Honeyberries are great fresh eating in my opinion. Better than blueberries for my palate. You picked the right varieties…Beauty and Beast are very good. They also require basically 0 maintenance.
They are tart. I love it. They need to be left hanging on the bush well past turning blue in order to get a nice level of sweetness so patience is required.
Totally disagree that they are in the blackcurrant or aronia category of baking/cooking only.
I have a few 1-2 year old plants / varieties, including the 3 Boreals. The older plants bore a decent crop, so I can tell already that they will be prolific. The plants seem to be good growers. I’ve had no problem here so far with either cold or heat. The plants are in a damp location.
The fruit looks like a long blueberry, but IMO that’s where the resemblance to blueberry ends. The fruit is tasty, but tart. Sure, they get less tart as they mature. But as far as I can see, even a perfectly ripe fruit is still tart. I’m OK with that.
Hi! I currently have 4 honey berry bushes. My son just turned 6 and absolutely LOVES honeyberries so much that I ordered 4 more for spring. For me, they tasted like a sour candy blueberry. The pucker was less the longer they stayed ripe on the bushes but my son kept them picked pretty clean.
I have older types of haskap, so they are pretty sour but I do like them. We don’t eat them plain or fresh. They are great frozen as a smoothie fruit.
I agree they have a more interesting and complex flavour than blues, but are not as pleasant right off the bush. They work very well in pancakes and scones.
Much better than black currant, imho. They work really well as an enhancer for other berries and fruit in jams, pies, etc.
This was the first year I got a serious crop and most was frozen. Some went into black raspberry jam and a chunk got used to help my concord-type grapes to make jelly. Both results were terrific. Cooked, the haskap have a “berry” flavour. It’s good, but hard to nail down so it just adds to whatever else you are using.
Most of our fruit growing “winners” need cooking to be their best so not eating them off the bush isn’t a big deal for me. ( sour cherries, black raspberries, haskap)
You are going to have to try them, only you know what you like. For example my daughter don’t care much for sweet cherries but loves munching on sour cherries; other here find them inedible.
Mine do, but they are growing up on a farm and eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. Children will generally eat what you feed them if you start early enough. Take vegemite for example.
I agree with this.
And this.
And finally, this.
We like them here. I have quite a few varieties, but have only tasted Tundra and Aurora.
Part of my Borealis plant has died…just limbs on one side of it. Not sure the reason. Kept it watered if there was no rainfall, and in partial shade all year.
Older varieties Blue Moon and Blue Velvet and Pagoda are the only ones I’ve been able to taste, and they met my approval. The newer Saskatchewan varieties…I’m looking forward to trying…possibly next year.
They all survived so far.
To me borealis is more of an ornamental bush, it will grow into a dense dome with twice as much foliage as it should have. Finding the fruit is a hassle. It doesn’t need much netting, the robins that would strip the other bushes bare can’t find the fruits on this one either.
My favorite is Aurora. tall dense bush with very large berries, heavy crops.
Tundra is a fine bush, medium berry, more open scaffolding of branches.
You know honeyberries need 1000 hours of settling time for the fruit. I planted 8 of them in Georgia till I read this. I will replace them next year with blueberries which I have 60 of and they are cheap.
Do you believe everything you hear?
I hear Jesus Christ might return tonight…but I don’t believe it.
I also dont believe 1000 chill hours are needed by the Haskaps.
I mean… He might. 
Anyway @ajrg you might be interested in this article from the lovehoneyberry site. It seems to indicate that you don’t really need +1000 chill hours and explains how you can grow them without that many hours.
My 3yo loved them this spring when we went down to MA to try some out (thanks again, @galinas ) That being said, I don’t think she’s met a fruit she doesn’t like, other than underripe figs. She’ll eat wild Aronia, black cherry, chokecherry, barren strawberry, sour cherries, you name it. Hmm… I wonder where she gets it from. Anyway, in my limited experience with honeyberries (only tried 2 varieties once), they are absolutely outstanding fruits. The 2 I tried (Aurora and Indigo Treat(?)) were perfect for fresh eating. Sweet with some tartness, echoes of blueberries, plus their own unique flavor going on. I could have eaten pounds of them. My host also served us some jam that brought out an entirely different side to the fruit. I think these are a must grow for anyone with the right climate.
Well they can grow with shade but I am not sure they can have berries. Anyway we have 700 hours here. All the peachtrees fell off the trees from the high tempertures this year. They did not before
Maybe keep some of them, you never know what climate change might bring. 
Mine hasn’t fruited, but from the appearance of the bush, I see what you mean about how thick the foliage is. Still, for landscaping on a city lot, looks is part of a successful planting of fruit.
We grow 12 different blueberries, raspberries, currant and honeyberry. My son loves the Aurora honeyberry the best. Had a very hot summer and lost 2 of my honeyberry but we plan on putting more in next spring. The taste is pretty good and mine seem to grow pretty fast even though I have them in grow bags
I highly recommend them. They seem to be pretty bug resistant. Although I did have to net them or the birds would get most of the berries.
I think they taste awful (and I wrote a book about uncommon fruits). They taste nothing like blueberries, which taste great. Perhaps a few hundred years of breeding will improve them. With that said, some people, oddly enough, do like them.
You don’t say your zone and that can have a big factor. I have aurora, beauty, beast, blizzard, tundra and have pulled out honeybee and borealis.
I am in zone 4b (usda 3b) Canada.
Aurora is best for fresh eating. Most complex flavour with lower acidity so the 13 brix still tastes sweet. Beauty drops super easy. Blizard and Beast are good but lack a bit of complexity to aurora. Tundra is complex and tart and is best for jams/baking. Aurora flowering overlaps all the boreal series in my climate.
If only 2 I would do 1 aurora for fresh eating and tundra for cross pollination and baking.
It is too bad the current cultivars are not better. Aurora has a lot of potential though. It is an interesting flavor. I agree though not a top shelf fruit. Either are currants but I love all these fruits. I look for unusual flavors, unique like tayberries, or New Berry, White D pineberries, Flavor King pluots, and Cara’s Choice blueberry. So many unique flavors out there I could go on and on. Aurora is one of them for sure.
I think for now its a no for me on honeyberries. Sounds like too much of a gamble as far as whether I will like the taste.