Beer that is pure nectar
If you had walked into your local 800 years ago and ordered a pint, chances are it would have been a mug full of mead rather than a glass full of beer. This ancient brew, as drunk by Chaucer's miller, was made from fermented honey and water, sometimes with a bit of yeast added to speed up fermentation. Spices and herbs such as cloves, rosemary, ginger and thyme were often thrown in as well. This spiced version was sometimes known as metheglin (from the Welsh word for physician) because of its supposed medicinal powers.
Mead, however, was not the only drink to make use of honey. It has been an occasional ingredient in beer making for a good 6,000 years but eventually fell from favour as sugar became more widely available. In recent years, however, honey beers have been enjoying a bit of a revival. Several microbreweries in the USA now use honey, particularly in stouts, and a couple of Belgian brewers are also producing honey ales.
In the UK, the brewery credited with reviving the trend is Enville in the West Midlands. Its owner originally wanted to set up in business producing and selling honey but in 1993 decided to use the honey in beer production instead. The brewery's ales, including Enville Ale (4.5% abv), now incorporate more than three tonnes of the stuff every year.
Another brewery breathing new life into the honey beer market is Cropton, in North Yorkshire. Its Honey Farm Bitter (4.2% abv), which is available in bottle-conditioned form, was originally produced two years ago as a one-off special, but it sold so well that the company decided to keep on producing it.
Head brewer Philip Lee says the effect of the honey on the beer depends on where the bees are collecting their pollen from. "At the moment we're on oil-seed rape honey, which is very aromatic. Later, in the summer, we'll be on heather honey off the moors, which isn't as aromatic. They have totally different flavours and totally different colours and it comes out in the beer as well."
The honey taste is mainly evident when you swallow, says Lee. "It's not a definite sweetness because all the sugars are fermentable. It's more of an aroma and an after-flavour."
Also joining the trend is London's Pitfield Brewery, which has started producing a 5% abv Honey Ale, complete with an added dash of ginseng. Says Steve Christopher, manager of Pitfield's beer shop: "The key thing about honey is it's highly fermentable, which is great. It gives a more full-bodied mouthfeel and a sweet touch to the finish."
The latest development in the honey beer market comes from Fuller's, the west London brewer. It has combined consumers' developing taste for speciality ales with the trend towards all things organic to produce what it claims is the world's first organic honey ale - Organic Honey Dew. From next month, this will replace Fuller's original Honey Dew, first introduced in 1997. True to form, the beer has a honey-like aroma with a hoppy flavour and a hint of honey in the swallow. Sweet.
Beer of the month: Organic Honey Dew, 5% abv, Fuller Smith & Turner, £31.44 plus VAT for case of 24 x 500ml bottles. Enquiries: 020 8996 2000.
by David Shrimpton
