 13 - House Bear Brewing - Design a Sign Workshop (with mead!) Sept 21 - Royal Manor - Mead Festival Sept 22 - Starrlight Mead - Mead Day Celebration and Fall Festival Sept 28 - Orpheus Meadfest - Tasting and Award Ceremony for Orpheus Cup Mead Competition Oct 5-5 and 12-13 - Stonekeep Meadery - Artisan Wine and Cheese pairing weekends Oct 6 - Starrlight Mead - 29th Annual A Tasteful Affair Oct 6 - Great Kiwi Mead Group - First ever New Zealand Mead Up at Remuera in Auckland - Contact Adam via the link here Oct 19 - Texas Mead Fest and competiton entries due Oct 1. Got an event you’d like us to mention on GotMead Live? Send us an email at gotmeadlive@gotmead.