The books / Mead Making / chapter 20 of 21
Selling mead, and the licence
All chapters
- Honey, water and yeast
- Why mead goes wrong
- Never boil the must
- Honey and gravity
- The alcohol is the gravity you lost
- Choosing a yeast
- Feed it in thirds
- Sanitise everything it touches
- The cellar through the year
- Three steady readings
- Racking off the lees
- Faults and what caused them
- A stuck ferment and the restart
- Clearing, fining and the second racking
- Stabilise before you sweeten
- Dry, semi-sweet and sweet
- Bottling
- Varietal meads
- Patience is a technique
- Selling mead, and the licence
- What the cellar leaves out
Making mead at home is legal in many places; selling it is not so simple. In the United States an adult may make wine, mead included, for personal or family use without a licence: up to 100 US gallons a year in a single-adult household, 200 with two or more adults. None of it may be sold. Selling needs federal permits, and each state adds its own rules.
In the United Kingdom there is no licence and no stated limit for making it for yourself. Selling it means registering with HMRC, paying alcohol duty and registering as a food business, and selling alcohol to the public also needs a premises licence and a personal licence from the local council under the Licensing Act 2003.
None of this is legal advice.
In this game the stand and the co-op buy your mead without a licence. Most real ones would ask for one.