Craft brewers are getting their special ingredients from very unique places lately: fruits, vegetables, spices and now insects. Honey bees, to be exact.
Hannah Rhodes, a London resident, attended a workshop last year on urban beekeeping that first sparked her idea for Hiver. Working with craft beer brands before, Rhodes developed a recipe for honey beer, a British classic. The blonde ale is fermented with three different honeys that are added to a specialty organic malt. Rhodes uses only British ingredients, meaning all of the honey used is from bees in urban and rural areas of London.
In addition to creating a honey beer, Rhodes wants to bring greater awareness to the abundance of local British ingredients that are available and encourage other UK craft breweries to take advantage. 10% of profits from Hiver will be donated to pollinator charities (they make sure the bees are still pollinating) and efforts to boost local projects. Not only is she making beer, she’s supporting the local bee community as well.
Hiver is only available in local London bars and restaurants with plans to expand throughout 2014. We have a handful of honey beers here in the U.S. but nothing as all natural and special as Hiver. Here’s hoping this honey brew comes stateside sometime soon.