MacTarnahan's Oregon Honey Beer

MacTarnahan's Oregon Honey Beer

Here’s the original honey beer. Crisp and refreshing, with a hint of sweetness. To craft the beer, we enlist the talents of several million local bees for their pure, white clover honey. Our brewmaster then blends the ambrosia with select, two-row barley malt and balances it with prized Willamette hops. While the bees reluctantly part with their honey, The Great American Beer Festival enthusiastically receives it, as they’ve awarded OHB a silver medal in a category with more than 60 blonde ales.
2.5
211 reviews
Portland, United States

Community reviews

2.5 Bottle shared with Barrios at Woody’s. Pours a near opaque mustard yellow with fair ring of white head. Nose is very clean with just a hint of vanilla peeking through. Flavor is a little corny, with a honey note and a slight metallic astringency on the finish. Don’t know how old the bottle was, but this was just fine for an easy drinking bud substitute.
1.6 Cloudy Gold. Fast, creamy head. Mild caramel, malt aroma. Flavor: Fruits, malt, cardboard. Dry finish. Not great. Overrated.
3.5 12 oz, bb 010308. Clear topaz with a creamy half-inch head that frosts the whole glass. Faint aroma of citrus and honey. Flavor is the same, plus some tart apple and berry, then some lemon grass on the finish. Near-medium body is smooth, dry, and lightly tingly. Very drinkable; looks like from the ratings here everyone should try to find the aged, past-bb date bottle like I stumbled into.
1.8 Nasty golden urine colored pour with an unattractive floral aroma with some sort of herbal backdrop. Surpising amount of hops for the style, but everything else about the flavor is a mess. Weird bite and aftertaste to this one, hard to define. MIld honey flavor, but not enough to live up to the name.
2.7 Bottle. Pours pale gold with soapy white head. The aroma is floral and herbal with some dusty malt notes and a sweet touch. The flavor is moderate herbaceous hops and a sweet-ish malty backbone that does indeed resemble honey, especially in the finish. Alright, I guess, but it comes across as a regular uninspiring golden ale.
2.5 clear gold with a slightly pilsner aroma and a tiny bit of malt. some honey flavor, but it doesnt dominate. theres some kind of unpleasant bite i just cant get into
2.3 Clear golden color with a finger of ghost white head with modest thin sticky lacing and good retention. Aroma is biting, cheap honey and pale malt, some light metallic tinges. Taste is almost skunked pils like, pale malt, sour honey, light hop bitterness.
2.8 12oz bottle. Yellow color with a white head. Grainy aroma with a touch of floral honey and maybe some hops. Very light and lagerish flavor, dry for the most part, without much honey character. Almost no hop flavor and low bitterness. Tastes like a run of the mill golden ale, hardly an APA, and almost a bland pils. Not bad, and would be perfectly drinkable if it weren’t for the bore factor bringing it down.
2.1 ~Pours a very pale light gold with small white head. ~Light malty wheat scent, a bit sour. ~Has a macro brew taste, really boring. ~Light feel, quick finish. ~A boring brew. Not bad tasting. Just nothing to it.
2.7 Golden yellow, simple, sweet, malty, vanilla, little citrus, little honey, little bready.
2.3 Bright gold pour with a decent lasting head. Light sweet aroma of malt and honey. Flavor is much the same with a touch of hops, though not enough to balance the sweetness. Nothing bad, but nothing great here either.
2.6 Golden lager pour, light wheaty aroma, a little sweet and carbonated, pretty clean beer. Not complex enough to go into detail on the flavors or palate. Quaffable though.
2.4 Light gold color, slightly hazy, medium head. Light malts and hops, brewed with real honey. A slightly sweet, wheat beer. Nice balance. Mouthfeel is full. Nice taste, crisp and refreshing. Finish is clean. Aftertaste is slightly sweet, no bitterness.
2.0 12oz bottle: Pleasant but nothing of note. Wouldn’t buy it again but it was fine to drink once. Sorry if these comments are somewhat lacking. This is my first rating.
