Flight Of The Bumble Beer


Brewery and Country of Origin: Cape Ann Brewing Company of 11 Rogers Street, Gloucester, MA, 01930, USA

Date Reviewed: 7-19-13

This is a restaurant exclusive pilsner brewed with real honey. So at this point, you're probably expecting us to go on about honey, or bees, or whatever. And you'd be right. If you're one of our more regular readers, you'd know that we reviewed a honey infused beer last September. It was then, when we talked about our old friend Winnie The Pooh. But we didn't talk about where honey comes from. And because this beer is made for a place called The Beehive in Boston's South End, let's get on with the source. Beehives are the habitat for honeybee colonies. They can occur both naturally and artificially, for the purposes of commercial honey production, pollination, or other things. Natural hives are built in a range of places, from tree branches and trunks, to the corners of houses and buildings, which can cause problems for those who live and work inside them. They are usually between three and fifteen feet above the ground, can be as big as 100 liters in volume, and usually have entrances facing the Equator. Artificial hives have existed well before 2400 BC for the purposes of extracting honey. The earliest human made hive structures were simple and made out of natural materials including clay. Today, there are many commercially attractive hives which exist all over the globe. The most common is the Langstroth hive, which is used by 75% of the world's beekeepers. This is the traditional box shaped hive which contain rectangular frames used by bees as a structure for honeycombs. Honeycomb is a wax structure which houses both bee larvae and the honey which feeds them. Wasps create these hexagonal structures out of a paper like substance. Because honeycomb is energy intensive to construct (about 7 kg of honey to make 1 kg of comb), it makes economic sense for beekeepers to extract honey straight from the comb, and reuse it in the hive, which is why removable frames are used. Each box usually contains ten frames, and hives are made up of three or four boxes, each of which are used by different kinds of honey bees and serve different purposes. Honey is created by bees through a rather unappealing process of regurgitation and digestion of saccharides, which are a basic type of carbohydrate found in a flower's nectar. The bees regurgitate these carbs several times until they are partially digested, and then the evaporation of water and an enzymatic process takes place. The bees speed up the evaporation process by flapping their wings in unison to create a draft within the hive. And like beer, unfinished honey also contains small amounts of yeast, which would cause the sugars in the nectar to ferment. After evaporation, the bees seal up the honeycomb structure and store the honey as food.
Date Sampled: 7-10-13 At: The Beehive, 541 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02116, USA
Beer Style: German Style American Pilsner
Alcohol by Volume: 5.30%
Serving Type: Keg, 20 oz Mug Glass
Rating: 2.94

Look

The Beehive Bar's exclusive lager pours fairly smooth with only a moderate level of carbonation action, producing a half inch tall, medium density foam head with a low retention and some haziness. This beer has a fairly bright golden/light amber straw colored shine with a prominent glow. This beer's hazy appearance is due to the inclusion of some very fine sediment. This beer has moderately low lacing.

Aroma

This beer has a moderately low strength aroma injected full of sweet honey with a good amount of grainy pale malt (pilsner like). This beer has a delicate citrus fruit note and a slightly piney hoppy secondary. This beer has no alcohol tinge in the aroma. Overall, this is a light smelling beer without anything overpowering.

Feel

This is a medium light bodied brew with a cool and crisp feel and a pretty refreshing finish. This beer has a medium low viscosity, matching weight, and an average amount of carbonation. This beer has a mostly dry and somewhat lingering finish. This is an easy to drink beer which can be consumed in the hot summer season.

Taste

Overall, this is a sweet beer with a rich honey overtone, a grassy malty pale lager like character, and a very delicately hopped secondary trailer. This beer has no strong or overwhelming flavors, and is fairly well balanced. This is a fairly grainy beer with a somewhat bitter and piney closing. This beer's taste has no alcohol flavor. The hoppy aftertaste lingers for an average amount of time.

Our Take

Formerly known as the Fisherman's Honey Pilsner, this beer is brewed exclusively for The Beehive restaurant and bar located on Tremont Street in the South End area of Boston, MA. Though this is definitely a sweet beer, it is by no means sweet to the extent of a fruit ale or a chocolate stout. And while this was a well balanced, easy drinking, mellow beer, perhaps that was this beer's biggest let-down. We weren't exactly expecting a flavor akin to taking a bite of raw honeycomb, but we were hoping for a bit more than what this beer's flavor delivered. This beer was also a bit too grainy for our taste, but that comes with the style, so it wasn't a problem. For us, we'd recommend at least giving it a try. This is a pretty good beer which you'll have no problem at least housing it down with a wide variety of Beehive's food. And we'll definitely tell you to give it a whirl if you're interested in a beer which is lighter in presence and flavor. This is not a disappointing beer, we were just hoping for a bit more.