STAFF REVIEW: BEE KEEPING AND BEER TASTING EXPERIENCE

Heading into London on a beautiful sunny morning, we were looking forward to our visit to Hiver Beers to complete their Bee Keeping and Beer Tasting experience. I’ve got to add, I’ve been looking forward to this experience since we first partnered around December! I couldn’t wait.

Arriving at Bee Urban, we were struck by how beautiful the gardens were. With birds, bees and flowers surrounding us, we were warmly welcomed by the team. Patrick, our host, and Barnaby, our bee keeper, showed us to our bee keeping outfits. These were hilarious - we loved them!

Before we began our experience, we ran through a short introduction to bee keeping. Here, Barnaby explained the different kind of bees and which bees produce its beautiful honey. We also ran through the equipment needed to inspect a hive. After this, we made our way outside to begin inspection. 

Once outside, Barnaby began opening the hive. It’s a lot calmer than expected - a part of me thought there might even be a chance of someone getting stung. But it isn’t like that at all. They’re very friendly insects.  

Our inspection began by searching for the queen bee. This happened by passing the frames around which included lots of buzzing bees. After we had pulled out several frames, Barnaby caught his first sight of the queen. Here, we took a good look at her. However, she was to precious to be passed around, so she went back into the hive. 

Upon completing the inspection, we finished up by smoking the bees to ensure they didn’t get squished when assembling the hive back together. Once assembled, we made our way back down to the start point, where our beer tasting experience was set to take place. Here, laid out two beautiful beers, the Blonde, Hiver's honey Lager, and the Brown, the honey Ale. Along with their ingredients and some delicious food to pair it with. 

We began with an introduction to its ingredients. We tried the blonde beer first which was a wonderful golden colour with a honey and biscuit aroma. Throughout the fermentation and conditioning, Hiver uses raw urban honey from London beekeepers to create their wonderful tasting blonde beer. It’s also great to know that Hiver only use British products and ingredients within their beers.  

Onto the second beer, the ale, which was delicious. It’s the darker one out of the two, made with raw Heather honey from Yorkshire and darker roasted malts. The food went exceptionally well with both beers, and we enjoyed tasting mature cheese, ham, sourdough fruit bread, vegetables crisps and two wonderful honeys, the local and the heather honey.

After tasting our delicious beers and pairing them with the perfect foods, it was time to say our goodbyes. This Bee Keeping and Beer Tasting Experience in London is an ideal experience to complete throughout the summer months. Not only will you learn about the incredible ‘bee’, you’ll also have the opportunity to try out Hiver's scrumptious honey beers.