experimental beers with a botanical twist
The fresh, new growth at the tips of red, black, Sitka, or Norway spruce in spring. If it’s too bitter to eat raw, it’s too far along.
This is a rare example of an American, colonial-era brewing “herb” still in regular use; spruce beer even has a Wikipedia entry. There’s also a good, short article on the Craft Beer & Brewing website. It describes the flavor as “a delightful combination of pine, citrus, woodsy, green, and even wine grape or red berry.”
As mentioned in my previous post two and a half years ago (!) I don’t drink much anymore. Consequently, I’m not brewing much. But this summer I did use up almost all of the malts I had lying around in a pair of 2.5-gallon brews …
A fairly conventional IPA with fresh, wild-crafted Norway spruce tips. Ten ounces in the secondary seemed just about right.
I’ve never found ground ivy to be anywhere near as bitter as the books say, but it could be the wild stuff I use tastes different from British or cultivated varieties.
