The Texas Mead & Music Festival is setting up at Scarborough Village in Waxahachie on Saturday, Sept. 19, with general admission priced at $38.50, VIP tickets at $55, and discounted tickets running $11 to $22 for guests 20 and younger. The one-day event will fill the Renaissance-festival grounds with mead tastings, food vendors, Texas musicians and outdoor activities.
According to The Dallas Morning News, guests 21 and older will walk away with a commemorative tasting glass and mead-tasting tokens, and VIP ticket holders get early entry along with access to additional attractions. The festival also doubles as an early look at Scarborough's Hollow, the venue's Halloween-decorated grounds, and organizers say it will bring together mead makers from across Texas.
From Central Texas Roots to a Waxahachie Stage
This is the event's 13th annual run, and it marks the first time in the festival's history that it has ventured outside Central Texas, according to CultureMap Fort Worth. Last year's festival was held at the Heritage Museum in New Braunfels, per the same outlet.
Southwest Festivals, the company behind the long-running Scarborough Renaissance Festival, organized the Waxahachie event and lined up 13 Texas meaderies alongside five stages of live music, reports CultureMap Dallas.
Wylie and Dallas Meaderies Join the Lineup
Among the newest names on the bill is Texas Longhouse Meadery, located at 2311 E. Stone Road in Wylie, per Dallas News. The meadery was founded by military veterans Carlos and Kayla Herrera, who use Texas wildflower honey to craft both traditional high-ABV meads and lower-alcohol session pours, according to Beer in Big D.
Also on the roster is Breaking Brew Meadery, which Dallas News describes as North Texas' first dedicated mead tasting room, located at 14438 Midway Road in Dallas. Father-and-son team Gary and Blake Gordon founded the business in 2018, sourcing wildflower honey from Rogers, Texas, to make lower-ABV, carbonated session meads, according to Texas Wine Lover. The meadery also offers traditional and seasonal releases alongside mead-making classes, per Dallas News.
Carrollton and Fort Worth Round Out the Roster
Fox & Raven Mead, launched in 2021 by Bryce DeShazo and Savannah Castillo, runs a small production facility and pickup storefront in Carrollton while regularly showing up at DFW-area pop-up markets, per Beer in Big D. Dallas News notes the meadery also sells directly to customers and stocks bars and retailers throughout the region.
Rounding out the North Texas contingent is Bee & Brew, a Fort Worth meadery and coffee distributor at 217 N. Rupert St. that uses 100% raw Texas honey in its fermented mead lineup, according to Bee & Brew. The business frequently hosts tastings featuring various mead styles, Dallas News reports. Shoppers who can't make the festival can also find Texas mead selections at Total Wine & More and Spec's Wines, Spirits & Finer Foods alongside out-of-state producers, per the same report.
Why Mead Is Suddenly Everywhere
Mead is widely considered the world's oldest alcoholic beverage, with a history stretching back more than 9,000 years, per Dallas News. National Geographic traces its origins to around 7,000 B.C. in China, according to the outlet, even though the drink is most closely associated with Vikings and medieval Europe in the popular imagination.
Modern mead makers have moved past that old image, adapting the drink with regional ingredients and techniques instead of a single traditional formula, Dallas News reports. That flexibility became legally possible in 2020, when federal labeling rules loosened, according to Inside Investigator. Before then, mead was strictly limited to honey, water, yeast and minimal hops, and regulators only later allowed producers to officially include fruits, spices and citrus under standard mead classifications, per the same outlet. Craft producers have run with the opening, experimenting with fruits, spices and flowers, and the American Mead Makers Association says the number of commercial meaderies nationwide grew by 650% between 2003 and recent years, according to Wine Enthusiast.
That national growth traces back in part to farms like Walker Honey Farm in Rogers, Texas, a beekeeping operation established in 1930 that launched its own label, Dancing Bee Winery, in September 2011, according to Dancing Bee Winery. It's considered one of the state's earliest farm-to-bottle mead producers, underscoring the agricultural backbone behind the network of Central Texas honey farms and North Texas taprooms now converging on Waxahachie.
Festival Tickets and the Texas Mead Association
Ticket sales from the festival also support the Texas Mead Association, a statewide industry group promoting education, producer collaboration and craft mead growth, according to The National Law Review. The association's president, Carlos Herrera, is the same Wylie meadmaker behind Texas Longhouse Meadery.
Taken together, the lineup reflects how far Texas mead has traveled from its Viking-era reputation, with the craft's growth now anchored as much in North Texas taprooms as in the Central Texas honey farms that got the industry started.
