Oddly enough, but beer is a drink with which you can experiment. Nowadays you won’t surprise anyone with cherry beer (well, or with some other fruit or berry flavor). What can you say about spruce beer?
This beer is brewed from spruce or pine needles. Definitely young. In fact, the drink itself is not so new: the recipe for such beer has been known since the 16th century, and it was then brewed in Scandinavia, from where it migrated to Germany, and then to the British Isles. Well, there is already America.
In 1775, there was even an order from the admiral of the British army, Grace, to issue spruce beer to soldiers and sailors instead of rum. And, indeed, in the 18th century this beer was supplied to the army battalions of the British army.
In general, spruce beer is a very healthy product, as it has bactericidal properties and contains a lot of useful substances. And it was once very popular among sailors. By the way, it was used as a means of combating scurvy. But here’s the thing: since the 20th century, the production of spruce beer has virtually ceased. Nowadays, if they cook it at all, it is only done by small companies and in small quantities.
For example, we recently brewed an ale infused with spruce needles for Christmas. And the drink is based on a recipe that was used by the Vikings in their time. But, as mentioned above, this beer was released in a limited edition: only 800 bottles. By the way, it sold out with a bang! This is despite the fact that such beer was not so cheap: as much as 16 euros.
So now they plan to regularly produce spruce beer at this factory. So maybe you have a chance to try it too.
And while waiting for Christmas and a trip to Scotland, you can drink any other beer, and there is a very large selection in the WineStreet store.
Other articles from the section “Beer Guide”
What comes to mind when you think about making beer? Let us guess: hops, malt, possibly brewer's yeast. And we are absolutely sure that bamboo is not on this list. Yes, yes, this is not the fantasy of a drunken brewer: bamboo beer exists and is even becoming more and more popular.
Craft beer has been an incredibly fashionable trend in Russia over the last two years. There are even special bars that offer nothing but beer and snacks to go with it. And here’s what’s surprising: such bars are incredibly popular. And not among alcoholic parasites, but among young people and the so-called creative class. And these are not just any pubs, but almost elite bars (of course, with their own specifics and they are elite only in comparison with those same pubs on the corner). The most important thing in such establishments is beer, and not just any beer, but craft beer. This is what the regulars of these bars are hunting for. But what is craft beer and what do you drink it with?
To make beer using these recipes, you won't need any yeast, barley wort, or hops.
This beer will not harm your health, because it does not contain hop cone extract, which contains an analogue of the female sex hormone progesterone. In modern classic beer, the content of phytoestrogens (female hormones) reaches up to 36 mg/l. This amount is sufficient to have a distinct hormonal effect on the human body and change endocrine status.
"Pine beer" does not contain these substances. From the point of view of traditional medicine, its composition is more reminiscent of pine kvass with vitamins and microelements, although it has the taste of ordinary beer. Pine beer is a natural drink and does not contain harmful preservatives or other modern food chemicals.
Traditional recipe.
To prepare pine beer, we take young pine shoots measuring 6-10 centimeters in an amount of 2 kg. Grind them and boil for 40 minutes in an enamel bucket (12 liters), cool, and then filter. Add granulated sugar at the rate of 1 kilogram per 10 liters of broth and cook until the consistency of liquid honey. The prepared "pine molasses" - the starting material of beer - should be bottled and stored in a cool, dry place.
The resulting syrup can be stored in a tightly closed container for a year. This syrup can be used as a medicine for bronchial asthma and pulmonary tuberculosis. You can drink goat's milk along with this syrup to improve the effect.
To prepare the most pine beer, mix pine molasses with spring water in an approximate ratio of 1:15 and boil for 2 hours. Then you need to let the resulting drink cool and let it “ferment” in a warm place for 2 days. It is not necessary to add yeast. The resulting pine beer should be bottled, adding honey for preservation (1 tablespoon per bottle), corked and kept in a cool place until consumed.
Modern recipe.
