A couple months ago Tofino Brewing produced a few casks of what they called Spruce Tip IPA.  I tried this delightful beer at the Central City Summer Cask Festival and found it to be awesome.  It was like their regular, very good IPA, but with a nice spruce aroma.  It tasted a little bit like trees, in a good way.

Today I got an email from Phillips Brewing letting me know that they are releasing a limited quantity of Evergreen Ale, a spruce infused west coast pale ale.  Two spruce beers in two months!  Like fresh hops a couple years ago, is this going to be a new trend in west coast brewing?  Phillips indicated in their release that Captain Cook was the first to brew a spruce beer in BC back in 1788 (check out this old timey recipe).  Clearly, he failed to start the trend.  However, I did do a little research (read googled ‘spruce ipa’) and it seems that a few other breweries and plenty of home-brewers have been brewing with spruce tips of late.  Both Tofino and Phillips used Sitka Spruce, maybe because it’s the tastiest spruce?  I really have no idea.

Anyway, if spruce beers taste like Tofino’s Spruce Tip IPA, then I would like more spruce in my beer please.

Cheers,

Chris