Recipe for spruce beer

This recipe is based on an 18th century colonial army ration.

Ingredients

1 gallon of water
½ quart of maple syrup
½ tbsp spruce essence

Steps

1 - Put all ingredients in a large pot and bring to a boil
2 - Once boiling, take off the heat and let sit. Bring liquid down to blood temperature. DO NOT try and refrigerate or add ice. Be patient and wait until the liquid is cooled
3 - Add a package of ale yeast
4 - Move liquid into fermentation containers
5 - Ferment for 2 days
6 - After fermentation, move to bottles and refrigerate

Notes

This beer is not meant to be very alcoholic. The ABV after 2 days will be something more similar to kombucha than beer. Feel free to let ferment longer if you please. Also note that spruce essence comes in a variety of potencies. Mine was fairly strong but the beer would still taste good up to about a full tablespoon I’d say. As you bring the liquid up to a boil simply add a little bit of essence and taste until you like it.

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