In a game about Vikings, it’s no surprise you can drink mead. But this delicious honey wine plays a crucial role in your progression, since it lets you trigger various effects. Mead essentially works like potions in Valheim: you brew them yourself from ingredients and then ferment them. You should take a look at the different recipes, because sooner or later they can even save your life. From simple healing potions to special effects like Berserker or various resistances, there’s a lot to discover. You’ll need plenty of ingredients and, as a base, plenty of honey. Here’s how to make mead yourself quickly and easily.
Brewing mead in Valheim: Recipes, Cauldron and Fermenter explained
You need two different crafting stations for mead, which you must first place in your base. Like all other workbenches, they need a roof over them to be usable. We recommend setting up a separate room for your mead and storing all required ingredients there.
Your mead production can only start in the Black Forest once you’ve defeated Eikthyr and collected his antler. First, you’ll need a Cauldron, where you create the base for your mead. Build it at the Forge from four tin, six copper, and two leather scraps. So you’ll first have to find and mine these metals. The cauldron counts as cooking equipment, which means it also needs a fire underneath.
In the cauldron you’ll find all the mead bases you’ve currently unlocked. Mix the foundation for the later mead from various ingredients here. Honey is important for almost all mead mixes, though a few are made without it. Other ingredients depend on the mead and its effects. We strongly advise you to keep all materials and store them in chests. You never know when you’ll need them. This is especially important on a server, where you should produce a lot of mead. If you want to play with friends, rent a Valheim server and brew mead together.
Once you’ve crafted the mead base, you can let it ferment. For this you need a Fermenter, a large barrel for mead fermentation. Build it from 30 fine wood, five bronze, and ten resin. Feel free to use multiple barrels to speed up your production. Each fermenter can only process one base at a time. The conversion into mead takes two in-game days, roughly 60 minutes. However, you can skip nights to shorten the wait. At the end you’ll receive 6 mead bottles per process, except for Berserker mead, which yields only three bottles.
Farming honey in Valheim: Build beehives and harvest efficiently
Most meads are made with honey, as in real life. So you should always have enough in stock to craft your mixes. You can collect it from beehives, for example in abandoned houses in the Meadows, or in towers in the Black Forest. For each destroyed hive you’ll receive not only honey, but also a Queen Bee. With it and ten wood you can build your own beehives.
A beehive produces honey roughly every 20 minutes. Up to four honey can accumulate before you need to empty it manually. You can, of course, place multiple beehives side by side to produce enough honey for your mead.
Valheim mead recipes and effects: All types at a glance
Now you know how to brew mead. But why go to all that trouble? In Valheim, mead essentially works like potions in other games. It can grant various effects that become very important later in the game. Each mead requires different ingredients, most of which can be found in the wild. Often these are mushrooms, berries, vegetables, or plants that can be processed into mead. You can also buy rare ingredients from the Swamp Witch in the Swamp. Most things you can gather yourself.
There are different tankards and drinking horns from which you can consume mead. These are optional—you can drink mead without them. They’re mainly decorative.
Mead for Health:
- Small: Heals you for 50 HP.
- Medium: Heals for 75 HP.
- Large: Heals for a full 125 HP.
- Lingering: Heals you for 25% over 5 minutes.
Mead for Stamina:
- Small: Restores 80 stamina.
- Medium: Restores 160 stamina.
- Lingering: Restores 25% over 5 minutes.
- Tasty: Short-term +100% stamina regeneration, but -50% HP regeneration.
Mead for Eitr:
- Small: Grants 125 Eitr.
- Lingering: Regenerates 25% Eitr over 5 minutes.
Mead for Resistances:
- Poison resistance: Makes you resistant to poison for 10 minutes.
- Fire resistance: Resistance to fire for 10 minutes.
- Frost resistance: Resistant to frost for 10 minutes.
Mead from the Swamp Witch:
- Beast Whisperer: Tame animals twice as fast.
- Lightfooted: Jump 20% higher with 30% less stamina use.
- Love Potion: Buy from the Swamp Witch for 110 coins. Causes more trolls to spawn.
- Ratatosk: Run 15% and swim 7.5% faster.
- Troll Endurance: Increases carry weight by +250 for five minutes.
- Vananidir: Reduces stamina consumption while swimming by 50%.
- Anti-Sting: Prevents stings from Deathsquitos.
- Berserkir: Mushroom mix. Reduces stamina use in combat by 80%, but makes you weaker against some attacks.
Conclusion: Use Valheim mead and potions the right way
As soon as you enter the Black Forest and find the necessary metals, you should start brewing mead. It not only lets you quickly restore health and stamina, but also grants many other useful effects. The further you progress, the more mead mixes you can brew and ferment. Be sure to visit the Swamp Witch for rare ingredients. By the time you’re exploring the Mountains or facing nasty Deathsquitos on the Plains, mead potions are practically indispensable.
