Jester King Brewery - Bière de Miel

Let me slip cryptic under this evening doorway, And bathe in a thousand flowers. I’ll fly like Quixote, inheriting the wind, On the back of a buzzing beer, Soaring sweet above the hill-tops, And into territory of drier furtherance.

Our Bière de Miel is a dry, well-attenuated, unspiced farmhouse ale brewed and fermented with raw Texas wildflower honey. Naturally occurring yeast and bacteria impart a sense of place to this unfiltered, unpasteurized, 100% bottle conditioned beer.–Jester King Bière de Miel label notes

The honeyed nightcap to our Jester King Rare Beer Club special offer is their 6.4% Bière de Miel—a wholly unique experience relative to the preceding three. Here, that special addition of Texas wildflower honey adds a particularly nuanced dimension to the mouthfeel, with its crystalline sweetness, creamy custard and smooth vanilla-sugar notes. This is most likely the one that benefits the most from warmer temperature, opening up those fainter honey parts.

The hops in Bière de Miel: Perle.

This is all kinds of different relative to the other three. Peppery and doughy bitterness on its perimeter, as with the other three, keep things purposefully on course—but that’s where the similarity diverges. That honey character: immense. But it never feels cloying, instead shown as layered and brilliantly textured nectar, as orchestrated here. Some nice caramelization will likely open up in Bière de Miel with a bit of age behind it, though some aromatics may head out early on. The honey + herb notes suggest roasted chicken and/or fresh Burrata pairings.