I have a friend who brews mead all the time....I enjoy his very much! He is very patient with it and lets it sit the time it needs to..I find a lot of people are impatient with the fermentation of it and rack it up way too early...but I have also had some bad stuff too....to me it's similar to a wine...but that's just me :)

Randomly, I happened to try some this weekend, that were homebrewed...a clover mead and a blueberry mead (not positive the blueberry was homebrewed, but I know the clover was) and I thought they were quite good...I guess whether you like them will depend on what you are expecting. I know I hear the word brew and I imagine something beer-like, which mead is not at all...to me it was something like a combination of a hard alcohol and a particularly fruity white wine, with strong grain overtones....

I would imagine that the batch your friend made was probably just not a good batch. Try finding some more reliable store bought ones, to get a better idea of what they should taste like.

on a good beer show a year or so ago we drank
some Redstone meads that were pretty good.
We mixed thier raspberry mead with brooklyn
black chocolate stout. Excellent!

I've tried a Honey Mead. A friend brought it to our Winter Solstice celebration - very fitting.
I really liked it but you're right about the strong aftertaste. The next morning I could still taste it.

Hmmm...wonder how hard it is to make?

Mead is great! It's one of the best drinks in the world, and certainly one of the oldest. My favorite brand is Chaucer's. www.bargetto.com/chaucers.shtml

Bevmo usually keeps a stock at hand.

A bottle of Chaucer's is a great way to break the ice with a new date, as most people have never drunk it.