Sima is a a Finnish mead style drink - low alcohol and traditionally home brewed and drunk on May Day Although I did pick up a can at the local corner shop when I was in Finland last summer.
Anyways… Cafe Nort have at least two bakeries/cafes in Sheffield. The owners are Finnish. They have brewed Sima. Although they are giving it away for free so I cannot add them as a new meadery. Although ‘Sahit Bought from Some Farmer’ is allowed so maybe ‘Low Alcohol Mead Bought From Some Baker in Sheffiled’ counts.
These are the two rules from admin handbook that make me think no:
• Beverage was never commercially for sale to the public, e.g. unreleased prototypes, gifts from the brewer.
• Any offerings from a business that does not have an official alcoholic beverage production license such as homebrews or breweries not yet officially open selling prototype batches
Yep there is ~1000 meaderies in Finland if you dont count those two rules. During may day many lunch restaurants have their own “low alcohol mead” available because it is pretty easy to produce in their kitchen. I have added only those which are commercialy available at markets/shops and there is certain company behind the product.
Despite those being good rules and work for most of the beer, cider and mead there are still gray areas.
In Baltics and Mordor home-, restaurant-, farm made kvass is quite popular. I think I can go to random village fair (which are quite popular in .ee and in .lv) and buy freshly made kvass from random farmer.
Kvass has very low abv ( very rarely 1% or more) so it doesn’t require alcoholic beverage production license.
We have tried to keep common sense with this in here, but can’t guarantee that similar cases may appear somewhere else.
PS. There is also one specific law for beer in .ee : “if you brew up to 2000 litres per year and all of it is consumed on site you don’t need brewing licence”. This law is made for museums/restaurants who show how traditional brewing, food cooking etc. too place in old times. So you get the whole experience visiting those places. Beer(s) are commercially available (not for take-away), but no brewing licence is required.
I know it’s not cookie cutter by any means as you go around the world, but again are they selling it or giving it away is the main one. The second part is it really legit or are we just pushing for a new tick at all cost. It would be hard for admin to verify some of those I am sure as well.
