Pages: 1 2
spruce beer
Being a lumber guy, I was doing some research on the species of pines that would make up the Southern Yellow Pine mix coming out of a particular Arkansas sawmill. Yawn 
And, whilst flipping though the pages of my "Atlas of United States Trees" USDA Forest Service Pub. 1146--
Low and behold I discovered a species of spruce I had never heard of-
Brewer Spruce, picea breweriana, which grows only in a small area of extreme SW Oregon and NW California.
Could this be the Holy Grail of Spruce Beer Brewers??
Now, how do I acquire some?
I have looked. I have never come across any nurseries that sell saplings , neither have i seen someone selling the nuts or cones. probably would have to drive up there rent yourself an arborist and find one in the wild and bring it back with you. Kinda like in the National Lampoons Christmas when they go out looking for a Christmas tree and they forget the saw........ Yeah I still laugh at that every time 
Good stuff, let me know if you find somewhere to get saplings or seeds.
ID
Hey Irondavy,
Spring's just around the corner up here. You should be getting close to the blue spruce candling in Austin.
Got any located?
Can anyone share experience in using different kinds of Spruce? I've heard that White Spruce is not as strong a flavor as Blue?
Thanks.
No Idea but I would try spruce only sometime, no hops at all just to try it see what it's like. Still haven't found any spruce trees here in central Tex.
ID
wboard82,
First, welcome aboard.
If you have access to both Blue & White Spruce, you can just pick a candle, wash it, if you are so inclined, bruise, then smell & chew.
I've used both Norway Spruce & Blue, and the Norway has more bitterness.
I've brewed a spruce beer using the extract... some people loved it and wanted to drink it all. I however though it needed less spruce. I only used 1oz of extract for 5 gal in a light wheat recipe and man, it was damn near overpowering. Next time I'll either use 1/2 oz or up the malt in the brew to balance it out. I found it like drinking pine-sol.... and the effects were similar lol jk
I also visited Montreal often as a kid in the late 60's and through the '70's, and really enjoyed the "DENISCOLA" (pronounced deh' nee kola) brand of 'Spruce Biere" and another flavor "Deniscola" called "nectar". As Killigan stated, it was an unusual drink, similar to pine flavored gingerale, except it was crystal clear, just like "Sprite", and highly carbonated, with an INTENSE sweet spruce flavor. I used to bring back CASES of the 1 Quart green glass bottles to Florida to freak out my friends. Many years later, returning to Canada as an adult, I found that "Deniscola" had sold out to another company. The Spruce Biere as I knew it was discontinued, and the big dark green glass bottles of Spruce Biere were no longer available. The new "Deniscola" version of the flavor was much weaker and they only sold it in metal cans. Bummer.
So now I am going to try and use spruce extract to replicate the intense flavor I remember from the past.
I just racked my Montana on my Mind to secondary. Most of my spruce beers are dark, and the spruce isn't really supposed to be prominent, but to blend with the hops, so that it's a little hard to figure out what it is.
Only used spruce candles, heard lots of horror stories about extract.
2 oz for 60 min
1 oz for 30 min
Had the best luck with Cascades.
The M on my M, also has a bit of smoked malt. Pretty good, one of my favs.
Pages: 1 2
Search Home Brewing Knowledge Base
Custom Search
|