Every spring a large number of breweries collaborate on a beer with the Pink Boots Society, a non-profit group that promotes careers for women in the beer industry. The Pink Boots Society selects a blend of hops that is used in all of the collaboration beers, and then encourages the female employees at each participating brewery to design and brew a beer using the hop blend. A portion of the proceeds from the beers then goes back to Pink Boots, where it is used to fund educational scholarships that help women further their careers in the beer industry. Under normal circumstances a whole bunch of these beers are released at once, with events and tap takeovers that help promote the awesome work Pink Boots and the participating breweries are doing. Unfortunately this isn’t a “normal circumstances” year, but many breweries are still participating, packaging the beers and selling them as they can. I grabbed some Honeymaker, the Pink Boots beer from Widowmaker Brewing, on a recent stock-up. I think this is actually the first Widowmaker beer I am reviewing, which is a massive oversight that will be over-corrected soon. Widowmaker Honeymaker is brewed with the Pink Boots hop blend, featuring Citra, Comet, Azacca, and Idaho 7 hops, along with locally sourced honey harvested by a Widowmaker bartender who is also a beekeeper. It is available now in 16 oz cans.
Widowmaker Honeymaker pours hazy light orange with a massive white head. The aroma features a big burst of fruity hops. These hops lead the flavor too, notes of melon, mango and tangerine with minimal bitterness, this is very much a NEIPA. The hops are balanced by a solid malt backbone, hints of bread crust and biscuits. Honeymaker is medium bodied and very smooth, just cracks DIPA range at 8% ABV. The finish is crisp and subtly sweet wth some lingering hop flavor. This is a well-rounded New England style DIPA, plenty of hops and well-balanced, especially good for people who like their IPAs to be fruit flavor bombs. Hoppy Boston score: 4.25/5.
Hoppy Boston 
