Bristol Beehive Honey Wheat

Brewed by Bristol Brewing Company
Style: Wheat Ale
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA

Pours a cloudy yellow with a moderate head. The aroma is a bit of fruit, maybe a touch of banana esters and wheat. The flavor is a bit dulled, but there is a sweetness to the malt. Not the best exampleof an American wheat. They really should be livelier in the flavor.

12 oz. bottle from Morgans. Drank on 8/18/06. Bottle conditioned. Cloudy, murky, almost burnt orange color. (I swirled the yeast as suggested on the bottle.) 1+ cm. rocky white head. Drops quickly to a bubbly ring of foam. No lacing. Aroma - nutty, grainy, cerealy, wheaty aroma. Avg. Strength. Flavor - Avg. up front bitterness that sticks around on the tongue through to the swallow. Well balanced and wheaty on the tongue. Sort of grainy, malty, wheaty flavor in the finish. No real hop character at all, but a nice little bit of sweetness, most likely from the honey. Some interesting yeast character also. Palate - Light to medium in the mouth and then it feels almost watery in the swallow. Good amt. of carb. for the beer, but on the lower side. Overall - This is a good beer, but not really my favorite style. Good for what it is, but not all that interesting. It is light and refreshing for the summer. Nice and clean.

12oz bottle-Hazy orange with a big whit ehead. Aroma of citrus. Taste of honey and citrus. Not my favorite from Bristol.

Had this on the Irish Pub on Tejon in Colorado Springs... can’t think of the name of the bar. Colorado Springs is a great town, but this beer is less than great. Mucky taste, the honey doesn’t seem to be there at all. I’ll pass.

Not a bad little beer. Nothing special, but it goes down easy. Haven’t had it since I moved from the Springs to Fort Collins, but I enjoyed it alright the times I did. Although I would recommend Bristol’s Laughing Lab over Beehive for serious beer drinkers. It has more character.

Kinda what you would expect here, which is not too much given the style. Beer pours somewhat attractive golden color with a big egg white head that is retained. Aroma does have some pleasing notes with a bit of honey overlaid on top of an otherwise pedestrian low aroma wheat smell. Flavor is quite bland with just a touch of sweetness from the honey, I suppose. Otherwise this seems to me to be more of a water alternative than anyghing else. Probably not bad on a hot Texas summer day, but not something I would really seek out.

Bristol’s Beehive is a simple beer, far too easy to underestimate - particularly in the conditions you would be drinking it in. In my case, I had given Beehive a taste from the growler at a social occasion and thought very little of it. In appearance it seems at first quite plain, a hazy mirabelle-colored liquid, topped of a foamy white head. The smell is equally abridged by the overpowering scent of wheat and Corn Flakes. Yet as I tasted it a few months later out of the bottle, I picked up a fruity complexity just slightly tickling the back of the nose. Indeed, shrouded by the grainy aroma was a pleasant background of apricot, blackberry, cassis and with warming a touch of licorice. The flavor strikes again with Corn Flakes and mineral water, some almonds become apparent but the subtle touch of red currant on the finish takes effort to uncover. The carbonation is strong at first but the texture is actually quite enjoyable and refreshing. Beehive is not a masterpiece but a misunderstood beer that deserves just a bit more resolution than one would expect.

Bottle. Pours a hazy yellow with a good head. Light citrus scent. Flavor was citric with hardly any discernable sweetness for the addition of honey. Yeasty and musty, this was a beery beer. Very light and thin American Wheat, possibly refreshing on a hot summer day perhaps. Thanks Snowtiger for the bottle.