Fir / Spruce Beers?

If life were kinder I'd have continuous access to a one-off collaboration between Lawson's and Vermont Pub, Spruce Tip IPA.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/17980/96964/

 

Casita Cerveceria Del Arboles tart saison with Pine, cedar, and juniper. My personal favorite offering from Casita.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/41794/243029/

 

Pipeworks Twin Pines Mall is an excellent beer. It's well balanced and avoids being over the top with piney flavors.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/28178/193838/

 

I believe they recommend new growth tips so that would be now.

 

You can harvest spruce year round. The flavor does change throughout the year. I actually like the spruce in late fall early winter because I think the resin has concentrated but its not overly dry as winter gets stronger and longer and reduces the moisture in the spruce making it messy in the kettle.

 

I've been digging the recent years' iterations of Greenwarden by Banded Brewing (formerly Banded Horn) from the great state of Maine. When it's super fresh the spruce element has been very forward and almost perfumy, and then it tails off over the ensuing summer months.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/34102/128043/

 

The local brewery - Beaver Island Brewing produces a beer called Tip Up that is made with spruce tips.

Pretty good also. Several participants in the NBS BIF #8 have received it in ninja packages.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/38769/200561/

 

There are a handful of beers with spruce tips brewed in these parts. Unfortunately I doubt any of them make it to where you are. There is a decent amount of them because a few years back a brewer here in Québec decided that he wanted to create a wholly Québécois beer style.

From my understanding it wasn't supposed to be a historical recreation, but at the same time it was definitely influenced by the thought of what people here used to drink. A big group of people, experts and breweries coordinated over a couple years to hammer out the kinks and try to establish this new style. In 2013ish they “unveiled” this new style (Annedd’ale). Annedda being an Iroquois for spruce. Obviously everything about it is in French, but if you want to check with google translate you'll get a decent idea. This is the main guy's website, if you're curious. The style is pretty flexible. It can be light to big in terms of body, alcohol, etc. The most important ingredients are: 100% Québec malt, the "Jean-Talon" yeast strain, and spruce tips.

The yeast was one of the coolest parts of the project to me, they isolated a strain from the vaults of the first “palace” in Québec City/1800s brewery (and where Jean Talon—politician and brewer) once had a brewery in the 1600s. They did this with the help of the people at Lallemand and you could buy the yeast to try it yourself I thought (BRY-485) but now that I look for a link I can't find it anywhere so maybe not...

They are pretty tasty beers if you ever get a chance. I realize this doesn't necessarily get you new beers to try right now, but it is a cool story and maybe will be an excuse for you to visit Québec.

 

Had Spruce Tip Sculpin last week... great but taste seems artifical towards the end.

 

I’m not sure if it’s been posted or not as I didn’t click on every link but I believe Juicy Tree by Shorts would have to win this hands down. Like a liquid Christmas tree!....

Amirite @Blackop555 ???

 

Grimm Super Spruce and Uinta Rise & Pine are my two favorite spruce beers at the moment. I'd also like to try Spruce Tip Sculpin.

 

And then some

 

I love Spruce beers. It just kills me that Shorts only sticks Spruce Pils in hard to find variety packs instead of the good days of 6 packs.

Being page 2 of the thread with only a handful of beers mentioned show how rare these beers are.

 

sounds interesting. I read Pilgrims and other early Americans used spruce to bitter the beer because they could not get a hops crop fast enough.I'm not sure hops would grow from Boston to Virginia anyway. Never had one...but would like to try one.

 

don't recall cool colt

 

"From the middle of the eighteenth century until the early nineteenth century, Massachusetts was the acknowledged leader in hop production in North America... By the end of the eighteenth century, a considerable portion of the Massachusetts crop was being exported to France and Germany."
Tinged with Gold - Hop Culture in the United States (1992)

The above book also notes that hops grew wild in the northeast.

In the mid-1800s, Virginia had hop crops of between 10 and 11,000 lbs - not much (although larger than any other southern state) compared to the leading state, New York, which grew 17.5 million pounds in 1870.

Most of the "Spruce Beer" recipes I've seen from the 19th and early 20th centuries were not true "beers" as legally defined today, since they used molasses as the fermentable, not barley malt or other grains.

 

Ft George Magnanimous is the best that i have had for this style. Great spruce tip flavor without being overpowering or artificial

 

Põhjala Kalana - https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/37027/279965/

Dogfish Head Pennsylvania Tuxedo - https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/64/126246/

 

thanks for the history...I always "believed" fared better in cooler climates, maybe as far south as New Englan but not Va. Guess I was wrong! thanks

 

Super Spruce from Grimm is one of my favorite, really solid.