(Revelers at Stable Craft Brewing’s Renaissance Festival enjoy a special mead-inspired beer, partially fermented with honey.)
By Jeff Maisey
The Hampton Roads Honey Festival will debut August 4 at The St. George Brewing Company with a little help from the Colonial Beekeepers and 1700 Brewing. The event will be educational, yet delicious with all things bee-made, including a variety of honey products, honey beer, and honey crafts. Attendees can even learn how to be a beekeeper and maintain a backyard beehive.
The event is a natural for St. George as it maintains several honey bee hives and produces the multi-award-winning Honey Mead Lager.
Honey, of course, is often associated with mead and its production during Medieval times, especially in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England. And yet mead actually is thought to date to 6500 BC China, making it older than the wheel. Other research suggests it dates back to 20,000 BC when it was made by bush tribes in Africa.
Mead — a sweet fermented liquid made with water, spices, and honey — was consumed in ancient times by everyone from the Vikings to Egyptians, Roman citizens to the Greeks and Mayans. It is confirmed as the oldest alcoholic drink in human history.
Inspired, perhaps, by this ancient drink, craft brewers today are integrating honey beers into their portfolio of releases.
The National Honey Board has researched the applications of brewing beer with honey. These include adding honey to the boil, to primary fermentation, the high Krausen (to soften bitterness), and packaging.
According to the Honey Board, “The strength of the honey flavor in honey beer depends upon four major factors: the stage of the brewing process at which the honey is added, the type of beer, the quantity of honey used, and the type of honey used.”
And honey beers are trending up, say the folks at the NHB: “One of the main reasons craft brewers are drawn to honey is its ability to provide a variety of flavor profiles to match the type of beer being brewed. In the United States alone, there are more than 300 varieties of honey, all with unique flavor profiles, derived from floral sources such as alfalfa, wildflower, buckwheat, and tupelo.”
According to the 2024 Global Honey Beer Market Research Report, sales of honey beers are projected to reach $1.85 billion by 2029.
Virginia’s craft beer makers — in addition to St George Brewing — are expanding use of honey as an ingredient.
This past spring, Stable Craft Brewing held its Britchin’ Brown Renaissance Fest where it debuted “Brag About It” Braggot Ale — a special mead-inspired beer, partially fermented with honey and conditioned on blueberry and chipotle peppers.
Stable Craft will double-down on renewed trend in late summer with Honey Lager, which they describe as a “carefully crafted lager infused with the richness of pure, locally-sourced honey, creating a golden-hued brew that perfectly balances the crispness of a lager with the delicate sweetness of honey.”
Bear Chase Brewing serves Honey Badger, an amber lager made with honey from the Quail and Hound farm in Middleburg.
Blue Mountain Brewery produces the seasonal Monticello Mountain Ale using honey produced at Monticello.
Old Bust Head Brewing describes its crisp and refreshing Herb and Honey Ale as a “unique brew inspired by the traditional Tej honey wine from Ethiopia. Herb & Honey Ale was made from fermented honey and the twigs of the hop-like gesho tree.”
Mineral Brewing uses local honey from Hungry Hill Farm in its Hungry Hill Hazy NEIPA to add a noticeable sweetness.
Clover honey is added to 2 Silos Brewing’s Cream Ale “as a tribute to the brewery’s past as a dairy” along with the ingredients milk sugar, natural vanilla, and orange peel.
Other honey brews to try: Tradition Brewing Company’s Honey Brown Ale, Strangeways Brewing’s B-Sides Honey Bock, Brown Bear Honey Pot by Benchtop Brewing, and Hardywood’s Hopkeeper Double IPA with Virginia Honey.
