Long Live the Queen - Beach City Brewery

[lexuschris]

Yesterday, I happened a short visit to Beach City Brewery. Lucky for me, it was new beer release night for 'Long Live the Queen'. It was excellent!

When I asked Glenn about it, he said it was a hoppy braggot and offered me a sample. Now, I'm sure honey beers are not for some folks, and the idea of a super sweet beer is not on my drinking card either. This however achieves a very nice balance, and is worth a shot if you are in the area.

It is pale golden in color, with a thin head. The aroma is beautiful honey, with a light floral/herbal hop character. Flavor of honey is present, and blends well with the hops. It is not sweet, nor bitter. They did a real nice job of offering the flavor/armoa of honey, and keeping the hops there for support, and the beer dry. I've not had a lot of braggots, but I do enjoy honey in my beers and this one was executed perfectly!

--LexusChris

[ScottK]

This is intriguing and I may have to find my way down there for this one. I'm a little confused on the braggot part though. I see conflicting definitions of braggot online, but the consensus is that it's mead and beer, with the majority being mead. I doubt they made mead and then blended it with beer. Is it acceptable to make a braggot by adding pure honey to the brew kettle, or later?

[maltbarley]

I had it last night at the Brew Hee Haw. Surprisingly, I liked it. Not too sweet and the hops have nice balance.

[lexuschris]

I'm not sure the historical use of 'braggot', but amongst homebrewers it seems to be used for any beer with a high honey content. Say, 30%-50% of fermentables.

Glenn said they used almost 500 lbs of honey in this beer, but I cannot remember the size of their brewery to figure the percentage.

I remember a few SCHF's ago, Kevin Hammons brought a braggot and it was very tasty too! I think he used something like 5 lbs of honey in a 5-gallon batch.

--LexusChris

[jward]

I think of "Bee's Butt" made by Derrin as a braggot too.