spruce needle in lue of hops

[Bootleg_rick]

Now a few years ago a old freind of mine told me about a beer the ither finnish newfinlanders made and insted of useing hops they would use spruce needles or something. Well the man passed away a year ago and I've heard nothing more on the topic, anyway i was woundering if any of you nrewers have heard of this or have any recipies you don't mind sharing. maybe even shed some light on the topic, i just want to say before hand thanks for thouse who do help.

 

[beermanpete]

I don't have any specific advice about using spruce but I have heard of it. Search for info about gruit which is the name for beer that is made without hops.

 

[Bootleg_rick]

I don't have any specific advice about using spruce but I have heard of it. Search for info about gruit which is the name for beer that is made without hops.

thanks for the info.. will do

 

[Miraculix]

thanks for the info.. will do

We have the gruit thread here in the forum but spruce tips are not a very common ingredient there. I read about multiple spruce tip beers, one was supposed to be Lincoln's favourite, a spruce molasses beer. There is quite some information available about spruce beers on the internet.

Feel free to join the gruit thread for specific questions or just to share your ideas!

 

[BeerChemistWhiskey]

There was an episode of Basic Brewing Radio where they interviewed a gentleman who brewed with spruce in Switzerland. Checking on iTunes, it looks like it's the episode titled "01-12-17 Swiss Spruce Porter".

He got pretty detailed in describing his process if I recall.

 

[BrewerE]

I use them in an IPA I make as the 10 minute addition.
It's one of my best beers.

 

[Gadjobrinus]

Look up sahti. It's common to the Finns and Estonians (my wife's Estonian), and I'd imagine many more nordic peoples. People rightly associate sahti with juniper, but I also know of traditional practice using spruce boughs to both line the "lauter tun" and the hollowed out log for runoff.

 

[sancycling]

I’ve experimented with two batches of spruce beer. I used a basic pale ale grain bill. Bittered with hops at 60 minutes and then added 1oz at 10 min an 1oz at flameout. Interesting flavors. I used fresh cut spruce tips.
You can research biere d’epin or d’epinette. There is quite a bit of info.

 

[WBB]

Dogfish head did a collab with Woolrich, Pennsylvania tuxedo brewed with pa spruce tips. It tasted like a Christmas tree. Good thing it was available in a 4 pack and I gave 3 away.

 

[GrogNerd]

Had a brew club buddy who made two batches of beer with spruce tips

The first, with tips from trees in W PA, had a faint hint of spruce in a very tasty pale ale. The 2nd, with tips from trees near his home (Northern Virginia) tasted like undiluted Pine Sol. Same amount, same base recipe, same process, just different sources

So, my advice would be to make teas with different amounts to get your dosage the way you want

 

[JimRausch]

I did a search on this forum for 'Spruce tip beer' a month ago. There's dozens of threads. If I can find them, you can too! Good luck!

 

[Transamguy77]

Alaskian brewery does a spruce tip ipa, it was interesting hardly any spruce came through, doesn't help with a recipe but maybe you can find some info on it to help build a recipe.