Traditional Meads are fermented from honey and water with no additional adjuncts or additives, other than common flavor-neutral processing aids. Aging in traditional wood is allowable in any style as a relatively neutral, background character. The styles within this category are divided by perceived residual sweetness, which allows for less fatiguing judging.

A mead made with fruit is called a Melomel, although some melomels are better known by other names (e.g., cyser, pyment). Styles within the Melomel category are divided to assist with judging, and should be thought of more as competition entry categories than actual styles. M2E Other Fruit Mead is for types of fruit not specifically listed or for melomels that mix fruit from multiple styles.

In the context of this category, the term fruit is defined as having the same usage as in the preamble to category 29 Fruit Beer in the 2021 BJCP Beer Style Guidelines. Category M1 describes the base character expected from dry, semi-sweet, and sweet meads.

A Cyser is a melomel made with apples (generally unfermented cider, but can be a must from table or cider apples) or other pome fruit (pears, quince).

A Pyment is a melomel made with wine or table grapes (generally from juice or must). Pyments can be red, white, or rosé, just as with wine.

A Berry Mead is an entry category for melomels made with one or more type of berry, such as raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, currants (black, red, and white), strawberries, boysenberries, elderberries, marionberries, mulberries, lingonberries, huckleberries, cranberries, etc. Generally, any fruit with ‘berry’ in the name would qualify. Berries can have seeds, but do not have stones/pits.

A Stone Fruit Mead is an entry category for melomels made with one or more stone fruit, such as cherries, plums, peaches, apricots, and mangoes. Stone fruit are fleshy fruit with a single large pit or stone.

The Other Fruit Mead style is for melomels made with any fruit not associated with any previous melomel style, or with a combination of fruit from multiple fruit mead styles (such as grapes and stone fruit). Some examples include citrus fruit, dried fruit (dates, prunes, raisins, etc.), fig, pomegranate, prickly pear, banana, pineapple, guava, and most other tropical fruit. If in doubt, enter the fruit here – judges should be flexible in allowing fruit not explicitly named in other styles.

Spiced Mead includes mead with some form of added spice, herb, or vegetable (SHV). The general term spice is defined as in category 30 Spiced Beer in the 2021 BJCP Beer Style Guidelines, including the distinction between specific usages of spice, herb, and vegetable. Table salt at a noticeable level is considered a spice. Hopped meads are best entered in the Experimental Mead style. The category is divided into three styles based on the specific ingredients used; read the style preambles for details.

Category M1 describes the base character expected from dry, semi-sweet, and sweet meads.

A Metheglin contains one or more culinary spices or herbs, but does not include any vegetables. This explicitly includes coffee, chocolate, nuts (or anything with ‘nut’ in the name, including coconut, rose petals and hips, spruce tips, hibiscus, fruit peels and zest, and the like.

A Vegetable Mead must contain at least one vegetable and may contain one or more herbs or spices. The following ingredients are explicitly included as vegetables: rhubarb, pumpkins, and chile peppers. Culinary transformations of ingredients (e.g., roasted peppers) are also allowable.

A Fruit and Spice Mead is a mead containing one or more fruits and one or more spices, herbs, or vegetables. Basically, this is any mead containing at least one allowable specialty ingredient from each of categories M2 and M3.

Specialty Meads include those meads with added flavorings or using processes not already described in categories M1, M2, or M3. All must be recognizable as a mead with a pleasant integration of the specialty aspect into a coherent, synergistic end product.

Category M1 describes the base character expected from dry, semi-sweet, and sweet meads.

A Braggot is a mead made with malt or beer. A braggot should be discernable as a mead and not simply a honey beer, but specific ratios of honey to beer are not mandated.