Three cheers for honeybees! Name any other insect that makes food we eat. There isn’t one; only the honeybee produces two to three times more honey than they need for their hive. We get their surplus. Between 50 and 100 plants are visited by honeybees during one collection flight from the hive. Nectar is collected when the worker visits a flower and inserts her proboscis (or straw-like tongue) into a flower. She carries it in her “honey sac” or second stomach to the hive, where it is used to make honey. Pollen sticks to hairs all over her body, which she then brushes on her legs — known as “pollen baskets” — and is then carried back to the hive and packed into cells for later use as food. Honeybees are social and live in colonies or hives year-round that consist of 10,000 or more bees. New colonies form when colonies swarm (split); the single queen leaves with several workers. This happens anytime from spring until now when Peaks and Pints offers a flight of five ciders and beers made with honey that we call Craft Beer Crosscut 9.26.18: A Flight of Honey.

Chatter Creek Luya

6.9% ABV

Gordon Rawson began making wine in the early 1980s as a home winemaker. Some of his first wine came from fresh apple juice purchased from the local grocery. Fun, but he desired to be a serious winemaker. After working for Columbia Winery as cellarmaster for nearly a decade, Gordon Rawson opened Chatter Creek Winery in 1996 to produce top-quality sparkling wines in Woodinville, Washington. In 1998, he broadened the focus of Chatter Creek to include still wines. Early in 2000, he departed Columbia Winery to focus solely on Chatter Creek. After a bad day making wine, he bought some apples to clear his mind. Next thing he knew, he added ciders to his label. Luya isn’t a beer but rather an apple cider made with ginger and honey. The ginger is the strongest element of this cider, dominating the aroma and taste. There is a nice body behind the ginger, too.

Tin Dog Saison

6.7% ABV

Tin Dog Brewing’s Saison bridges the gap between the malty brews of winter and summer’s hoppy bitter beers, brewed with blackberry honey. It pours a medium hazy orange golden with thin white head. Aroma is lightly sweet pale malt, just a hint of yeast and orange zest on the back. Taste is clean smooth crystal malt, light juicy orange and lemon citrus, banana and light clove notes from the yeast, then an incredibly clean finish.

Pike Hive Five Honey Ale

5% ABV, 26 IBU

Pike Hive Five is a tasty collaboration between Pike Brewing Company and Salish Lodge & Spa. Salish has 120,000 honeybees buzzing in their apiaries, which produce 600 pounds of superb and local honey every year. Pike brewers grab those honey dippers shaped like a hive and drip the delight into their Hive Five, which adds dimension to the biscuity flavor of wholesome malt and aromatic Yakima Valley hops, including Mount Hood, Bravo and Willamette. Hive Five sports a surprisingly dry and crisp flavor with a slight clover-like essence of honey at the finish.

Iron Goat Trashy Blonde

5% ABV, 38 IBU

Named after a garbage-eating goat sculpture erected at Expo ’74, the world’s fair that took place in Spokane in 1974, Iron Goat Brewing opened in 2012 on the east end of Spokane. In 2016, they moved into a larger space in downtown Spokane. Trashy Blonde is easy on the eyes and crisp on the tongue. Brewed with honey and orange peel, this blonde ale has slight hop bitterness balanced with hints of Valencia orange, not-to-sweet honey notes and a medium-dry finish.

Dogfish Head Wood-Aged Bitches Brew

9% ABV, 38 IBU

Originally brewed in honor of the 40th anniversary of the release of Miles Davis’ 1970 landmark jazz-fusion record Bitches Brew, Dogfish Head’s “remix” is a gustatory tribute to that analog masterpiece. This version of the brew is a fusion of three threads of Imperial stout aged on oak and one thread of Tej — a native African honey beer — aged on Palo. The result is a roasty brew chock full of aromas of vanilla, licorice and chocolate, with notes of sweet roast coffee. It’s slightly dry in the mouthfeel with a mild bitterness that makes it the perfect sipper.