What Is a Cyser? Mead's Apple-Loving Cousin

Let's start with the question everyone's too polite to ask out loud: how do you even say it?

It's SY-zer — rhymes with "miser." Now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about what might be the most crowd-pleasing style of mead we make, and the one behind our best-selling bottle.

A cyser, in one sentence

A cyser is mead made with apples. That's the whole secret. Where a traditional mead is fermented from honey and water, a cyser is fermented from honey and apple juice… the two working together into a drink that's brighter than a mead and richer than a cider.

It belongs to the same family as every other mead. If you've read our What Is Mead? lesson, you know the pattern: start with honey, then name the variation by what you add. Add fruit and you get a melomel. Add herbs and you get a metheglin. Add apples, specifically, and you get a cyser. Apples earned their own special word, which tells you how beloved this style has always been.

Cyser vs. cider: what's the difference?

This is the question that trips people up, and the answer is simple: honey.

A hard cider is fermented from apples alone. A cyser is fermented from apples and honey. That honey does more than sweeten — it changes the whole character of the drink. It adds body and a rounder mouthfeel, contributes its own floral and orchard notes, and gives the yeast more sugar to work with, so a cyser can carry more depth and often a bit more strength than a standard cider.

Think of it this way: cider is a solo. Cyser is a duet — apple and honey singing together.

Why cyser works so beautifully

Apples and honey are old friends for a reason. Apple juice brings a crisp, bright acidity and that unmistakable orchard-fruit snap. Honey brings warmth, body, and floral sweetness. Put them in a fermenter together and each covers the other's weak spot — the honey rounds out any sharpness in the apple, and the apple's acidity keeps the honey from turning heavy or cloying.

The result lands in a sweet spot that's almost universally likeable: familiar enough that a cider drinker feels right at home, but with a depth and warmth that says this is something more. It's the mead we most often hand to someone who "isn't sure they like mead" — and it's the one that changes their mind.

And, as always, it starts with the honey. Every cyser we make is built on honey from our own hives at Sleeping Bear Farms — 45-plus years of family beekeeping, a stone's throw from the fermentation tanks.

Our cysers close a forty-year loop

Here's what makes our cysers unlike any other you'll taste — and it's a story we're proud of.

A cyser needs two things: apples and honey. Most meaderies buy both from suppliers they've never met. We're woven into both, right here in northern Michigan.

The honey we make ourselves, from our own bees. But here's the part almost nobody knows: for more than four decades, those same bees have pollinated the local apple orchards in our area. Pollination is the quiet first step behind every apple that grows …no bees, no fruit. So before a single apple ever becomes cyser, our hives have already been to work in the blossoms.

In his early years, while he was still building the honey operation, our founder Kirk Jones worked alongside the local apple processors (he worked at Smeltzer Orchard company in the winters processing apples while he and the honeybees were waiting for spring to arrive) and to this day he knows many of the growers and packers personally, by name. They're neighbors we've worked beside for forty years.

So when you drink a St. Ambrose cyser, you're tasting a loop that closes right here at home: our bees pollinate the apples, our hives make the honey, and the two come back together in your glass. 

Don't take our word for it

If you're still on the fence about whether a cyser can be a serious drink, consider this. At the Mead Institute's US Mead Open — a blind competition judged by a professional panel of sommeliers and Cicerones — the top two overall honors both went to St. Ambrose cysers:

• 🥇 Gold, overall — Shotgun Wedding

• 🥈 Silver, overall — Grateful Head

Out of every style of mead entered… traditional, fruit, sparkling, the works… the two best meads in the room were both apple-and-honey cysers. We're a little biased, but the judges aren't.

Meet our cysers

We're genuinely devoted to this style, and we make a whole lineup of them. Here's the bench:

X.R. Cyser

Our iconic best-seller, and for good reason. X.R. Cyser blends apple, cinnamon, maple syrup, and star thistle honey into something regulars have lovingly nicknamed "apple pie in a bottle." Warm, comforting, and dangerously easy to drink — the bottle we point first-timers to more than any other. It has one other secret weapon for rich roastiness…pure Michigan maple syrup. This has huge body and is our most popular for a good reason.

Shotgun Wedding

A blissful union of sweet strawberry, tart rhubarb, mellow honey, and crisp apple that'll have you rushing to the altar. Bright, fun, and …per a room full of professional judges …the single best mead we make. Not bad for a shotgun wedding. 

Grateful Head

Proof that a cyser doesn't have to be cozy. Grateful Head takes the apple-and-honey foundation somewhere sun-soaked and wild: juicy mango with the  kick of habanero, balancing sweet and heat in every sip. A cyser with a passport and an adventurous streak.

Cherry Haze

Smooth, juicy, and lightly bubbly, bursting with bold Michigan cherry balanced by crisp apple and a touch of sweet thistle honey. Our cherry-loving take on the style, and a summer favorite. This one has a lot of body with generous amounts of honey balanced by the tart cherries.

Smashin' Pumpkin

Just in time for fall: pumpkin, warm spices, and apple juice fermented into the perfect autumn cyser. Apple pie's cousin who shows up in a flannel. Seasonal, so catch it while it's on. 

The brewers complain a bit about the process because we add loads of pumpkin to our must and it is a pain-in -the-butt to filter. We keep a small fiddle around to play for them.

Come taste the orchard

The best way to understand a cyser is to drink one …better yet, taste a few side by side, so you can feel how the same apple-and-honey idea stretches from "apple pie by the fire" to "mango and habanero on the patio" to "pumpkin spice in a glass."

Stop by the St. Ambrose Cellars tasting room in Beulah, Michigan, and pull up a chair. Bring the family, bring the dog, catch some live music on the lawn, and let us pour you the mead that's converted more skeptics than any other. 

You know how to say it now. Come order a flight when you are in the neighborhood.  We will have some music on the lawn every day all summer long to chill out.

St. Ambrose Cellars • Beulah, Michigan • Crafted with honey from Sleeping Bear Farms