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Spruce Beer

A fermented beverage made with water, hops, ginger, molasses, spruce essence, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Spruce Beer

Why it works: Ginger and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,116 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Spruce Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wort

  1. In a large kettle, combine 10 gallons of water, ¼ pound of hops, and 1 cup of ginger.

  2. Boil until the hops sink to the bottom.

  3. Remove a bucket full of the liquid and stir in 6 quarts of molasses and 3.5 ounces of essence of spruce until dissolved.

  4. Mix this back into the kettle and strain through a fine sieve into a cask.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Stir in ½ pint of yeast and let it ferment for 1-2 days.

  2. Bung up the cask and bottle the beer the next day.

  3. It will be ready to use in a week.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Ginger + molassestop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Hops + gingertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Hops + molassestop 41% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5 recipes

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the molasses.
Molasses
Provides fermentable sugar for the yeast and a rich, dark sweetness.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, carbonating the beer.
Essence of spruce
Supplies the characteristic resinous spruce aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring in the yeast after the wort has cooled. Yeast added to liquid that is still hot can be killed, stopping fermentation. The wort should be cool enough to be comfortable to the hand before the yeast goes in, so it can multiply and ferment the sugars steadily.

“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.

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