Cut young spruce shoots growing from the side branches, cut them in half lengthwise, put them in a glass container and fill them with water to remove the resins and bitterness. Place the shoots in a cauldron, add water until it slightly covers them, and cook for an hour. Strain, add three parts of water, 1/2 part of crushed barley malt and 1/4 part of grated carrots to one part of the broth, mix the resulting mass and cook for 30 minutes, then strain and pour into a barrel. Once completely cooled, add yeast to start fermentation. When fermentation is over, the beer can be poured into bottles, capped and left in the cellar for 1-2 months, after which the pine beer can be drunk. However, the longer you store it, the tastier and more vigorous it will be!
Pine kvass can be prepared from either fresh or dry pine needles. To do this, the pine needles are ground in a meat grinder or mortar and poured with warm boiled water in a ratio of 1:10. For each liter of the mixture, add 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of homemade sour cream. Kvass ferments for 4 - 7 days. Then it needs to be strained and stored in the refrigerator. In practice, this product is nothing more than Bolotov’s enzyme.
General strengthening and immune boosting vitamin drink in any season. It also helps with multiple sclerosis. You need to take 5 tablespoons of crushed spruce needles, add 2 tablespoons of crushed rose hips and onion peels, pour in 1 liter of spring (or melt) water and bring the mixture to a boil. Then simmer over low heat for 10 minutes, leave overnight and drink during the day as much as you want instead of warm water. The total amount of drink consumed should not exceed 2 liters per day. If there are no rose hips, then the drink is brewed without it. Later, after straining, you can add the juice of half one lemon.
“...A dry gusty wind has been blowing for several days in a row. Mother Pine was in a hurry. She opened all the doors and windows at her pine cone houses, in which winged seeds sat comfortably: “Fly, daughters, to all ends of the earth. And may pine forests grow where you fall to the joy of people!” And, spreading their wings, they fearlessly set off.
One seed flew very far and fell into a forest clearing next to Spruce. And in the spring, as soon as the sun warmed up, a sprout emerged from a pine seed.
- Who are you? - asked El, who didn’t like her neighbors, sternly.
- I'm Pine. Oh, how lush and beautiful you are! - the sprout exclaimed.
- I could strangle you with one paw. “Okay, live for now,” El said graciously.
As the days passed, the pine sprout grew stronger and reached towards the sun. He felt that his life lay in the sunlight. In the third year, the young Pine branched out, and one of its branches rested directly on the side of the old Spruce.
- Where are you going, you impudent one?! - Spruce grumbled and covered Pine with her powerful shaggy paw with short prickly needles. And Sosenka began to choke and wither. She realized that Yel would soon strangle her. But once…
A Man came to a forest clearing and said: “It will be nice for the children!” And he cut down the spruce tree.
- Thank you, Man! – Sosenka bowed. – Come in the spring, when I bloom, and I will give you the secret of eternal youth!
Soon Pine became a slender tree with reddish-brown bark and a beautiful crown. In May, the Pine blossomed, and a light grayish cloud rose above its branches.
And the Man was late. It was necessary to collect the yellow cones of the Pine before the pollen began to fall off. Dry them in the sun, sift through a fine sieve, and dry again. And take these “powders” two to three times a day. Then you will retain your youth for a long time.
But the Man was late. Or maybe he didn’t need the secret of eternal youth.”
Medicinal pine beer
“Pine beer”, made by yourself, has medicinal properties. It is not harmful to health, like regular beer, because it does not contain an extract from cones, which contains an analogue of the female sex hormone “progesterone”.
In modern classic beer, the content of phytoestrogens (female hormones) reaches 36 mg/l. This amount of phytoestrogens is enough to have a distinct hormonal effect on the human body and change endocrine status.
Medicinal pine beer does not contain these and other undesirable substances.
From the point of view of traditional medicine, pine beer’s composition is more reminiscent of pine kvass with vitamins and microelements, although it has the taste of ordinary beer.
Pine beer is a completely natural drink and does not contain harmful preservatives or other modern food chemicals.
To prepare medicinal pine beer, we first make so-called “pine molasses.”
We cut young pine shoots (6-10 cm in size) in an amount of 2 kg.
