Ramapo Valley Passover Honey Beer

Brewed by Ramapo Valley Brewery
Style: Mead
Hilburn, New York USA

This is the first product I have had from this brewer. Sampled from a 12 oz brown bottle this beer poured a pale straw color with a huge sizzling white head that quickly fades. The aroma is sweet and tangy with a hint of citrus. Very champagne like. The flavor is dry and spicy on the front. The middle is lightly sweet. The finish is again dry and spicy. Tastes a lot like dry champagne.

Pours like fizzy apple juice, leaving no head after fizz dies back. This matches the aroma, which is like a cross betwen apple juice and honey with a bit of a malt liquor like backdrop. Taste is sweet and cider-like but with a bit of a sour bite at the end... a little bit of a vinegar character. I won’t be back here any time soon.

I was hoping to like this beer so that I could get more free bottles of this beer from JB who did not want to finish his 6 pack of this. Sorry JB, you are stuck with those. This was my 1st mead I tried and hopefully the last if they all taste like this. It looked flat when I poured it. I tasted flat. I never waste beer, but this is the 1st drain-pour I’ve ever had.

Bottle. Nice golden honey hued body with a thin patchy film of bubbles and a small ring of bubbles. Nose-herbal tea with honey. Taste-honey, clover, CO2, alcohol, menthol, apple juice, grass, grapefruit, graham crackers. Much better than I had anticipated. With a little more body, this could be a winner. The label states that there are hops in here, but I don’t detect a single hint of hops.

Very low carbonation, nearly still. The aroma is honey; real honey. Nothing about it seems articficial. Flavor is a litlte sweet, and more honey again. No hops are present in the aroma or flavor.

Botttle. A golden color with a laced white head. A strong honey aroma. A horibly sweet flavor. A bad mix of cider, beer, and sweet sugars.

The name sounded good, and after 3 hours of lawn work it sounded like it would hit the spot. It is a summer beer I’d say, very pale, very carbonated and a fast fader of a head. Taste and smell of apples. Interesting and different, but a bit to get used to it.

Small to moderate head on a plain golden body with some carbonation apparent in the body. It’s a thin syrup of a beer, with notes of honey, mint, and a chlorinated swimming pool. It wasn’t terrible but it had an artificial quality that didn’t endear it to me.