Welcome back to Off The Hinge Brewing. I have been longing to brew a spruce beer since trying Fort George's Spruce Bud Ale. I assumed that spruce tips tasted piney and resinous. I was right about the latter, however the flavor was fruity and not piney at all. I was hooked. I forgot about how much I wanted to brew with spruce, but low and behold a fellow home brewer Jon Hall from the Portland Brewers Collective made a wonderful spruce pale ale and reintroduced me to the wonderful flavor of spruce. Another member, Rich, whom is leaving for the east coast asked me if I was interested in some spruce tips. He had vacuumed sealed them and kept it in the freezer. The only stipulation was I had to make a spruce beer before he leaves. I was beyond ecstatic and will be sharing my creation tomorrow.
I have only tried spruce beer in two forms pale ale and gose. I was damned if I was going to make either of those styles. Not that I disliked those versions! I kept racking my brain about a complementary style. A customer at Imperial Bottle shop told me that his favorite spruce beer he had was a biere de garde (old beer). There it was! I was instantly transfixed on a memory of drinking biere de garde in the Pyrenees. It was such a surreal moment and one of my favorite memories of drinking beer.
This French farmhouse ale can be debated as to the style parameters, however I think everyone can agree it is malt forward beer with cellar-like qualities. Some of those qualities include flavors associated with yeast, musty basement and cork. Often times these qualities are hard to achieve on the home brew level.
Here is my humble thoughts on the style... The appearance should range from golden hues to brown. These beers tend to be bright, in part to long cold storage on lees, hence the name old beer. Garding is the same thing as Lagering. The aroma should be malty and sweet with a hint of herbal hops and those cellar-like qualities I mentioned earlier. The taste should also resemble the malty sweetness and some fruity and herbal hop notes. It should be dry and never cloying. It should feel medium bodied.
An interesting fact is that spruce tips are full of vitamin C, which during colonial times helped prevent scurvy during the long voyages to the Americas. They learned this from Native Americans upon arrival.
I added the spruce tips at the whirlpool stage of cooling the hot wort. In hopes to preserve the oils and flavor. I just tried the beer two days ago before kegging and I am excited about the results and look forward to sharing the beer and tasting the carbonated version. I also, used an uncommon yeast strain. Wyeast's Scottish ale, which was not a recommended strain in a farmhouse book I read. The reason I choose this strain is that it attenuates well and flocculates even better causing a brighter beer that is dry. Another positive from this strain is that it accentuates the malt flavor. All of those reasons have helped me create what I feel is a true biere de garde with a touch of the United States Pacific Northwest.
I have created two more beers since and look forward to updating you on those. Also, the 2nd Annual Stout Bout is about to happen. So, you can surmise that one of these beers is a stout. Hope your New Years brings you great tasting beer! Looking forward to creating more interesting brews and sharing the high's and low's of this brewing journey. Remember to drink good beer responsibly. Salute!