We chop the pine shoots and then boil them for 40 minutes in an enamel bucket (12 liters). Cool the broth and then strain. Add granulated sugar (at the rate of 1 kg of sugar per 10 liters of broth) and cook until the consistency of liquid honey.
Prepared pine molasses, the starting material of beer, should be bottled and stored in a cool, dry place.
To prepare pine beer directly, you need to mix pine molasses with spring water (in an approximate ratio of 1:15) and boil for 2 hours. Then you need to let the resulting drink cool and let it “ferment” in a warm place for 2 days. It is not necessary to add yeast.
The resulting pine beer should be bottled, adding natural honey for preservation (for 1 bottle - 1 tablespoon of honey), corked and kept in a cool place until consumed.
An ancient (19th century) recipe for pine beer next:
Cut young spruce shoots growing from the side branches, cut them in half lengthwise. Place in a glass container and add water to remove tar and bitterness. Place the shoots in a cauldron and add water so that it slightly covers them, and cook for an hour. Strain.
Add to one part of the broth three parts of water, half of the crushed barley malt and a quarter of the grated carrots. Stir the resulting mass and cook for 30 minutes, then strain and pour into a barrel. Once completely cooled, add yeast to start fermentation.
When fermentation is over, the beer can be poured into bottles, capped and left in the cellar for 1-2 months, after which the pine beer can be drunk. However, the longer you store it, the tastier and more vigorous it will be!
Alexander Yuryevich Vyazemsky (village of Gusevsky, Vladimir region)
zdravo.ucoz.ru
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No one can say with certainty where the tradition of brewing beer from young pine needles came from. Experts only assume that the inhabitants of Northern Europe were the first to come up with the recipe for pine beer several centuries ago. The most surprising thing is that Europeans have almost forgotten about pine beer, but residents of Canada, the USA, New Zealand and
It is quite popular in Australia. New Zealanders even take it upon themselves to claim that the only brewery in the world with a recipe for real pine beer, Wigram Brewing, is located on their archipelago. However, what modern brewers won’t come up with for the sake of advertising!
Perhaps, from the lips of the Swedes, Danes or Norwegians, such a statement would sound more convincing: in the northern latitudes, pine and spruce grow in abundance, so it is not surprising that their needles could well replace hops, which in ancient times was rare here. But coniferous plants not only replaced the missing components of beer. A drink from pine needles was also prepared for another reason: its bactericidal properties made it possible to prevent poisoning from contaminated water among soldiers and sailors, and the high content of vitamins and phytoncides protected residents of cold countries from colds and scurvy.
Even though modern pine beer is still called beer, today it is primarily a non-alcoholic drink. And before it was real beer with a certain alcohol content. And its main component, of course, was pine or spruce needle extract. And if the Scandinavian brewer managed to add malt and hops to the pine needles, then the fame of his wonderful drink quickly spread throughout the area.
It is known that in the 16th century, residents of the British Isles were introduced to the taste of pine beer, where it was brought from Germany. Historical sources dating from the 16th-18th centuries contain recipes for pine beer and even descriptions of methods for its production.
This drink was well known to the first settlers of America. It is not difficult to guess that among the avid lovers of pine beer who settled in the New World, the majority came from Sweden, Finland and other northern European countries. They brought the tradition of making pine beer to the New World. Since this slightly fermented drink did not have a high alcohol content, even convinced teetotalers could not resist it.
Soon the Americans came up with their own variations of pine beer. They added fruity, floral, citrus aromas to it, the choice of which depended on the type of plant, its parts used to prepare the pine extract (fresh branches, shoots, needles, buds or flowers), on the time of collection of the ingredients and, of course, on the method of preparation beer.
Modern researchers have discovered a large number of various beneficial substances in spruce and pine needles, including vitamins and flavonoids. In medicine, spruce essential oil has long been used as an expectorant for inhalation for inflammation of the upper respiratory tract. The antiseptic and antibacterial effect of pine needles is no longer in doubt. This means that it was completely in vain that modern Europeans lost the tradition of making beer from pine needles.
