Seven bucks a pint makes me really appreciate homebrewing. That makes one of my kegs worth $280. Not bad for half a day's work!!! Suck it, AB!
A few weeks ago I calculated the retail price on the sour beer aging in my house at fairly low bottle prices and figured I have like $4000 worth of sour homebrew. That's a good return on brews that were fairly simple and cheap to make.
I bet the savings on making homemade mead is sky high. I make enough to get honey at bulk prices and use mostly home grown or foraged fruit. When you factor in how little actual labor time and the cheapness of the equipment along with the price of commercial mead its a big difference. Also I have not tasted a commercial mead that approaches the quality of homemade. IMO mead doesn't hit its stride for at least a year, even with good practices in terms of nutrient schedule and temp control. Commercial meaderies are selling stuff that's just months old that they sulfite and back sweeten to hide the alcohol. Plus they really skimp on fruit in melomels.
Have you tried Moonlight Meadery or B Nektar? I have yet to try something subpar from either meadery.
I have tried Moonlight a few times and I believe I have tried one B. Nectar offering. I mostly like and make melomels and find Moonlight to be barely there with the fruit. A friend keeps bringing us commercial meads to show us what's out there to try to convince us to sell ours. What we keep telling him is that we would be hard pressed to turn a profit and still make the same mead. Our fruit is pretty much free so we doing things like making 15 gallons of mead with 50 lbs of berries or 25 gallons with 60 pounds of cranberries, 5 gal with 25 pounds peaches. Also we are bulk aging in the cellar for 1-2 years depending on variety then bottling and often drinking it months after that.
So I guess I'm speaking a bit harshly about commercial meads because I'm comparing them to what I'm used to and what I like. Moonlight's blueberry offering, to say a judge, might be a nice balance of honey and blueberry. To me its sweet and flavorless but I'm used to a dry blueberry melomel that literally stains the bottle and is probably 2-3 years old. I think my point remains about the advantage of making mead at home although I'm a bit harsh on the commercial guys who are trying to make a profit.