Small breweries like to use their flexibility to experiment with flavors normally reserved for food. Take peanut butter as an example. Oliphant’s Honees Honees is a sweet peanut butter-y beer that speaks to adventurous palates.
What is it? Honees Honees from Oliphant Brewing of Somerset.
Style: Honees Honees is a golden ale before peanut butter flavoring is added. Golden or blonde ales are generally clear golden- to straw-colored and light-bodied. Usually, they have low hoppy bitterness, often around 15-25 IBUs (International Bitterness Units). They have a mild malt background, sometimes described as being slightly sweet, yet overall they are balanced and clean ranging in strength from 4-5 percent ABV.
Background: Oliphant co-owners Trevor Wirtanen and Matt Wallace opened the brewery in 2014 and have consistently pushed the boundaries of styles and the use of flavor adjuncts. “Everybody is doing the roasty and chocolatey peanut butter thing with porters and stouts,” says Wirtanen. “We wanted to make one lighter in color with nutty and honey character, like a peanut butter and honey sandwich.”
Honees Honees is based on the light and simple malt bill of the golden ale. Wirtanen adds clover honey and peanut butter extract. There is a touch of Magnum hops for bitterness, though they’re of little consequence due to the honey and peanut butter. It finishes at 5.5 percent ABV.
Honees Honees has been one of Oliphant taproom’s best sellers. The beer started turning up in Madison in September in four-packs of 16-ounce cans that sell for around $10. It’s a periodic package release; if you have trouble finding it no need to worry because Wirtanen says it’ll be offered again.
The name Honees Honees is an homage to Honus Honus, lead singer of the band Man Man, with a nod to the beer’s honey element.
If peanut brews are your thing, others you may want to try are Valhalla’s Delight, a chocolate peanut butter coffee porter from Viking Brewpub in Stoughton; Uber Goober from Shorts Brewing of Michigan; and Sweet Baby Jesus! from DuClaw Brewing of Maryland.
Tasting notes:
- Aroma: Light, malty, yet very clean.
- Appearance: Clear golden copper color with a medium soft, bubbly white head.
- Texture: Medium-bodied with softness.
- Taste: A touch of malt up front, then the peanut butter sets in. The honey and hints of toffee lend a candy sweetness.
- Finish/Aftertaste: Lightly roasted honey and malty, with lingering peanut butter sweetness.
Glassware: A snifter or small goblet. You’ll want a glass that encourages sipping and one that allows the beer to slowly warm, which accentuates the nutty and honey sweetness. This is definitely not a beer to gulp.
Pairs well with: desserts. Try cheesecake or sugar cookies (my pick is lemon sugar cookies). This is also a beer to drink on its own as dessert.
The Verdict: At first, the aroma of Honees Honees gives little indication of its nutty personality. There’s a gentle mild malt aroma, often associated with a light golden ale style. However, barely into the initial sip, the peanut flavor makes itself known. This is a fun beer to try, and one that shouldn’t be discounted too quickly. The peanut butter isn’t overwhelming, but it is pronounced. It gradually grew on me, but my limit is one at a sitting.
I find peanut butter in the same category as pumpkin in beer; it’s an acquired taste for most drinkers. Given that Halloween just passed, Honees Honees appealed to my sweet tooth. While I do like a peanut butter sandwich slathered with honey, it’s easy to overdo all that sweetness and lose the beer. This one is right on the edge of being too much of a good thing. Yet it still works for me. I suggest enjoying Honees Honees with a few fellow beer enthusiasts because it’s an obvious conversation point (or pint) that’ll generate passionate opinions of love it or hate it.
