Re: [Paddlewise] Spruce Beer

From: "Shawn Baker" <shawnkayak_at_yahoo.com>


> Gordin asked:
> >Now I've had a few whobbly  pops, but never a Spruce.  Anyone care to
> >enlighten us on Spruce Beer.
> 
> As far as I know, it's beer that is bittered with spruce needles,
> rather than hops.  I'm told it tastes something like Pepsi.
> 

Pepsi?  Not any spruce beer that I've had!*

I suppose there are variants on spruce beer, but the stuff I often
guzzled as a kid in Quebec was, like root beer and ginger beer, a 
non-alcoholic, sweet soft drink.  It was strong and... well... 
distinctive - certainly not like most soft drinks.  If you know the 
"kick in the taste buds" style Jamaican ginger beer, then you have a 
notion of what it's like - not that it tastes _like_ ginger beer, just 
that it hits you with flavour that is lacking in most North American 
pop.

It tastes sort of medicinal... a taste that few would like, to be honest.
I cannot think of anything - fruit, vegetable, whatever, that would
give you a sense of the flavour.  So I guess you'll have to go to Quebec
to try it; I've never seen it anywhere else (not that I've looked).

Mike

* BTW, my understanding is that the spruce beer of old would have been
an alcoholic brew as Shawn describes - I have no idea how it would taste.
Then there was the Jack Pine Cocktail - but that's too crude even for this
group :-)

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