Spruce beer facts for kids
Spruce beer is a special drink. It gets its flavor from parts of spruce trees, like their buds, needles, or a special liquid called essence. Spruce beer can be either a drink with alcohol or a non-alcoholic one, like a soda.
This unique drink can taste many different ways! Some spruce beers might taste like flowers, citrus fruits, or other fruits. Others might taste like cola or even a bit like pine trees. The flavor depends on the type of spruce tree used, when its needles are picked, and how the drink is made.
Contents
Discovering Spruce Beer
A Drink from Nature
Long ago, the Indigenous peoples of North America were the first to use evergreen needles to make drinks. They used spruce beer to help cure a sickness called scurvy during winter. Scurvy happens when people don't get enough vitamin C. Fresh spruce shoots and pines are full of vitamin C, so this drink was a natural medicine!
Even though some people in Europe might have made similar drinks, many early explorers didn't know about spruce beer's power against scurvy. When Jacques Cartier and his explorers arrived in what is now Quebec in 1535, they learned from the First Nations people how to make this drink. It saved their lives! European sailors then started making spruce beer and shared this idea around the world.
Spruce Beer Through History
Saving Lives at Sea
In 1536, the French explorer Jacques Cartier was exploring the St. Lawrence River. His men were getting very sick with scurvy. The local St. Lawrence Iroquoians people taught him how to boil the needles of a tree they called the Aneda (which was probably the Thuja occidentalis). This made a tea that had lots of vitamin C. This special drink saved Cartier's men!
Later, the British Royal Navy started using this method. They often added spruce to the beer they brewed on ships. This helped keep sailors healthy during long journeys, especially when exploring the West Coast of North America and places like New Zealand in the 1700s. Even famous author Jane Austen mentioned spruce beer in her book Emma!
Old Recipes
In the past, alcoholic spruce beer was very popular in the early United States and eastern Canada. It was often made from red or black spruce trees.
Here's a simple idea from a Canadian recipe from 1757:
- Boil spruce tops and branches for three hours.
- Strain the liquid into barrels.
- Add some molasses.
- Once it's cold, it's ready to drink!
An American recipe from 1796 also showed how to make it. It used hops, water, molasses, spruce essence, and yeast.
In 1759, soldiers in North America were even given spruce beer! The daily orders said: "Spruce beer is to be brewed for the health and conveniency of the troops." This shows how important it was for health back then.
Today, people often prefer Sitka spruce trees, which grow on the northwest coast of North America. If you use the bright green new growth in spring, before the needles get hard, you get lighter, more citrus-like flavors.
Spruce Beer Today
Spruce as a Flavor in Beer
Sometimes, spruce or other evergreens are used to add flavor to regular beer. For example, some breweries make beers like Alba Scots Pine Ale or Alaskan Brewing Company's Winter Ale, which have a hint of spruce.
Some breweries, like Banded Brewing in Maine, make a pale ale called Greenwarden every spring using white spruce tips. Earth Eagle Brewings in New Hampshire mixes pine and spruce tips in their seasonal amber beer. There's even a spruce gin made by Tamworth Distilling!
Recreating Old Recipes
Not many modern drinks are called "spruce beer" anymore. But some breweries try to make historical versions. For example, Wigram Brewing Company's Spruce Beer is based on the first beer Captain Cook brewed in New Zealand in 1773. Also, Yards Brewing Company makes Poor Richard's Tavern Spruce Ale based on a recipe from Benjamin Franklin.
Sweet Spruce Drinks
Alcoholic spruce beer can also be made from sugar and spruce flavoring. You boil spruce leaves, small branches, or spruce essence with sugar, then let it ferment with yeast. You can use either molasses or white sugar. A recipe for making this type of spruce beer at home was shared in Cape Breton's Magazine in 1974.
Spruce Soft Drinks
In the Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and Quebec, spruce beer is called bière d'épinette in French. Here, it can mean two things:
- An artificially flavored, non-alcoholic soda.
- Real spruce beer, which is now only made by a few small breweries.
See also
In Spanish: Cerveza de abeto para niños
