J.R. Brickman Honey Red
Waterloo Brewing

Bottle- Pours a deep amber coloured body with a good sized lasting froth. Aromas are all malt and brown sugar with some honey and bread. Sweet malty with some actual honey flavours and the slightest bittering hops. Finish is sweet and tasty. All in all this is enjoyable. A good summer beer. Another winner in the founder's series.

Here's a local favourite - Brick's something of an institution in Waterloo, even if they get slagged on this site they deserve a fair bit of respect for opening up the craft brewing market in Ontario, even if some say they've since lost their way. They've got 4 main beers, Waterloo Dark and the 3 brands of their JR Brickman series. Of these 3 I like their Pilsner best and I'm no fan of their Amber, here's their middle offering, the Honey Red:

No complaints in the looks department, translucent reddish copper, small off-white head. Smells decent - rich maltiness, honey, with some bitter fruity and vegetabley hints.

Feels fairly thin on the tongue, roasted malt flavours, some herbal hops - you don't notice much honey at first, but in the aftertaste it hits you. The aftertaste is kind of cloying, something about the honey taste seems inauthentic, but it wouldn't stop me from drinking more.

Overall, a decent brew - there's flashes of excellence in the taste, but the Brick folks don't manage to take it all the way.

Served from a 341ml brown bottle into a tulip glass.

A- amber/copper in color. small head disappears in seconds leaving some lace.

S- fruity, wiffs of honey,roasty, slightly grainy, metallic,a little bread.

T- roasted malts, caramel, sweet with nice floral hop balance, lots of honey. Becomes more and more flavourfull as the beer proceeds to warm.

M- light in body and a nice smooth powdery mouthfeel but a little over-carbonated.

D- not bad for a honey beer, but its almost too sweet.

Overall this is the best choice if your looking for a nice honey beer. We probably dont need anymore honey beers but its nice to see a quality honey beer for once. (I still trying to figure out how this beer grabbed second place behind the horrid Tiverton Bear honey lager at the Ontario brewing awards?.)

Struck me as more along the lines of an Irish Red. Poured a nice amber/ruby. Sweet and bittersweet, in line with the "honey" designation. Moderate hopping, a bit malty-sweet-centric. Overall, a fairly monotone flavor profile. Adequately drinkable, but strives for no more.

A: Medium reddish orange color with a small head of white foam. Nice lacing inside the glass.

S: Sweet malts and grains. Some honey. Not bad.

T: Sour earthy notes and bland, one dimentional malts. A soapy sweet flavor on the palate blends with a light touch of herbs and grains.

M: Unexpectional. Kind of boring. Not alot of carbonation. Kind of like pulp-free orange juice.

D: I could take it or leave it. Luckily, I shouldn't be put in that position anytime soon.

Notes: Thank for the sample Pootz!

Serving Type: 341mL Bottle poured into a glass.

A: Dark amber with a red tint. Slight head with slight lacing left from the pour.

S: Good aroma, some honey, malts, fruits. Very nice.

T: Nice, sweet, matly, easy on the mouth. Honey is the most tasted.

M: Smooth, not harsh on the tounge at all.

D: I would have this again. A very nice brew from the people at Brick.

Medium amber in colour with a fair bit of carbonation. Aromas of caramel malts, a bit of bread, and floral honey. Very sweet in the mouth with a ton of honey flavor and a bit of grainy malt. Thankfully, the beer dries out quite quickly, and there's a fairly nice crisp finish. Any hop aroma of flavor gets kinda lost, and might have lent a bit more complexity. Not a bad effort for a North American amber lager, but a more hopped up one would have been far more interesting. Thanks pootz!

A pleasant surprise. Nice smooth honey flavour which does put it on the sweet side but with enough hops to nicely balance it. Very smooth, not acidic and a pleasant aftertaste. One of the better Brick products that I have tried. Kuodos to Mr. Brickman.

At the brewery. Their new amber with a drop of honey. Reddish colour. Honey esther and malty. Too sweet and too overcarbonated. Bubbles in the yeasty head nice to look at. We need another beer with honey? For the general public.I will try the pasteurized in bottle in case it is better.

Tasted the unpasturized product on tap today.

Same amber-orange hue and large frothy lasting cap.

Aromas a tad more defined: sweet bready tones, honey and some light grass.

Flavor shines in this version...exceptionally smooth silky mouth with large chewy caramal malts in the start, mid way the hops provide some herbal-spice balance and the homey is detected. Finish is more malt defined and well balanced with the hop spice....lovely buscuit snap right at the end.


I think this is my favorite Brick beer as it has so many characteristics in common with a malty sweet vienna or fest marzen.

Hope they put this on tap in my local.

The second of three new Brick brews attempting to defy the company's growing reputation as a buck-a-beer brand, J.R. Brickman's Honey Red is the entry that I was most eager to try (though I can't fathom why they decided to choose a honey beer for their new 'craft' line), however my initial impressions were mixed. The bottle reviewed is the third from a six pack, and I find myself coming around to this brew more and more which each beer.

Poured from an industry standard bottle (bearing the same logo and design as the J.R. Brickman Pilsner, but with red colouring instead of green) into a pint glass an orange-amber-copper sort of colour. An aggressive pour resulted in almost three fingers of head, but it died down within moments to a fairly thin ring, but with considerable lacing on the glass. It doesn't look half bad.

The smell, though, is a little off. Nose is oddly yeasty in an unpleasant sort of way. Some grassiness, with a fair amount of maltiness, and a distinct honey note (far more than in any other honey beer I can recall drinking). The diacetyl notes really ruin it, though - if they're able to remove this, this will be a respectable brew in the nose department.

Taste strikes me differently almost every sip - Sweet, mostly due to the fairly strong honey - with honey notes throughout, a faint grassy-herbalness. Biscuity throughout, but especially on the finish, which is dry and slightly bitter (as well as the honey character). Faint diacetyl. I'm not entirely sure what to make of this brew, but it's not bad by any stretch of the imagination.

Mouthfeel is good. Carbonation is respectable, though slightly livelier than I might have liked - but the body itself is not at all watery. It's substantial, but not too thick; really feels nice in the mouth. Drinkability, however, doesn't seem that great. The honey adds a weight that might prevent me from having more than one or two at a time, and the extreme dry biscuity notes on the finish aren't super pleasant.

The J.R. Brickman Pilsner is much better than this entry, though this brew isn't so bad itself. I'm not sure if I could drink this brew regularly, but it's probably something worth trying.