Drink local they say. Local beer with Alberta barley, hops, and water, sure. But how about adding some Alberta spruce too?
by Peter Bailey
I have a majestic old, 70 foot black spruce tree in my front yard that I cherish most of the time and worry about when the gales of November come early. I haven’t really considered gathering spruce needles and adding them to my beer but I do love that evergreen aroma. It would be like Christmas in a pint glass! Strange? Not really. Think about the classic west coast IPAs like Sierra Nevada Torpedo or Driftwood Fat Tug. Brewed with Cascade, Chinook, Columbus or Centennial hops, these beers have a pronounced piney aroma that for a time was a defining characteristic of craft beer. Or how about the distinctive aroma and taste of juniper in London Dry style gins? As well, the tonic water in your G&T gets its bitter taste from quinine, which is made from the bark of the cinchona tree.
Actually adding evergreen needles to beer is another level. So imagine my delight one sunny spring Sunday when I walked to nearby Irrational Brewing and found myself drinking a delicious Forager Spruce Tip Brown Ale. Irrational uses Alberta malts, American hops (Centennial), and English yeast plus local spruce tips to create an amber ale with pine and earthy notes. Irrational follows in the footsteps of other craft brewers using evergreen bits in their brews. Locally, in 2016 Alley Kat kicked off their Back Alley Brews series with Spruce Almighty, an ale brewed with 80,000 spruce tips picked in Edmonton. Alley Kat brewmaster Tim Macleod described the beer to Mack Lamoureux of the CBC: “It’s sprucy, it’s earthy, it’s like a tree and it’s delicious.” In Halifax, Garrison Brewing began brewing an annual Spruce Beer in 2010, based on an historic 18th century recipe, made with local spruce and fir tips, molasses and dates.
Garrison calls their Spruce Beer a revival of North America’s oldest beer style. Certainly one can trace the roots of spruce beer back to at least the time of European contact with Indigenous peoples. In 1536 explorer Jacques Cartier and 110 men were overwintering at Stadacona (Quebec City) and almost all were dying of scurvy, which is caused by a lack of vitamin C. The local Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) people brought the ailing men a drink made from a local tree, which quickly brought them back to health. What Indigenous people knew then and what we know now is that spruce needles are high in vitamin C. Indigenous knowledge rules!
The Iroquoian spruce tea idea spread back to Europe, with low-alcohol spruce beer becoming a popular drink in 19th century England. Author Jane Austen was a home brewer who specialized in spruce beer, even mentioning it in her 1815 novel Emma. The British Royal Navy made sure its sailors had spruce beer to prevent scurvy, with Captain James Cook employing men on his voyages brewing spruce beer. In Canada settlers built on spruce tea by adding molasses to the recipe to enable fermentation. Brewing low alcohol spruce beer remained a rural pastime in Newfoundland, the Maritimes and especially Quebec into the 1960s. You can find artisanal bière d’épinette at Montreal poutine shop Paul Patates today. With spruce beer, as with IPA and porter and other out of fashion styles, today’s innovative craft brewers looked to the past for inspiration, making what was old into something new.
Tree beer six pack
Six woody beers that take drinking local seriously. Most are only available seasonally, in late spring to summer.
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Grain Bin Ale Spruced Up, Grande Prairie
Grain Bin Head Brewer Dalen Landis notes, “We grow and harvest the spruce tips ourselves. It’s our version of a wet-hopped beer, so we aim to brew the beer the day of or after we pick the spruce tips. Each year the beer changes as the growing seasons differ. Some years it is more ‘piney’, some almost sappy, and others a cooling menthol (or a blend of all 3).”
Canmore Brewing Sulphur Mountain Session Ale, Canmore
A refreshing après-ski beer, whether after cross-country skiing at the Canmore Nordic Centre, backcountry in Kananaskis or downhilling at Sunshine. The addition of juniper and spruce tips to this light session ale brings out a hit of wintry freshness with a background of spearmint.
Tofino Spruce Tree Ale, Tofino
A sip of this golden ale brewed with local Sitka spruce tips is like some much-needed shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) among the ancient, giant trees of Tofino. Walk into the woods, quiet your mind, breathe deeply and ignore the rain. The spruce taste is subtle but just enough to take you to the west coast in your mind.
Three Ranges Just the Tip Spruce Tip Ale, Valemount
Three Ranges knows what they’re doing with their spruce beer. Valemount is deep inside the boreal forest (taiga)—the spruce, pine, fir and larch trees that stretch across Canada, Alaska, Russia and Scandinavia. This dark red amber ale is nicely balanced, with a bit of hop bite and subtle spruce notes.
Yukon Birch Sap Ale, Whitehorse
Yukon Brewing marks 25 years in business in 2022—congratulations to founders Bob Baxter and Alan Hansen. Bob and Alan have never been afraid to brew some unusual beers in the midnight sun. Yukon makes a Spruce Tip Pale Ale with locally harvested spruce shoots as well as this delicious Birch Sap Ale brewed with Klondike birch sap.
High Country English Pale Ale with Birch Sap, Nisku
High Country is the beer offshoot of Rig Hand Distillery. Head Brewer Angus Munro brews his English Pale Ale with Birch Sap once a year in the spring when the sap is running in local birch trees. Munro hand- harvests birch sap which replaces the brewing water, making his fruity, biscuity Pale Ale a touch sweeter.