2.5 This beer pours a brightly coloured golden colour with a slight orange tint. No head, just a little visible scattered white froth atop. Aroma is malty with a barely noticeable honey scent. Mouthfeel is well carbonated, and honey is evident upon initial taste. Refreshing crisp, and pretty clean taste all the way through.
1.5 Like a pale lager with a hint of honey. According to the commercial description, "While the bees reluctantly part with their honey..." I can see why they were reluctant.
2.5 12.oz bottle. Pours with little head that fades quickly. Color is straw. Smell is mild with little fruity. Taste is pretty blank but the aftertaste is pleasant for me. Comes back wheaty. Nothing special but drinkable.
2.5 Please, if you’re going to drink this....drink it on tap! Avoid the bottle at all costs, the bottle pales in comparison. Very tasty though, you can taste the hints of honey.
2.1 Straw color with a glistening, diminishing, fizzy white head. Grainy malt and light honey aromas. Touches of corn silk and more grain on the side. Light dry flavors of husky malt and floury grains. Little honey dryness. Quite fizzy in feel. Not enough malt to back up any honey in this brew. Weak and insipid.
2.5 12oz bottle: pours golden brown with quick fading white head, aroma is very light but of malt, flavor has very little honey to speak of and very light on malt also, and very little hopping. pretty bland beer.
2.7 Pours a straw yellow with a quickly disappearing white head. Not much aroma-malts, honey. Pilsnery taste-yeast-like a bit bitter with a very sweet honey ending.
2.8 Pours into my 25cl tulip glass with a two-finger thick, pale, off-white colored head. The beer is a clear copper color, that shows a bright gold color when held up to the light. The aroma is definitely influenced by honey, with it being the most prominent note. There is also a touch of grassy grain aromatics, notes of crushed saltine crackers as well as a thin beery note. Fairly simplistic aroma, that is not as interesting as it could be. A honey sweetness is noticeable at the front of a sip, but the beer dries out somewhat without losing the floral honey flavors entirely. Perhaps a kiss of hops add a faint bitterness, as a balancing note the fizzy carbonation seems to add some sharpness to temper the honey flavors. Grassy / grainy malt character is noticeable, but doesn’t do a whole lot for the complexity of this brew. Thinnish and light in the mouthfeel, if the flavors were better this would be quite quaffable. Not a bad beer, it doesn’t have any real flaws, it just isn’t all that interesting.
2.4 Bottle. Pours a clear golden with a small white head. Aroma of pale malt and honey. Taste is the same as aroma. Medium mouthfeel with a mild amount of bitterness. Not bad.
2.4 Well, it’s crisp, I’ll say that for it. It’s also as uncomplicated as a Robert B. Paker novel. The honey is more understated than I’d expected, playing off against a very light vanilla base on a well carbonated brew. A good choice to cool off with, but nothing to go looking for, that’s for damned sure. A classic lawn mower beer.
2.3 Bottle. Pours dark golden with thin white head. Aroma- honey, grain and some unclean/adjunct notes in the background. Flavor is bready with very slight floral hops, also some stale beer taste.
1.8 Tastes like a hand-crafted American macro lager beer. A touch less corny than MGD or Bud but very close. So why should I pay $6.50 US a sixer for this stuff? I shouldn’t and neither should you. I apollogize to the bees for wasting their good honey.
2.2 Sample at Oggi’s in Santa Clarita, CA. Pours a crystal clear pale golden color with a medium thin white head that dissipates quickly. Minimal lacing is apparent. Light honey and malt aroma. Light-bodied with subtle malt, honey and hops flavors. The finish is short and sweet, without much aftertaste. Not worth revisiting overall.
2.1 Bottle - from sampler pack. Light golden and cloudy. Very bland - nearly tasteless.
2.4 Tasted like a medium-flavored lager with faint honey. A little carbinated and fairly drinkable. It was alright.
2.1 Cloudy, flat yellow-green pour with diminishing head. macro-lagerish aroma, mild flavor. I didn’t really notice the honey at all. likely my first and last.