How to Brew Mead – Valheim

A good Viking never leaves the longhouse without eating a hearty meal or three. But what if that’s not enough to give you the edge to face the monsters inhabiting the tenth world? It’s unbecoming for a Viking to dabble in alchemy to make potions. Instead, real Vikings brew and drink Mead. This guide will help you set up your personal Valheim brewery and create an assortment of Meads with various beneficial effects.

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 are straightforward potions that restore your health, stamina, or Eitr. Others will help you in combat, like those Meads that increase your resistance to certain elements. And then there are those Meads that provide short and medium-length buffs that help with exploration. They increase your maximum carry weight, make you better at running or swimming, and help you tame wild beasts.

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.

Setting Up Your Brewery

Now that we’re familiar with the basics, let’s set up our stations and start brewing Mead. The most advanced resource we’ll need for our brewing is Bronze. You’ll need to combine Tin and Copper at the Forge to create Bronze. This means you’ll be able to become a proper Viking brewmaster after you’ve done your fair share of exploration in the Black Forest biome.

Valheim’s brewing system requires two distinct elements – a Mead Ketill and a Fermenter.

Crafting a Mead Ketill

To craft a Mead Ketill you will need:

• Tin x4
• Copper x6
• Leather Scraps x2

You get Tin by smelting Tin Ore that you mine from the silvery deposits found near water in the Black Forest biome. You mine Copper from the big greenish deposits also found in the Black Forest, but more inland. And finally, you get Leather Scraps by hunting boars in the Meadows.

You will need to place the Ketill over a Campfire, which is one of the game’s most basic crafting recipes. It requires:

• Stone x5
• Wood x2

You can simply pick up Stone from the ground even in the Meadows biome. And to get Wood, you’ll need to chop down some basic trees.

For the Ketill to work, the Campfire must be burning. If it doesn’t, target it with your cursor and add some Wood to it. This naturally produces smoke. So if you’re placing your brewery inside a house, make sure to create a chimney or a window so that the smoke can escape.

In order to place the Ketill, you need a Forge nearby. The Ketill doesn’t need the Forge to work, just to be placed. And since you can dismantle your crafting stations to get the full resources you’ve used on them back, this makes it very easy. Just dismantle your main Forge, place it down around where you want your Ketill to go, place the Mead Ketill, then dismantle the Forge and bring it back to your main crafting area.

Crafting a Fermenter

Building a Fermenter will cost you:

• Finewood x30
• Bronze x5
• Resin x10

Finewood is a fairly rare resource you get by chopping down Birch and Oak trees that grow in the Meadows and Plains biomes. To cut those down, you will need a Bronze Axe or better. You’ll need to combine Tin and Copper at the Forge if you want to create Bronze. And you’ll get plenty of Resin by chopping down trees and fighting Greydwarf enemies.

Placing a Fermenter down requires a nearby Forge, just like with the Ketill. Make sure you keep the Forge around until you’ve placed both parts of your brewery.

Brewing Mead

Once you have both a working Ketill and a Fermenter, you can start brewing. The list of Meads you can brew right away will be pretty limited. But whenever you pick up certain resources in the more advanced biomes, it will expand and give you more options. The Bog Witch also has some ingredients you’ll need for a good number of advanced Meads.

Brewing Mead in Valheim is simple. Once you have the required ingredients, interact with the Mead Ketill. Use it to craft a Mead Base for the Mead you want. Then, with the Mead Base in your inventory, interact with an empty Fermenter. This will place the Mead Base in the Fermenter. From there, just wait two in-game days and interact with the Fermenter again. You’ll get 6 portions of whatever Mead you’re brewing for every Mead Base you put into a Fermenter. The one exception here is the Berserkir Mead – you get 3 portions for every Mead Base there.

Here’s a quick checklist in case you need a reminder of what you have to do:

• Use the Mead Ketill to create a Mead Base.
• Use an empty Fermenter to add the Mead Base from your inventory.
• Wait 2 in-game days.
• Tap the Fermenter to get your Mead.
• Pick up your Mead from the floor.

Since two in-game days last a while, and you may want a good supply of Mead, especially in a multiplayer game, it’s a good idea to place multiple Fermenters down and have them all going at the same time.

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.

Now you can become a proper Viking brewmaster and share your Mead with your Viking friends as you go on all sorts of adventures. Got any questions about the whole brewing process? Don’t hesitate to ask.