Spruce Goose
Big Rock Brewery

This beer pour an orangey copper in colour. Was expecting some spruce on the nose but it was very faint hidden behind lots of toffee and citrus. I think it was slightly too cold at the start but the spruce really came out as it warmed up. I enjoyed this beer but couldn't she myself sitting down and drinking a lot of them

Got this as part of a mix pack from the brewer late last year. Of the three beers included, I was most interested in trying this one, and it did not disappoint. Light carbonation and head. Distinct spruce flavour, which gives nice licorice-y, minty, and citrus-y notes, as well as a pleasant bitterness. Very interesting, and pretty tasty. This was my first spruce beer, and it has definitely piqued my interest in this style (herbed/spiced ale flavoured with spruce tips), which I was honestly entirely unaware of previously.

 

 

 

 

Appearance - Pours a light copper hue with a finger width of bubbly white head.

Smell - Light pine/spruce aromas, slight soapiness, hint of citrus, earthy hops.

Taste - Spruce and pine needles, leafy and earthy hops, touch of citrus peel and honey.

Mouthfeel - Medium bodied with moderate carbonation.

Overall - An earthy spruce-herbed beer that carefully plays with strong natural flavours without going overkill on pine resin bitterness.

341ml bottle poured into tulip 11/11/13

A clear amber liquid with a thick stream of bubbles feeding a thin film that leaves a few random patches of lace

S honey, spruce, pine, loads of caramel, a hint of spice and a little orange peel

T the spruce is more noticeable in the mouth, honey and fruit work well, not quite as much caramel as the nose but that still leaves a fair bit, decent stuff

M medium bodied, creamy for a few seconds then flattens out, slightly sticky on the lips and just a little gritty on the gums

O a strange beer but it works, quite drinkable and I can't quite think of something else like it

I'm a little surprised that Big Rock screwed up so badly with the label for this beer. If your paying attention you'll notice that the lumberjack doesn't have his foot up on the log, when have you ever seen a picture of a lumberjack with both his feet on the ground? They got it right with the other two labels in the mixed 6er, massive oversight with this one, someones getting fired over this one at Big Rock.

Spruce Goose - Howard Hughes, Monty Burns, germs and stupid ideas of aeroplane design come to mind here, but that's all south of the border - up here, it's nothin' but trees and the majestically depicted waterfowl that (apparently) love them. Wait, what - Colorado-sourced spruce? Was there really nothing more local available?

This beer pours a clear medium copper amber hue, with one tremulous finger of weakly foamy, bubbly tan head, which leaves a few barren specks of remote islet lace around the glass as it quickly abates.

It smells of semi-sweet caramel and sweetbread malt, a mildly citric pine and leaf greenness, a hint of lemon-lime, and earthy, floral hops. The taste is rather sprucey-juicy, if I may mangle the language thusly - big spruce tips and herbal tincture alcohol, pleasantly generic citrus fruit, soda bread and caramel pudding, and a weirdly familiar amalgam of pine oil and alcohol - oh yeah - Pine-Sol!

The bubbles are again soft and innocuous, the body an adequate medium weight, and generally smooth, the green pithiness having only a minor effect. It finishes off-dry, with a sort of spruce-tips heavy hoppiness dipping in caramel lunchables cups thing going on.

Well, I'll give Big Rock credit for creating something a bit different - using these Colorado-sourced (ok, I get it now) ingredients has rendered decent results. The piney character is multifaceted - soap, forest flora and kitchen floor cleaner goodness, all. A well herbed (I think that's a valid term here), and duly flavourful pale ale.