Fortunately, ancient recipes for this unique drink have been preserved. Here is a 19th century recipe: In the spring, cut off the young spruce shoots growing from the side branches, cut them in half, put them in a glass container and fill them with water to draw out the resins and bitterness. Place the shoots in a cauldron, add water until it slightly covers them, and cook for an hour. Strain, add three cans of water, half a can of crushed barley malt and 1 kg of grated carrots to one can of decoction (can = 4 l), mix the resulting mass and let it cook for half an hour, then strain and pour into a barrel. Once completely cooled, add yeast to stimulate fermentation. When fermentation is complete, the beer can be bottled, capped and left for 4-6 weeks, after which the pine beer can be drunk. However, the longer you store it, the tastier it will be.
And here's another recipe, for which you will need: 5 gallons (19 L) of water, 1 pound (0.45 kg) of spruce branches tips, 3/4 liter of molasses, half a cup of dry crushed ginger and half a cup of warm water with yeast diluted in it. Pour water into the cauldron, add hops, ginger, pine branches. Cook until all the shoots sink to the bottom. Strain the liquid into a large container and mix with the molasses. Once the mixture has cooled, add the yeast. Cover the container with a lid and leave for two days. Then fill the bottles with beer, cap them and leave them for 5 days in a warm place (at a temperature of 21-24 degrees Celsius). After this, the beer is ready to drink. Beer bottles should be stored upright in a cool place.
The BBC's Strange Brews special project talks about beer with an unusual history. In the new episode, Quinn Hargitay visited Montreal and tried spruce beer, which is served in one of the local cafes specializing in poutine (french fries with cheese and gravy).
Arriving at a small cafe Paul Patates on the east bank of Montreal's Lachine Canal, I breathed a sigh of relief when the waiter placed a heavy, dark brown bottle on my table. Droplets of condensation rolled down its sides, and I felt a strange sympathy for it - the bottle was sweating as much as I was
I was fascinated by the European influence felt in Montreal: the chatter in French in the cafes, the freshly baked brioche for breakfast, the muffled sounds of jazz from the street. But I didn’t like one European feature here: the lack of air conditioning. I arrived in Montreal in the midst of an unprecedented heat wave.
I poured the contents of the bottle into a frozen mug and eagerly tasted it. I was immediately struck by the unmistakable pungent taste of pine needles - like a liquefied Christmas tree. This was my first biè re d"é pinette, or spruce beer.
Bière d'épinette made using the traditional method
Despite the name, the alcohol content of this drink is negligible: it is more reminiscent of American root beer than lager or ale. But on such a hot day, it would not be an exaggeration to say that this drink saved my life. The life-saving properties of this drink are legendary.
Brews spruce beer in a cafe Paul Patates is owned by Dani Roy. Although commercial spruce beer is available in many Canadian supermarkets, Roy's beer has become almost legendary among locals. As far as Dani Roy knows, his restaurant is one of the few remaining establishments in Canada where you can find authentic homemade spruce beer. In the back room of the establishment, Roy still makes spruce beer the old fashioned way, fermenting it with yeast and stopping fermentation when the minimum amount of alcohol has been produced. Although the recipe hasn't changed much over the last century, the brewer says the history of spruce beer is much longer.
— First of all, we all know that spruce beer was made by the aborigines. They used it as medicine,” he explains.
Of course, the spruce beer that the Indians made was very different from the fizzy drink that Roy sells. They made a decoction from crushed bark and pine needles. One of the earliest written references to the drink and its supposed medicinal properties is found in the notes of the French navigator Jacques Cartier. In the journal of the exploration of the St. Lawrence River in 1536, an unnamed sailor describes the severe scurvy that attacked the expedition, caused by a vitamin deficiency C.
“We are gripped by a disease with the most incomprehensible and extreme symptoms. Some of us lost all our strength, their legs were swollen and inflamed, and their muscles shriveled and became black as coal... Of the 110 people on our expedition, not even a dozen remained in good health, so no one could help their comrades - a sad sight for the place , in which we were,” writes the author.
