Jackie O’s Two Award Winning Beers Showcase Versatility of Honey
Jackie O’s Brewery took home two medals in the National Honey Board’s 2018 Honey Beer Competition. We reached out to Jackie O’s to hear more about their honey beer inspired by the brewery’s origins.
What was the inspiration behind this beer, and who came up with the recipe?
Chomolungma was inspired by Brian Oestrike’s Mount Everest summit on May 23, 2007. Brian is the brother of Jackie O’s founder and owner, Art Oestrike. The climb was done in memory of their mother, Jackie Oestrike. Jackie was born in England and always had New Castle in the fridge, therefore we brewed a brown ale. The recipe was developed by Brad Clark and approved by the Oestrike family!
Antik was a collaborative brew with To Øl from Copenhagen, Denmark. The inspiration was to take a base recipe for one of our favorite maple beers and sub out the maple syrup for honey, a considerably higher amount of honey! The beer was then aged in bourbon barrels for over a year.
To a casual beer drinker, how would you describe this beer in less than 10 words?
Chomolungma: A robust brown ale brewed with locally harvested honey.
Antik: An indulgent, collaborative, bourbon barrel-aged imperial honey porter.
What do you enjoy most about this beer?
Both beers exhibit excellent depth of malt complexity and incorporate honey as an accent (Chomolungma) or as the prominent flavor character (Antik.)
What do you enjoy most about using honey in the capacity of brewing beer?
There are so many different types of honey to choose from that the combination of malts, hops, yeast and barrels is limitless.