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Spuce Goose Light Honey Ale w/ Juniper
Next on the list is a light honey ale with Spruce and Juniper.
3.3#'s gold malt extract
3#'s clover honey
8oz carapils
1oz Perle for the boil
1oz Tettnang for finish
6oz frozen blue spruce candles and 1tsp juniper berries at flame out.
Juniper and Spruce will only be in as long as it takes for me to cool the wort.
Prime bottle and enjoy!!!!!!!!
Any suggestions?????
My last two spruce beers tasted great, but were pretty hazy. But, I had the candles in for the full boil, instead of using them for finishing. So there may have been some sort of pectin haze. Also, the ones I used this spring were very early growth so they may have been somehow different than what I normally use.
Anyway, you might think about some pectic enzyme &/or irish moss.
Got WhirFloc tabs buddy and I aint afraid to use em. I have have about a half pound of spruce candles in the freezer for the better part of 2 months now. And it's time to use them.
It was horrible so I dumped the whole batch.
So, what happened?
Brewski wrote:
So, what happened?
Spruce Happens.
Sorry... Bad joke, but I liked it.
I'm just curious, I usually brew a couple/three spruces every spring. So far, (knock on wood), they have all been ok. Just wondering what flavor took over & screwed it up. Sounded to me like too much spruce, & didn't someone warn me about the juniper?
I am curious too as to what happened. I saw you guys talking about the spruce ale, and was toying with the idea of making one in the spring. So do tell what went wrong.
Too much spruce and too much juniper... tasted like a rotten christmas tree on crack.
I can't even fathom what that tasted like...
I mean I know what spruce smells like and juniper tastes like but in beer it just escapes my palates imagination.
Normally I use about 4-5 oz of the spruce tips. Usually works ok. Maybe yours had matured and started taking in sap, which would have contained resin, which would taste bad. Or, you could have gotten some of the old wood from the previous year. Combining resin with juniper, yeah that could be nasty.
I harvested the candles while they where about 3.5 inches long and green. I am thinking that freezing them was a mistake.
Sorry, been gone.
Freezing shouldn't be the problem, done it several times.
Maybe just the combo of juniper & spruce doesn't work.
Can I just ask where the inspiration for using spruce tips comes from?
I just keep having a hard time wrapping my head around the flavor.
I think its great that people do this, but its certainly not a traditional ingredient that I have seen to many people try as homebrewers.
I am not knocking it. Far be it from me to say what folks should and shouldn't brew. I think its great to try stuff if you like the product. But I think that at some point everyone ends up trying honey in their beer, spices in their beer and most recently burbons.whiskeys. SO where does the spruce tips (and juniper) inspiration come from? Are there comercial examples?
It's a very old Northwest brewing thing, Washington State & B.C. in particular. Usually w/ Cascade or Hallertauer hops.
I found a couple extract recipes in Papazian & they worked out ok, so I've experimented with it. It's kind of a fresh/foresty nose & blends well with the hops. Just don't use too much. I've never tried the extracts, just early fresh candles.
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