How Mead Works – Valheim

Mead is an important part of Valheim. Once you master the art of brewing Mead, your journey through the Tenth World will become much smoother, as you’ll be able to better heal your Viking and better prepare for many of the challenges ahead. This guide will tell you all you need to know about Mead and how it works in Valheim.

Mead Basics

Valheim is pretty generous with its definition of Mead. It groups things like wine, tonics, and concoctions under the same umbrella. This makes it easier for us to craft all our potions using the same mead-brewing system.

Meads and Mead derivatives available in Valheim are varied in what they do. Some, like the Medium Healing Mead, are straightforward potions that restore your health, stamina, or Eitr. Others will help you in combat, like the Poison Resistance Mead that naturally raises your resistance to poison. And then there are Meads that provide short and medium-length buffs. There’s Mead of Troll Endurance that increases your max carry weight, Tonic of Ratatosk that makes jumping easier, Brew of Animal Whispers that helps you tame wild beasts, and more.

How to Drink Mead

Once you have some Mead in your inventory, you can use it by right-clicking it. You can also assign it to your hotbar and then press the associated button to quickly drink the Mead even in combat. This is especially useful for the healing Meads.

After you drink a particular Mead, you won’t be able to drink another one for a while. For Meads with a set duration, this cooldown is equal to that duration. You’ll be able to drink a new buffing Mead immediately after the previous one’s effects run out.

The big exception there are the healing, stamina, and Eitr Meads. These tend to work fast, but then have an extended cooldown during which you can’t use another Mead of the same type. Important to note here is that this cooldown is shared between various tiers of Mead. This means that if you drink a Minor Healing Mead, you won’t be able to drink a Major, Medium, or Lingering Healing Mead for the next 2 minutes. The same principle applies to stamina and Eitr meads.

How to Brew Mead

Brewing Mead in Valheim is a multi-step process we describe in great detail in our How to Brew Mead guide. But in short, you will need to set up a Mead Ketill over a working campfire, and at least one Fermenter. You’ll be able to build these after you’ve obtained some of the resources found in the Black Forest biome.

When you first build a Mead Ketill and interact with it, you’ll have access to several basic Mead recipes. You unlock all the others automatically when you pick up some of the ingredients needed to brew the more advanced Meads.

Consult the Ketill for what you need, then combine those ingredients into a Mead Base for your Mead. When you have the Mead Base in your inventory, interact with an empty Fermenter. This will place the Mead Base inside and start the fermenting process. It takes 2 in-game days for Mead to ferment. After these two days interact with the Fermenter again and you’ll get your Mead.

Full Mead List

Below you’ll find a full list of all Meads available in the game. Keep in mind that while the game classifies the Love Potion as a Mead, you can’t actually brew it and simply have to buy it from the Bog Witch.

Mead	Ingredients
Anti-Sting Concoction Duration: 600 • Cooldown: 600 Effects: Repels Deathsquitos	Cloudberries: x10 Grouper: x3 Fragrant Bundle: x1
Berserkir Mead Duration: 20 • Cooldown: 20 Effects: Weak VS Slash, Blunt, Pierce; Attack, Block, Dodge Stamina use -80%	Mushroom: x10 Yellow Mushroom: x10 Toadstool: x1
Brew of Animal Whispers Duration: 600 • Cooldown: 600 Effects: Double taming speed	Onion: x5 Carrot: x10 Pungent Pebbles: x1
Draught of Vananidir Duration: 300 • Cooldown: 300 Effects: Swim stamina usage: -50%	Dandelion: x10 Perch: x2 Fresh Seaweed: x1
Fire Resistance Barley Wine Duration: 600 • Cooldown: 600 Effects: Resistant VS Fire	Barley: x10 Cloudberries: x10
Frost Resistance Mead Duration: 600 • Cooldown: 600 Effects: Resistant VS Frost	Honey: x10 Thistle: x5 Bloodbag: x2 Greydwarf Eye: x1
Lightfoot Mead Duration: 600 • Cooldown: 600 Effects: Jump height: +20%, Jump stamina usage: -30%	Scale Hide: x2 Feathers: x5 Magecap: x5
Lingering Eitr Mead Duration: 300 • Cooldown: 300 Effects: Eitr regen: +25%	Sap: x10 Vineberry Cluster: x10 Magecap: x10
Lingering Healing Mead Duration: 300 • Cooldown: 300 Effects: Health regen: +25%	Sap: x10 Vineberry Cluster: x10 Smoke Puff: x10
Lingering Stamina Mead Duration: 300 • Cooldown: 300 Effects: Stamina regen: +25%	Sap: x10 Cloudberries: x10 Jotun Puffs: x10
Love Potion Duration: 300 • Cooldown: 300 Effects: Increases Troll spawn rate
Major Healing Mead Duration: 10 • Cooldown: 120 Effects: +125 Health	Honey: x10 Blood Clot: x4 Royal Jelly: x5
Mead of Troll Endurance Duration: 300 • Cooldown: 300 Effects: Max carry weight: +250	Trollfish: x2 Honey: x10 Powdered Dragon Eggshells: x1
Medium Healing Mead Duration: 10 • Cooldown: 120 Effects: +75 Health	Honey: x10 Bloodbag: x4 Raspberries: x10 Dandelion: x1
Medium Stamina Mead Duration: 2 • Cooldown: 120 Effects: +160 Stamina	Honey: x10 Cloudberries: x10 Yellow Mushroom: x10
Minor Eitr Mead Duration: 10 • Cooldown: 120 Effects: +125 Eitr	Honey: x10 Sap: x5 Jotun Puffs: x2 Magecap: x5
Minor Healing Mead Duration: 10 • Cooldown: 120 Effects: +50 Health	Honey: x10 Raspberries: x10 Dandelion: x1
Minor Stamina Mead Duration: 2 • Cooldown: 120 Effects: +80 Stamina	Honey: x10 Raspberries: x10 Yellow Mushroom: x10
Poison Resistance Mead Duration: 600 • Cooldown: 600 Effects: Very Resistant VS Poison	Honey: x10 Thistle: x5 Neck Tail: x1 Coal: x10
Tasty Mead Duration: 10 • Cooldown: 10 Effects: Health regen: -50%, Stamina regen: +100%	Honey: x10 Raspberries: x10 Blueberries: x5
Tonic of Ratatosk Duration: 600 • Cooldown: 600 Effects: Movement speed: +15%, Run skill: +10	Honey: x10 Blueberries: x10 Cured Squirrel Hamstring: x1

We hope this guide helped you better understand the role of Mead in Valheim. If you have any additional questions about how Mead works in the game, don’t hesitate to ask.