Looking for A Spruce tree tasting beer.

[SHbrewing]

Anyone know of any spruce tree tasting beers? Looking to brew a beer to have over the holidays.


This is what I was thinking,

(5 Gallons – Mash Extract)

1.5 lb Light Dry Malt Extract

2.75 lb Pale Malt Liquid Extract

2 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row)

1 lb Munich Malt – 10L (Great Western)

½ lb Carapils

¼ lb Caramel / Crystal Malt – 60L

1 oz New Zealand Hallertauer (8.5% - 60 minutes)

.5 oz Cascade (8.6% - 20 minutes)

4 to 8 oz Spruce Tips (15 minutes - less for subtle flavor, more for lots of flavor)

1 tsp Irish Moss (15 minutes)

1 oz New Zealand Hallertauer (8.5% - 5 minutes)

 

[ColoHox]

Alaskan's Winter Ale has spruce tips in it, and is pretty tasty.

Also, not sure where you are located but as it is winter in the US, spruce tips are out of season, and therefore out of flavor. This should probably be something you brew in the spring, when spruce trees are growing, and drink it in the winter. I know you can buy them online though.

Check out some of the other threads about spruce tips here and https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/american-colonial-spruce-beer-380295/

Good luck.

 

[JR_Brewer]

Yards Brewing in Philly does Poor Richard’s Tavern Spruce. It's pretty good.

Also, looking at your recipe, are you planning to mash? I see 2-row and munich listed in your recipe.

Finally, be sure to only use the spruce tips, i.e., the new growth in spring. Do you have a source for this? I've heard that some people use an extract. Mainly, I wanted to make sure you didn't try to use the older, woody parts of the spruce tree.

Good luck, it's been a long time since I brewed a spruce ale, maybe I need to revisit this in spring.

 

[SHbrewing]

Alaskan's Winter Ale has spruce tips in it, and is pretty tasty.

Also, not sure where you are located but as it is winter in the US, spruce tips are out of season, and therefore out of flavor. This should probably be something you brew in the spring, when spruce trees are growing, and drink it in the winter. I know you can buy them online though.

Check out some of the other threads about spruce tips here and https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/american-colonial-spruce-beer-380295/

Good luck.

Thanks very much!

cheers

 

[grizzly2378]

Crow Peak Brewing in South Dakota makes a spruce tip beer called Mjollnir (aka Thor's Hammer). They have a tip picking day every spring and then release the beer in the winter...in fact, it should be coming out soon. They use a brown ale as the base beer, which works really well with the spruce tips. The spruce is a little more subtle in Alaskan Winter, but they're both good brews.


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[TasunkaWitko]

I was just in Spearfish last week and picked up a 6-pack each of Crow Peak’s Pile o’Dirt Porter and Canyon Cream Ale. As someone who lived down there in the 90s, it was pretty cool to see that my adopted hometown was brewing some beer.

If I would have thought of it, I would have collected a few spruce tips while driving through the canyon - but then again, I'm not sure how I would have been able to preserve them, so perhaps it is just as well.

I may have to arrange a quick trip down there again in the near future, both for a tour and for the purpose of picking up some of this Mjollnir.

Thanks for letting me know!

To the OP - my son just brewed a spruce ale that turned out pretty well. It was "inspired" by a recipe of Benjamin Franklin's and incorporated spruce tips and molasses. It had an olde-tyme aroma and character that I really liked, along with prominent - but not overwhelming - spruce essence. If you're still looking for details, I can probably dig them up.

Ron

 

[unionrdr]

My adaptation of the English recipe for Mumme, originally dated 1695, was to use 2ozs spruce tips in the boil. I got this little bottle of Spruce essence, concentrated, on amazon for a couple bucks. About 1/4oz should equal about 2ozs of tips, as I was told by NB's chat. I'll be adding it to the priming solution on bottling day.