Hive: Post Brood Blend #4 will be available online and for take-away/collection from 12pm (Sydney time) on Friday 6 May 2022.
Hive: Post Brood is an ongoing collaboration with our friends, and honey superstars Tim and Emma from Malfory's Gold honey. Hive: Post Brood is a barrel aged golden Australian Wild Ale refermented with natural formed Warré hive post-brood wild comb from the Blue Mountains and Central Tablelands of NSW. The Malfroy's Post Brood Polyflora is unlike any honey I have ever tasted and indeed a unique product. The beer is our aged Gold refermented and macerated on the left over comb, untreated or heated... just natural, after Tim’s milling and gravity straining of the post brood comb. He doesn’t spin or press the comb, just let's time do its thing. But what happens is that there is still a bit of honey clinging to the waxy comb (along with all the other good propolis, bee bread and pollen). If you are interested in what Post Brood means and why the character is so unique, you can read a great description here written by Tim.
Each bottle is dipped in the same wax post-refermentation in this beer, there may be small residue still of propolis in the wax leaving black specks in the golden yellow (super aromatic BTW) beeswax.
For Blend #4 we were, for the first time, able to use very fresh comb from Post Brood honey that Tim has just processed. As the honeywax is shelf stable naturally, the first three batches of this beer were made using comb that Tim had saved up over they years, processing small amounts of comb here and there as he himself was slowly allowing his stock of hives themselves to build up Post Brood comb.
Now, some two years after we started making this beer together, Emma and Tim have a constant supply of hives to harvest Post Brood honey and this fourth blend is the first of its kind in using freshly milled and strained comb.
Because of this, we are seeing a fresher, more citrusy side of the honey. The aroma has big orange notes, fresh honeycomb and blossoms, it's sweet and somehow intoxicating. The familiar dark propolis spice element melds with more perfumed mead notes. Despite a heady aromatic punch the palate shows vibrancy and finesse... zippy citrus juice and forest spice balance the rich honey characters. The finish is beeswax and honeyed toast. It's a lovely, lovely beer and Luke reckons it feels healthy to consume it.
Like all our beers, Hive: Post Brood Blend #4 is best enjoyed when decanted off a settled natural yeast sediment at cellar temperatures (10-12°C).
Enjoy.
