the fermentation
Beer is a drink obtained through fermentation. During fermentation, yeasts convert sugars into alcohol. In ancient times, people did not know yeast, but they didn't have to, because yeast fungi are everywhere, including pollen and later in honey. If these yeast spores find suitable conditions, they multiply explosively. Yeasts need water and sugar to live, so honey is the ideal place. This is how fermentation occurs, because the yeast converts sugar into carbon dioxide and alcohol. People certainly didn't know that back then, but they use this chemical process to make beer.
Today the following applies: honey that ferments is no longer marketable - however, the risk of fermentation actually only exists in honeys with a high water content.
A manufacturing variant
In many hobby kitchens, honey beer is brewed something like this: Honey is boiled with water and hops. The mixture is then cooled down and brewer's yeast is added before it goes into a fermentation vessel. After a long period of fermentation, it is filtered, post-fermented and filtered again and is then ready to drink. This beer does not taste particularly sweet and retains the typical beer taste.
The unofficial variant
If you like, you can also mix finished beer with honey: your favorite beer is heated and stirred and mixed with honey. It's not actually a real honey beer, but it's unofficially called that. It is a very sweet beer with a distinct honey flavor. The mixing ratio of honey and beer to each other is an absolute matter of taste and the only thing that helps here is: testing.
Bees provide the shelf life with their honey
Interestingly enough, honey beer does not stand as quickly as a normal beer, so it goes stale much more slowly. This is due to the honey and it is precisely this longer shelf life that was used in the Middle Ages. The hops had not yet been discovered, but the people of that time also knew how to appreciate the advantages of a drink that could be stored well.
