BALDWINSVILLE, NY -- Anheuser-Busch brewmaster Nick Offredi wants to make one thing clear: “This is not an autumnal mead.”

If you’ve seen those “Dilly Dilly” commercials for A-B’s Bud Light beer -- and if you watch TV at all they’re hard to miss -- you know that mead, aka honey wine, is a target of derision. Mead is depicted as the snobbiest of drinks -- described with flowery words like “autumnal” -- unlike Bud Light, which is “for the many not the few.”

So you might be surprised to learn that Offredi and his colleagues at the Anheuser-Busch brewery near Baldwinsville are now making a “Honey Alcohol Beverage” called, simply, B.

Although you won’t find the word on the label, it’s a mead.

To highlight how unusual that is for Anheuser-Busch, consider this: The Baldwinsville brewery had to get a winery license from the state of New York earlier this year to make its new product. (The state has only recently introduced licenses specifically for mead).

Mead is an ancient alcohol beverage, often associated with the Vikings and thought by some to be older than beer or (grape) wine.

Anheuser-Busch’s B comes in two flavors (cherry and blueberry), and is a low calorie, low alcohol (3.5 percent) and gluten-free beverage. It’s meant as a light, refreshing quencher, Offredi said.

It’s made from honey, water and fruit juices. “It’s not a complex product,” Offredi said. “It’s for when you want to play the game but not necessarily go that hard. It’s going be great for the summer, in the park or at a barbecue.”

B is now in limited test markets: Boston, along with Worcester and other parts of central Massachusetts plus Portland, Maine. If it’s successful, it could be rolled out nationally. In the test markets, it costs about $11.99 for a 4-pack of 12-ounce “sleek” or thin cans.

B is made exclusively at the A-B plant in the Radisson Business Park, off Route 31 just outside the village of Baldwinsville. That plant is one of 12 U.S. breweries operated by corporate brewing giant Anheuser-Busch Inbev, based in Belgium. It opened in 1976 as a Schlitz brewery, and was taken over by A-B in the early 1980s.

Anheuser-Busch, of course, is best known as the maker of Budweiser and Bud Light and other mainstream lagers. But the Baldwinsville brewery is renowned throughout the company as one of the most versatile.

“We are definitely known for innovation,” said Baldwinsville brewery general manager Bryan Sullivan. One of its biggest success stories was introducing the line of Bud Light Lime-A-Ritas in 2012. It also has one of the widest varieties of packaging options in the A-B system.

Today the brewery, the largest in New York state, has about 500 employees. It makes about 75 different beverages, totaling around 6 million barrels (the equivalent of 82 million cases) each year.

Of its total volume, about 60 percent is Bud, Bud Light, Busch, Michelob Ultra and other “A-B lagers,” Offredi said. Another 10 percent are “craft” beers under brands purchased by A-B, like Goose Island and Blue Point.

The remaining 30 percent highlight’s the plant’s diversity: Flavored alcohol beverages such as the Lime-A-Rita line; hard (spiked) seltzers, hard cider and even a non-alcohol tea called Teavana.

Aside from the B | honey wine | mead, other recent developments at the Baldwinsville plant include:

-- Bon & Viv Spiked Seltzer. Anheuser-Busch acquired Boathouse Beverage, the makers of SpikedSeltzer, in 2016, and began producing the alcoholic, sparkling sodas at Baldwinsville in 2017. Earlier this year, accompanied by a big ad push in the Super Bowl, A-B rechristened the brand Bon & Viv, with mermaids as the mascots.

This summer, Bon & Viv will introduce three new flavors, Mango, Coconut and Classic (unflavored). The Classic will also be available on tap at bars and restaurants.

-- Stella Artois Spritzer. This is a relatively new product built off Stella Cidre, a hard cider line the Baldwinsville brewery has made for several years. It’s a sparkling mix of the hard cider with water, cutting the alcohol down to 3.5 percent (like the mead). Like the Stella Cidre itself, these are on the dry side. “This fits with the popularity of things that are lighter and refreshing,” Offredi said. It was introduced late last year.

-- Rita Spritz. Another spritzer (with a shortened name), this is a spin-off of the Lime-A-Rita (or just Rita) line introduced several years ago. The flavor lineup for the Rita Spritz beverages are Peach Sangria, Pear-Orange and Strawberry-Blueberry.

In addition, a new flavor is coming this year from the regular “Rita” lineup -- Passion Fruit. Like the other non-spritz Ritas, it’s 8 percent alcohol.

-- Naturdays. This new A-B product is a blend of the company’s Natural Light lager and strawberry lemonade. It’s 4.2 percent alcohol.

-- Goose Island Summer Time. A seasonal German-style kolsch brewed for the Chicago-based craft brewery that A-B bought in 2011.

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.