Sometimes known by its alias, honey wine, mead can be mistaken for a fermented beverage made of grapes, especially since some meads contain fruit.

Mead is made of honey diluted with water and mingled with yeast, and the drink is designated as mead if most of its fermentable sugars come from honey.

Overall, mead shares more similarities with wine than beer. Mead's sweetness is close to wine, with that extra honey flavor through back-sweetening or once it has fermented.

Mead can be still, sparkling, sweet, or dry and uses wine and champagne yeasts to accelerate fermentation.

Like beer and wine, different types of mead are made by adding ingredients such as fruit and spices or having differing alcohol levels.

Mead is gluten-free, whereas beer is not, and wine usually is. Unlike beer, mead is not boiled and takes months or years to ferment, like wine.