NAPLES, N.Y. -- When Peter Hanley started selling flavoring drops that he claimed would turn your cheap lager into a craft IPA or other beer, it sounded crazy.

Two years later, his notion to add a cannabis derivative -- CBD -- into some of his flavorings doesn’t sound all that crazy. After all, CBD, or cannabidiol, seems to be the hot additive in all sort of foods and drinks these days.

Hanely’s Mad Hops Flavored Beer Drops, headquartered in Naples near Canandaigua Lake, is rolling out its CBD-enhanced flavorings this month.

“You can put it into any beer and get the CBD-performance attributes,” he said.

Those attributes, according to CBD backers, include relief for symptoms such as inflammation, chronic pain and even anxiety. CBD can be derived from either marijuana or its cousin, hemp, but does not contain THC, the psychoactive substance that creates the marijuana “high.”

For Hanley, adding CBD is a way to boost the profile of his beer drops, which he’s been selling, mostly online, since introducing them in the fall of 2016. Flavors include IPA, Pale Ale and Irish Porter, plus several fruit flavors.

The idea of the regular Mad Hops is to take your bottle of, say, Coors Light, PBR or other light-flavored beers and turn them into something closer to a Sierra Nevada Pale or Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter. The fruit flavors can also be used to mask the flavor of the beer for those who don’t actually like the taste of beer.

The new line of CBD-enhanced drops will come in these flavors: American Pale Ale, Irish Porter, Wild Blueberry, NW IPA, Belgian Orange, Cherry Wheat, Apple Amber and Mexican Lime.

There’s also a flavor called Hemp ‘n Hops, whose flavor Hanley calls "weedy.’' It’s intended as an additive to a strongly flavored craft beer, which will mask the basic CBD taste.

“So it’s not just for light lagers,” he said. “You can have your craft beer and get the CBD effects, too.”

Because Mad Hops drops contains no alcohol, Hanley has not encountered the thorny legal issues that keep brewers or other alcoholic beverage producers from marketing CBD in their beers. (Alcoholic beverages can contain hemp-sourced CBD under federal law, but they can’t use CBD or any reference to marijuana in the marketing or labeling).

So Mad Hops lets you add the CBD yourself.

One noticeable difference between regular Mad Hops and the CBD version is the dropper. Regular Mad Hops are poured straight from the bottle -- you add as much as you want.

The dropper on the CBD version lets you control the “dose,” as you would with something like eye drops. Each dropper holds 5 milligrams, about half the recommended daily dose of CBD.

“So it’s perfect if you have two beers -- you get the recommended daily amount,” Hanley said.

Mad Hops with CBD is also more expensive than regular Mad Hops. A bottle of regular American Pale Ale drops is $8.99 and flavors at least 18 beers, according to the Mad Hops web site. The same flavor with CBD is $19.99 per bottle. There are volume discounts.

While regular Mad Hops sells mostly online, Hanley has recently gotten the product into more bars, where customers can ask to have it added to their drafts.

The CBD version opens up many more retail outlets, including health and wellness stores, specialty CBD shops and vape shops. Hanley is looking to expand his Upstate New York retail footprint, which is currently focused on Rochester and the Finger Lakes.

Hanley divides his time between the Canandaigua Lake area -- he has a home and hop farm in Souith Bristol near Naples -- and South Florida. In a coincidence, the beer drops are bottled at a facility in Naples, Fla.

“We think we’re onto something here,” he said. “I’d really like to see this take off nationally.”

Don Cazentre writes about craft beer, wine, spirits and beverages for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at dcazentre@nyup.com, or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook.