White Spruce Beer
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Mix the spruce essence and loaf sugar into a clarified syrup with hot water.
Ferment
Stir well and pour into a cask, filling it with cold water.
Add the ale yeast and shake the cask well.
Let it ferment for three to four days, then bung it up.
For clarity, dissolve isinglass in warmed liquor or cider and stir it in before bunging.
Bottle and rest
After a few days, bottle it using the usual method.
It will be ready to use in a week to ten days.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Pure essence of spruce
- Provides the main spruce flavour and aroma that defines the beer.
- Loaf sugar
- Feeds the yeast during fermentation and adds sweetness and body to the drink.
- Ale yeast
- Ferments the sugar into alcohol and carbonation, turning the liquid into beer.
- Isinglass
- Fining agent that helps the yeast and haze settle, clearing the beer.
The step that matters
Dissolving the sugar into a clarified syrup. Sugar must fully dissolve in the hot water so the syrup is clear and evenly sweet; undissolved sugar can leave the batch uneven and cause unpredictable fermentation.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
You might also like
Vegetable Soup350 recipes
Raspberry Vinegar214 recipes
Brown Coffee with Egg175 recipes
Blackberry Cordial129 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.