The future looked dire for Cartier and his people, but the local Iroquois tribe brought them salvation. A decoction of the bark and evergreen branches of local coniferous trees, as stated in the document, healed all who were brave enough to try the Indian potion: “They used a whole tree, the largest and tallest I had ever seen. And the result was such that if all the doctors of Louvain and Montpellier were here, with all the medicines of Alexandria, they would not have been able to achieve in a year what this tree did in just three days.”
Local tribes called this tree "Anneda", but its exact species remains a mystery, although it is believed to be white cedar or balsam fir. Regardless of the species, the needles of all evergreens contain surprisingly high amounts of vitamin C.
Although the concoction described in Cartier's travelogue is more of an herbal tea than the fizzy drink sold in Paul Patates, Roy believes that this was one of the early forms of modern spruce beer.
“That’s where it all started,” says the brewer. “Then people transformed the drink, they began to ferment it.
Monument to Jacques Cartier in Montreal
The fermented version of spruce beer received its share of fame and recognition after it was praised and popularized by the famous nutritionist of old, James Lind. He observed the effect of the drink on sailors stricken with scurvy. In his Treatise on Scurvy, published in 1753, Lind wrote: “Spruce beer, made from black pine, fresh or dried, or from its essence, is an excellent medicine. You need to take this beer orally every day and wash the areas affected by the scurvy rash in the morning and evening.”
Lind's work prompted the British Navy to include this elixir as a standard ration for long-term voyages. Spruce beer was praised by Captain Cook in his notes on his voyages around the world. Cook's own recipe, described in the first volume of Voyages to the South Pole and Around the World, was a decoction of spruce branches and tea leaves with the addition of molasses and yeast to begin fermentation. The captain found this beer to be very effective, and in later notes he stated that it was part of the daily diet, "eliminating all signs of scurvy from our people."
Although spruce branches are rich in nutrients, it is now known that their vitamin C content is significantly reduced after boiling, and after prolonged fermentation it is practically reduced to zero. Despite Cartier's experience, the fermented alcoholic beverages that Cook and Lind recommended were unlikely to have any medicinal properties.
Dani Roy pours spruce beer
Roy's modern version is another adaptation: He no longer boils the spruce branches, but instead uses spruce essence, which he says produces a purer flavor. However, although the recipe and method of preparing the drink have changed since Cartier's time, the myths surrounding the supposed healing properties of spruce beer persist.
“I wouldn’t say it can cure, but people who come here in winter actually say they don’t get colds, and it’s all thanks to spruce beer,” says Roy with a note of skepticism in his voice.
Although the wonders of spruce beer have not become known throughout the world, it has retained its popularity in Canada, and specifically in Quebec, explains the brewer.
— In the twenties and thirties, local residents prepared this drink in baths. The finished beer was poured into heavy bottles, usually champagne bottles, and sent to the roof to ferment. When the bottles began to open, it became clear that the beer was ready.
Spruce beer has become a cultural symbol. Paul, Roy's father, opened the cafe in the fifties, but the recipe Roy uses has been around sinceXIX century. Without the use of factory equipment or carbonators, Roy brews everything himself, in a small temperature-controlled room behind the cafe. He's keeping the technology secret, but did reveal two key ingredients - black spruce oil, as recommended by Lind, and Montreal water, which Roy says is just the right quality to produce the unique taste of spruce beer.
You can try this drink only in Montreal
If anyone wants to try this legendary drink, there are few options outside of Montreal. Spruce beer has a short shelf life, so it must be drunk fresh. Moreover, heavy brown bottles are not for beauty: they are the only ones that can withstand the pressure that accumulates during fermentation, but without temperature control there is a risk of explosion. Delivery can only be relied upon in exceptional circumstances.
— In Newfoundland, one person was dying of cancer. His last wish was to try real spruce beer again, so his wife contacted me,” Roy recalls. “Usually this kind of beer is difficult to transport on a plane because of the pressure, but I made a few calls and found a pilot who agreed to take the bottle with me into the cockpit. The beer was delivered to the man before he died. And that was the only time we transported him like that.
To try real spruce beer, you just need to go to Montreal. While it can't be promised to cure ailments, the fresh pine flavor is definitely refreshing during Canada's hot summers.
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