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Drink

Spruce Beer

A fermented beverage made with spruce fir, ginger, treacle, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Spruce Beer

Spruce Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wort

  1. Boil water, treacle, and bruised ginger together for 30 minutes.

  2. Add spruce fir sprigs and boil for 5 more minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  4. Let it cool until milk-warm.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Pour the cooled mixture into a cask.

  2. Stir in the yeast well.

  3. Allow to ferment for 1-2 days.

  4. Seal the cask.

  5. Bottle the beer the following day.

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

What each ingredient does

Treacle
Provides the sugar that the yeast ferments into alcohol and carbonation.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide that carbonate the beer.
Spruce fir sprigs
Contribute the resinous, aromatic flavour that characterises the beer.
Bruised ginger
Adds a spicy aroma and warmth to the beer.

The step that matters

Cooling to milk-warm before adding yeast. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid, so the wort must cool to a warm, not hot, temperature before the yeast is stirred in. Fermentation then starts reliably and evenly.

“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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