Springhead The Bees Knees

[The Epworth Brewer]

Formally known as Roundheads Gold. I have just brewed this based loosely on the recipe on Norm's real Ale Almanac. I blended Northdown and Saaz as this is what the brewery use instead of the 28g Northdown on Norm's recipe but I kept the same EBU's.
At 19 days old I have to say it seems more likely I am going to end up with a nice golden ale but without any hint(so far) of Honey.
I've learned a lot about wildflower honey from the beekeeper who supplied it and having eaten a few spoonfuls I can see why it can't be traced in the brew. The honey supplied came from Hawthorn Buttercup and Dandelion and is very mellow in taste compared with commercial honey.
I'm debating whether to accept the brew for what it is or drop another jar of honey into the barrel. The ale has already conditioned well so I thought another 250g of honey might give some taste rather than ferment out.
Just wondered if anyone else had tried honey and got little or no discernible taste from it. It had 600g 2 minutes before end of boil and 250g priming honey in the barrel.

[seymour]

Dunno. It seems to me if you add more honey to a fermenting beer, it would certainly ferment-out as well, driving the ABV higher than your target beer recipe and not necessarily adding much more flavour/aroma. Springhead Bees Knees is only 4.2% ABV or so, right? So it's not like the yeast attenuation has reached it's upper limits or anything, which is how you predict the amount of residual sweetness when formulating a true mead...

In my experience, it's really tricky to retain honey flavours and aromas in beer unless it's a really pungent variety to begin with. But then, I could be wrong.

[6470zzy]

F
Just wondered if anyone else had tried honey and got little or no discernible taste from it. It had 600g 2 minutes before end of boil and 250g priming honey in the barrel.

I find that when brewing with honey the flavours and scent that remains in the brew really depends on your quantity and type of honey. If the honey possesses good aroma to begin with then you are more likely to retain some semblance of it if you add the honey into a secondary FV

Cheers

[The Epworth Brewer]

Thanks as always for the replies. I have formulated a second attempt which I'll be brewing in about a week. This time I've dropped EBU's from 31 to 25 as I'm hoping that will allow the flavour to come out more and hops will be Progress and Northdown with Saaz for post boil steep. Will see what happens this time.

[louiscowdroy]

I've heard from other brewers that Honey is most difficult to bring through.....Good luck and let us know how you get on, be very interested to find out.

[The Epworth Brewer]

In the second brew I reduced the IBU's to 25 and instead of introducing the honey during the boil I pitched it in the primary FV at the same time as pitching the yeast. But I made the mistake of chucking in a solid block so I don't know what the SG was. It fermented down in less than 48 hours and several weeks later has produced a good summer golden ale with a definite honey taste, but way too strong for my liking. 4 pints and I don't know what day of the week it is which is unusual as I can normally sup 7-8 pints before I become certifiable.
I have come to the conclusion that using wild honey gives too many variables to be able to brew a consistent honey beer as each batch of honey is different. Maybe the answer is to use commercially sourced honey, eg Gales.
Going to give the honey experiment a wide berth until next year and get back to brewing good traditional english bitters.

[The Epworth Brewer]

I should add that I reduced the amount of honey from 600G to 400 and still got more of a honey flavour. I also used Invert Sugar No.1 when calculating the recipe using Beer Engine.

[Uncle Joshua]

When I use honey I boil it with some of the beer and add it to the FV after initial fermentation has ended.

[The Epworth Brewer]

Steady on there Uncle Josh, Peter Swann has just become the chairman of my beloved SUFC.