Mead

Mead (/ˈmiːd/; archaic and dialectal "medd"; from Old English "meodu",) is an alcoholic beverage created by fermenting honey with water, sometimes with various fruit, spices, grains, or hops. (Hops act as a preservative and produce a bitter, beer-like flavor.) The alcoholic content of mead may range from about 8% ABV to more than 20%. The defining characteristic of mead is that the majority of the beverage's fermentable sugar is derived from honey. It may be still, carbonated, or naturally sparkling; and it may be dry, semi-sweet, or sweet.

Mead is known from many sources of ancient history throughout Europe, Africa and Asia. "It can be regarded as the ancestor of all fermented drinks," Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat has speculated, "antedating the cultivation of the soil." Hornsey considers archaeological evidence of it ambiguous; however, McGovern and other archaeological chemists consider the presence of beeswax markers and gluconic acid, in the presence of other substances known to ferment, to be reasonably conclusive evidence of the use of honey in ancient fermented beverages.

Mead (crater)

Mead is an impact crater on Venus named in honor of the cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead.

Mead crater is the largest impact crater on Venus, with a diameter of 280 km (174miles). The crater has an inner and an outer ring and a small ejecta blanket surrounding the outer ring. The crater floor looks very similar in morphology to the surrounding plain.

Mead is classified as a multi-ring crater with its innermost, concentric scarp being interpreted as the rim of the original crater cavity. No inner peak-ring of mountain massifs is observed on Mead. The presence of hummocky, radar-bright crater ejecta crossing the radar-dark floor terrace and adjacent outer rim scarp suggests that the floor terrace is probably a giant rotated block that is concentric to, but lies outside of, the original crater cavity. The flat, somewhat brighter inner floor of Mead is interpreted to result from considerable infilling of the original crater cavity by impact melt and/or by volcanic lavas. To the southeast of the crater rim, emplacement of hummocky ejecta appears to have been impeded by the topography of preexisting ridges, thus suggesting a very low ground-hugging mode of deposition for this material.

Mead (disambiguation)

Mead is an alcoholic drink made from honey

Mead may also refer to:

Places

Companies

See also