Wildflower Hive: Post Brood Blend #7 will be available online and for tasting and take-away/collection at our cellar door from 12pm (AEST) on Friday 4 August 2023.
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 mixed culture ale refermented with natural formed Warré hive post-brood wild comb from the Blue Mountains and Central Tablelands of NSW. 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 beeswax.
Topher's production notes
A unique and rare honeyflow gave Tim and Emma a wholly different aroma and flavour profile of their Post Brood honey in 2020. They decided to keep it aside and express it individually as a limited edition 'Mountain Meadow' bottling. Hive #7 is made with the honeywax from these combs.
Made by refermenting Tim and Emma's honeywax with our aged Gold and bottling with their honey as priming. Bottles are then sealed with the rendered wax which once fermented with the beer. For more information on our process to make this beer, please see this article.
Tim has written below about the event which yielded this unique honey:
"In the lead up to the bee season of 2019/20, the Central Tablelands (and much of NSW) had suffered through the most extreme drought in recorded history. The drought finally broke and the rains that fell on parched ground triggered a flowering of ground flora species that are rarely seen.
Most honeys in Australia are dominated by the ubiquitous flowering Eucalypts (of which there are over 800 species in nearly all bioregions across the continent). However, the high rainfall resulted in the Eucalypts putting all their energies into regrowing leaves after the stress of the drought, rather than flowering.
Therefore, this honey can be described as a ‘La Niña’ honey - a result of this weather event that occurs once every 10 years or so. "
Here are the honey tasting notes by Mike Bennie: Aromas - A quieter perfume with toffee, dried flowers, salted caramel, eucalyptus and dried orange peel Flavours - Light caramel with sugared almond notes, dried mixed peel, some raw sugar characters and lemon myrtle.
Luke's tasting notes
A typically overwhelmingly expressive and complex nose. Honey biscuits, honey cakes and warm beeswax. There’s a dark element also, broody forest spice, propolis and Christmas cake. Palate brimming with honey, honeycomb and wax. There’s a sweet rich viscosity to the beer that’s perfectly tempered by the acid profile. Dark herbal spices play across the back palate before an incredibly long finish that ends with a menthol like coolness. Wonderfully moreish. This is a good one. Heaps more dark foresty spice and complexity.
Like all our beers, Hive: Post Brood Blend #7 is best enjoyed when decanted off a settled natural yeast sediment at cellar temperatures (10-12°C).
Enjoy.
