A Honey Beer Hunt for Edible Boston

Made by bees and prized by bears, honey is a delicious natural sweetener that humans have collected and consumed for thousands of years. Mead, an alcoholic beverage produced when yeast ferments a mixture of honey and water, shares a similarly distinguished history. It's also experienced a bump in popularity in recent years. Honey turns up in other drinks though, namely brandy and braggot, a not-so-distant relative of beer. In the current issue of Edible Boston, I wrote about a handful of brewers who (in all but one case), use native honey to create distinctive ales and lagers that in some small way acknowledge their place of origin. Track down a physical copy of the magazine in eastern Massachusetts or read it here online, ideally while savoring a pint of Slumbrew Happy Sol, Rapscallion Honey, Bee Tea from Night Shift, or Fisherman's Honey Pilsner.

Touring the Rhine-Main Region's Oldest Private Brewery

"Next week, it smells like beer." These were the words brewmaster Stefan Simon uttered as he led me up a wooden staircase to the malt house at Privatbrauerei Glaab. It wasn't a particularly surprising statement. I've heard similar expressions from brewers before, just not in Seligenstadt, Germany. To be honest, I'd scarcely heard of the town itself until I arrived on a sunny afternoon in late August. But after several days of touring the state of Hesse on a trip sponsored by the Frankfurt Rhine-Main Region, I was excited to be anyplace where I could taste beer and talk shop. Fortunately, Mr. Simon had graciously agreed to show me around the historic brewery. 

Founded in 1744, Glaabsbräu grew steadily over time, reaching the point of producing more than one million barrels a year by 1970. And they remained independent into the 80s and 90s, as other nationally-known brands fell victim to mergers and buy-outs. More recently, the company has scaled back, currently kegging and bottling closer to 33,000 barrels annually. Even so, their footprint in this little town of half-timbered houses is considerable, seeming to occupy nearly as much real estate as the former Benedictine monastery on the banks of the Main River.

"The focus now is on quality," Simon explained in thickly-accented English. "And time for maturation is longer these days."

As he led the way back downstairs to the open fermentation cellar and then into the lagering cellar below, he told me that their Pilsener (4.9% ABV) is the top seller overall while Glaabsbräu Radler (2.6% ABV) is "popular with ladies." He also filled me in on Vitamalz, an alcohol-free malt beverage developed in 1930 that Simon described as healthier than Coke. I knew something about the beverage, having washed down boiled sheep's head with a can of Egils Malt in Iceland, so I didn't press him for more information. Besides, I was mostly there for the beer.