Why it works: Ginger and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Spruce Beer
Ingredients
Directions
Make the wort
Dissolve treacle in 8 gallons of water.
Strain the mixture into a cask.
Add 8 gallons of cold water and essence of spruce.
Ferment and bottle
When the mixture is warm, stir in fresh yeast.
Leave in a warm place for 1-2 days until fermentation ceases.
Bottle the beer the following day; it can be used in a week.
Optional flavouring
For flavor, boil bruised ginger, allspice, and hops in a small amount of the liquor, then add to the rest.
Alternatively, boil spruce fir sprigs in a little liquor and use this instead of essence.
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.
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Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,620 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
-
Ginger + hopstop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
-
Allspice + hopstop 69% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together0 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Treacle
- Provides the sugar that the yeast ferments into alcohol and carbonation.
- Fresh yeast
- Ferments the sugars, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide that carbonate the beer.
- Essence of spruce
- Gives the beer its characteristic resinous spruce aroma and flavour.
- Hops
- Adds bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the treacle.
The step that matters
Leave in a warm place until fermentation ceases. Yeast works best within a warm range; if the mixture is too cool, fermentation stalls and the beer may not carbonate or clear properly. Bottling before fermentation has finished risks over-pressurised bottles.
Swap the ginger
The recipe marks ginger as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, hops):
- Clovefits better
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Gingerthe original
- Nutmegfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, hops. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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