I headed down to Lakefront Brewery today at 2:00pm to sample the braggot. Russ Klisch, Chad Sheridan and Mike Vergolina were on hand for the tasting—the photo (taken by Chris Ranson) shows us several sips into the quite quaffable (and highly alcoholic!) brew. As Chad pointed out, our version would have been significantly cleaner than the prehistoric one but we did succeed in producing something that provides those of us with jaded modern palates with a very different flavor profile. The mint actually came through first, which was unexpected, followed by the slightly astringent meadow sweet, but the honey was barely in evidence (having been almost completely converted to alcohol). With an ABV of over 8%, this is not your grannie’s braggot—and although adding honey at this stage would probably make it more drinkable for the RenFest mead imbibers, we decided to leave it as is.
 

(l-r) Mike Vergolina, Russ Klisch, Bettina Arnold and Chad Sheridan toast photographer Chris Ranson in samples of Keltenbräu #2

If you want to try it for yourself, come to our Wisconsin Science Festival Event in the UW-Milwaukee Honors College Room 196 at 3:30pm on October 22:

https://www.wisconsinsciencefest.org/program-guide.wsf

Type in “Power Drinking in Prehistoric Europe” or “University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee”.