Spruce Tip Ale

Spruce Tip Ale is a great historic brew. Drunk mainly by the Vikings  spruce tip ale is unlike anything you've drunk before. It has a distinct flavour and this recipe produces a dark red hearty ale that goes down smoothly.

The tips need to be harvested in spring, when they first start to appear, they should be soft to touch and light green.

As I always recommend when scrumping and foraging, spread your harvesting around, collect a little from each plant only so you don't impact on the plants health or growth. You'll probably find that there are only a few really good tips on each plant anyhow. They come of easily but some are sticky and you can get spiked so you may want to wear gloves.

You don't need lots, here is my small bowl, enough for a 5 gallon batch! If you're not ready to brew, stick them in the fridge, they'll keep for about seven days.

It's probably wise to give them a wash before you use them as they may have some creatures on them.

They smell amazing when fresh and I did crush about an eighth of them in a mortar and pestle to release more of the oils and flavours before I added them the to wort. Ok, enough about the spruce tips let's get on and make the them into beer!!!!

Making the brew

4 kg Crushed Pale Malt
100g Caramalt
80g Flaked Barley
50g Chocolate Malt
450g Black Treacle
250g Spruce Tips
1 pkt English Ale Yeast
1 tsp Irish Moss

The brewing is done as with any all grain recipe with the spruce tips being added as you would hops about 20 mins before the end of the boil. This is an unusual mix of pale and dark malts, for example Caramalt is more usually associated with pale beers and Chocolate Malt with darker beers and stouts, but I think they all add something. The resulting beer is dark but deep red in colour and quite clear when held up to the light. It has rich flavours with the unusual hints of spruce tip to bitter it and is very smooth. 

For this brew I reused a previous yeast that I had brewed a dark ale with. As it was salvaged yeast I made a full one gallon yeast starter. I made this starter by brewing up some all grain wort to the same recipe as the main wort but without the spruce tips. I made this the day before my main brew to ensure I had a good level of fermentation before I pitched it.

It responded well and I had a nice thick layer of yeast and plenty of activity when I finally added it to the main brew.