Andy Westrich, Virginia State Master Beekeeper, has been a regular at St. George for many years. Once we discovered he was a beekeeper, we asked him to put a hive on the property. It started small with just one hive in the back corner of the parking lot. Andy had some trepidation that the bees might be attracted to the smell of the brewing process and attempt to get in to the brewery. As it turns out, they aren’t!
We decided to move in some more hives and transfer them to the back lot. Most notably there are two colonies that were rescued from some interesting places. One colony came from an F-22 plane and the other was a swarm from Langley Air Force Base. We decided to make a beer with this amazing local honey, and our Honey Lager was born! This beer is a crisp, clean lager with plenty of honey on the nose and the finish.
It takes approximately 300 pounds of honey to make 700 gallons of beer! Having the bees on site is so important to us. Not only are we helping to support the bee population, but we are also using fresh, delicious, truly local honey to make this award-winning beer. Our customers love that they can taste the beer, go visit the hives and even buy some honey and other products on site!
Andy Westrich, Virginia State Master Beekeeper, has been beekeeping for 14 years and has 10 yards throughout the city of Hampton.