Spruce It Up
Horse & Dragon Brewing Company

i absolutely loved this beer, on tap at fire on the mountain. a nice rich amber ale as a base, but loaded up with fresh spruce tips, the result is incredible. so often spruce works itself into yeast driven beer like saison, or hop driven beer like ipa, but rarely have i seen it in malt forward beer, so this amber represents something quite new to me, and i love it. through the pillow off white inch or two of head, i smell the fresh spruce first, backed up by a semisweet but also nutty red malt base, bready and fresh baked and toasted all at once. the spruce is rather well tempered in the flavor, easy to run away with this, but its relaxed. prevalent throughout, herbaceous and medicinal and wintery to me, like a christmas tree, but its never too much. the malt is well toasted and sturdy, not only full flavored but full bodied too, hints of candied almond come to mind. despite all the flavor in this, i found it quite drinkable because of how interesting it is, each sip is gone just a little too fast for me to fully make sense of it, so i go back real quickly for another and another, and all of a sudden the pint is gone. awesome take on a spruce beer, love it being in an amber ale. these guys are so far ahead of the curve... i need to make it up to the brewery next time i am in fort collins. this is wonderful stuff.