honeybees

Honeybees and Beer

Dan This Land of Ours

honeybeesCathy Isom tells us all the ‘buzz’ about how honeybees help make a favorite beverage even better. That’s coming up on This Land of Ours.

Honeybees and Beer

For years, the craft beer industry has been buzzing, literally, to meet the heavy demand for new and unique concepts and flavors. And for some types of brews, honeybees are starting to become big business.

Brewers will either pair up with local beekeepers to provide honey for certain beers or bring the hives directly onto the farms where they also grow other ingredients used in their beers, such as hops, grains, and fruits.

The bees will get to work, pollinating many of the flowers and plants around the farm, then the brewers, some of the smaller operations, will cultivate the yeast they use for fermenting their beer from their bees’ honeycombs. The bees collect the wild yeast while foraging. And the fermentation conditions of the wild yeast is what helps create such a unique and tasty flavor for those craft beers.

I’m Cathy Isom…

Image credits: Rogue Ales & Spirits/Rogue Farms, where the honeybees help make beer better.