Brews News: Spruce tips add fresh seasonal taste

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From the forests to the fields, brewers are rolling out fresh seasonals with tastes far different from the yellow fizzy stuff.

The most interesting are beers brewed with spruce tips.

Harvested in the spring, spruce tips are the new growth on the trees. First Nations that the tips are healthy – packed with vitamin C. They’ve been used as a poultice to treat cuts.

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In beer, spruce tips add citrus and pine flavours. Maybe even cinnamon.

Red Barn Brewing of Blenheim just released its 2024 Spruce Tip IPA. For this, they used some 13 kilograms of locally picked spruce tips to a West Coast style IPA recipe. The brewery notes that the spruce tips provided a fresh citrus note.

Hops used were Talus, Simcoe and Experimental HBC522 for a beer that will attract IPA fans and curious beer finders.

Evergreen woods were also on the minds of brewers on the Lake Huron shore. Grey Matter Brewing Company in newly reconstructed downtown Kincardine made a small batch of spruce tip beer that, according to its tasting notes, has flavours of honeysuckle and grape. It’s on tap at the brewery.

In Elgin County, Natterjack Brewing gave a twist to the use of blueberries in beer.

Natterjack Blue Toad began with the flagship Belgian blonde Natterjack Toad aged in peach brandy barrels. The quest for a fruit to complement it with a fruit led to Blueberry Hill of Rodney and 90 kilograms of dark blue fruit which was blended with 300 litres of aged beer.

Ye Ol’ Blue Toad, pouring purple and with a citrus finish is the result.

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At Powerhouse, the brewery in London’s amazing 100 Kellogg Lane, is also into blueberries. Powerhouse used blueberries in a witbier recipe for its refreshing new Lazy Day.

NEW AND NOTED

In the mood for a summer sour with colour? Broken Rail in St. Marys has Sour Bells. It pours purple, thanks to the addition of acai berries.

Coconut and fresh lime zest were added to a Mexican lager recipe by Point Brewing in Point Edward to create Toasted Coconut Lime Cerveza, a 4 per cent crisp summer beer. It’s on tap and in cans.

Farm-based Stonepicker Brewing near Forest reached back into the recipe files to 2019 and revived Lime the Back 40, a 4 per cent alcohol end-of-summer-workday refresher on tap.

While we wait for Port Stanley Brewing to start pouring, consider the craft beer list over the bridge and down the street at Two Forks. The restaurant has an impressive beer picker with a rotating selection on ten taps. Among the beers most recently on the board were Strawberry Lime Blonde from Caps Off in St. Thomas, Pineapple Sour by Blood Brothers in Toronto and the re-introduced Witty Traveller, a wheat beer from Railway City.

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Hard to believe the Cathedral of Craft Beer, Cowbell, in Blyth is already seven years old. Beer aside, have you ever tried its Cowbell Beer Pie? Its crust is made with pretzel and graham cracker. The pie is a dark chocolate custard topped with roasted marshmallow meringue. The special ingredient is Cowbell Nitro Stout.

You knew they sold running shoes and had a taproom. But did you realize BackRoads Brews and Shoes in London’s West 5 also has its own beer brands made with hops from the owners’ Parkhill hop yard? Brewed by Jobsite in Stratford, BackRoads has a pair of runner refreshers, BackRoads Spring Fed IPA and BackRoads Lite. The IPA is New England style, using Cascade and Centennial hops. BackRoads Lite is a crushable 4.5 per cent alcohol beer.

It’s football season at Railway City in St. Thomas where in partnership with the London Beefeaters they’ve brewed Line of Scrimmage, a community support beer. Line of Scrimmage is a Beefeaters-branded lager from which $6 for each case of 24 cans sold will be donated to the Canadian Junior Football League team, Line of Scrimmage will also be sold during home games at City Wide Sports Park. Other specially labelled lagers from Railway City include Depth Charger for HMCS Prevost, Save the Lighthouse for restoration of the historic Port Burwell lighthouse and MS Bike in support of the summertime London to Grand Bend cycling fundraiser.

Looking for a late-summer road trip? Genesee Country Village in upper New York State hosts its Hop Harvest Festival on Aug. 31. It has a 19th century working brewery. Being America, you must be 21 or older to drink at the festival.

Wayne Newton is a freelance journalist based in London.

BrewsNewsTravels@gmail.com

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