Homer, Alaska
Crusin’ Rating: B+
Booze Rating: B+
This week, we are continuing in the picturesque town at the point where the highway ends at the ocean, Homer, Alaska.
I know we dove right into Homer earlier in our Alaskan series with Homer Brewing Company. Let me take a moment to step back and take you on a brief tour in your mind of the scenery. Taking Highway 1 south about 90 miles out of Anchorage and taking the exit toward Homer, the scenery, like so much of Alaska - is humbling. As the highway winds though valley after valley with green mountains reaching into the sunny sky and snow reflecting off the peaks. The hours, honestly, flew by with awesome sight after sight. Just as back here, I never get sick of seeing a rolling hill with a farm on it in the distance and a tractor kicking up dust - I don’t know if I will ever get over being in 80 degree heat in a valley but looking up and seeing snowcaps. As the highway snakes its way farther south along the western edge of the Kenai Peninsula, Hannah and I spotted a few lonely ice-clad mountains that jutted above the others now and again across the Cook Inlet. We rounded a bend and cliff that overlooked a small fishing community below -Historic Ninilchik - and soon after discovered those ominous peaks were all inactive volcanoes. Frozen and sleeping.
After taking a brief pause to marvel over Mt. Redoubt, we headed farther south still. Gradually the highway begins its descent back down to sea level. Coming round a curve, you are met with a sight that I well remember from my first trip to Alaska 20 years ago. Homer lies on a hillside that spills down toward the ocean. From that spill, a line juts out into the waters - the Homer Spit - a little over 4 mile gravel bar that features restaurants, shops, campgrounds, the docks and even a resort at the very tip. Calling it something out of a postcard does not do it justice. Like so many things in Alaska, the most expensive camera you could buy would also fail to capture what you see.
That small city is where we find ourselves this week. Traveling northeast out of town, farther inland along Kachemak Bay, stopping briefly to say hello to a black bear, we passed the Homer Boat Yard and found our destination. Odin Mead and Wine occupies an industrial space in a pole barn-turned tasting room. A handful of picnic tables out front on a concrete pad and a sign above the door to let you know you are in the right place.
Now, you all know that Hannah is not the biggest fan of mead, and she had already had a run-in with some local honey in a little shop. That very shop taught us the owner of Odin Mead and Wine was using that same local honey to craft some savory beverages. We had the good fortune of visiting when it was just us and the owner, Grad in the early afternoon. He was friendly, welcoming, and had fantastic suggestions on both the meads we should try in our flight, the cocktails and a brief synopsis of how he started out as a designer and then moved onto mead once he moved to Homer.
Walking into the space, it is clear it’s intended to be functional, although the disco ball above the indoor picnic tables denotes a little bit of character. A large bar takes up the right side of of the space behind which Grady crafted some pleasant mead-based cocktails. We snagged a flight of five different wines after out cocktails were finished.
Spruce Tip (3.0% ABV) - If you read our last article on spruce tip beer it should be little surprise that you can also find spruce tips used in some local mead. This mead poured cloudy yellow and had the definite green, fresh aroma spruce, almost a lemon-lime citrus. Sweet spruce flavor, a green citrus, red berry, evergreen needles, and almost a lemon-lime soda quality without being cloyingly sweet. Hannah, surprisingly, really enjoyed this mead and said that it would be excellent chilled.
Raspberry Rhubarb (7.0% ABV) - This mead featured low carbonation, and was ruby red with high clarity. With a strong aroma of rhubarb jam with a little bit of raspberry mixed in. Tasting this mead brought on plenty of that jammy raspberry flavor that moves to rhubarb. We both thought this one ended sort of messy with an almost bready-yeast like quality that neither of us enjoyed. For Hannah’s part, she wished that the tartness of the Rhubarb was stronger.
Black Currant (8.0% ABV) - This mead was garnet red with high clarity and featured low carbonation. With a little bit of red fruit and strong boozy notes on the nose, that booziness carried over along with notes of red currant skins, there was some definite tannic presence there in the middle of tasting and then a fairly boozy finish again. While it was not bad, we weren’t really in love with the booziness of this mead.
Wildflower (14.0% ABV) - This mead was aged three years and was the color of white wine and featured brilliant clarity. With the aroma of honey and grassland flowers this mead tasted of yeast up front, then honey-softened booziness and was quite a bit on the sweet side with medium carbonation. I found this to be too sweet even for my mead tastes.
Barrel Aged Birch Bitter (15.8% ABV) - This mead, aged 3 years poured a dark maple syrup brown and featured low clarity. With a pleasantly sweet aroma of brandied syrup. This mead first and foremost tasted of birch syrup - another Alaskan flavor we came across a few times. Birch syrup, while sweet like maple has an almost rye-like spiciness to it and a definite rich caramel note to it. Although we didn’t pick up any bitter notes at all despite the name, we found this mead to be complex. There were those rich rye-like spice notes, deep swathes of caramel, and barrel notes of charred wood. This mead is one of the best that I’ve had the pleasure of tasting to this day and Hannah liked it so much that she insisted we bring a bottle home for the Crusin’ for booze bar.
Overall, although the space wasn’t anything super stand-out in terms of decoration, it was functional, the owner was friendly, and we found cocktails and meads that we really enjoyed. Within a short distance (that we didn’t learn until a day later) is easily the best fish and chips we found while in Alaska at the Boatyard Cafe. It’s an easy one-two punch that will make for a great afternoon break from the many shops, art galleries, fishing expeditions, and other adventures that make up each day in Homer.
Until next time, keep on Crusin’ don’t stop boozin’!
To learn more about Odin Mead & Wine, please visit their website at: www.odinmead.com or on Facebook: @OdinMeadery or on Instagram: @OdinMeadery
While our reviews may not have always found us the best of beers or imbibements, each and every one of these was a piece of a trip that was filled with too many once-in-a-lifetime experiences to count. So know that, no matter the ratings we give this series, I think a trip to Alaska is all but mandatory for those of us who wish to be closer to nature, see why the National park
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